PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 2, 2025

CONTACT: Marta Lindsey, Communications Director, Walk SF, marta@walksf.org, 617.833.7654; Shaya French, Director of Organizing, Senior and Disability Action, shaya@sdaction.org, 415.617.5232

67-year-old pedestrian killed at Geary and 2nd Ave marks the eighth pedestrian death this year

The City’s Vision Zero policy is still expired, and there’s no current plan for traffic safety

San Francisco, Calif. – Walk SF learned from the San Francisco Police Department that a 67-year-old pedestrian was fatally hit by a driver on June 2, 2025 at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 2nd Avenue. No additional information is available at this time. 

“We are heartbroken to learn of another life lost on our streets,” said Marta Lindsey, communications director of Walk San Francisco. “We hold the victim’s loved ones and community in our thoughts.”

Walk San Francisco (Walk SF) and San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets (Families for Safe Streets) are here to support the friends and loved ones of the victim however possible. Resources are available at walksf.org/fss. 

This is the second senior pedestrian fatality on Geary Boulevard in 2025. 77-year-old Yan Yan was hit by a driver on March 14, 2025 at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 39th Avenue, and died from their injuries on March 27, 2025. 

“We must do more to protect our pedestrians, especially our elders and people with disabilities, who deserve to safely traverse our city,” said Shaya French, director of organizing of Senior and Disability Action. Senior and Disability Action mobilizes and educates seniors and people with disabilities to fight for individual rights and social justice.

Geary Boulevard is on the city’s 2022 “high-injury network” map: the 12% of streets where 68% of traffic crashes occur. Geary Boulevard is 95 feet wide, with six vehicle travel lanes, including two bus-only lanes. 

There have been five other crashes resulting in injuries at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 2nd Avenue in the last ten years.

There is a newly installed speed camera on Geary Boulevard five blocks away from the crash location, at Geary between 7th and 8th Avenue. The speed camera is still in the warning period and the SFMTA estimates citations will begin in early August 2025. 

SFMTA completed some Vision Zero ‘Quick-Build’ safety improvements at the intersection where the crash occurred in 2023 as part of the Geary Boulevard Improvement Project. These improvements included ‘daylighting’ at the corners to improve visibility and retimed pedestrian signals to give pedestrians more time to cross. Additional safety improvements are still in the outreach and design phase.  

“Geary Boulevard is deadly by design,” said Lindsey. “It’s incredibly wide, with six travel lanes. With such a long distance to cross, pedestrians are extremely vulnerable. The wider a street is, the faster drivers go, making the stakes very high if a crash occurs.”

Speeding is the #1 cause of severe and fatal traffic crashes in San Francisco. The faster a driver is going, the more likely a crash is to occur. A driver has a smaller scope of vision, less time to react, and can’t stop the vehicle as quickly. With vehicles larger, heavier, and more powerful than ever – plus drivers more distracted – the stakes with speeding have never been higher.

The most frequently cited study on speed and risk of fatality shows that at 25 MPH and under, a person has a less than 1 in 4 chance of being severely injured or killed if they are hit. But by 40 MPH, this flips, with 75% of pedestrians suffering life-threatening injuries or dying.

This is the eighth pedestrian death in San Francisco so far this year. Six of the eight victims were seniors. The first was 81-year-old Charles Bollinger, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver on January 4, 2025 at the intersection of Silver Avenue and Colby Street. The second was 77-year-old Yong Sun Lewis, who was hit by a driver on January 21, 2025 at the intersection of Carter Street and Geneva Avenue and passed on January 28, 2025. The third was 77-year-old Yan Yan, who was hit by a driver on March 14, 2025 at the intersection of Geary Boulevard and 39th Avenue and passed on March 27, 2025. The fourth was 86-year-old Mary Naito, who was struck by a hit-and-run driver on April 21, 2025, at the intersection of Fillmore Street and McAllister Street succumbed to her injuries on April 25, 2025. The fifth was 74-year-old Annabella “Bella” Gabriel Baquera, who was fatally hit by a driver on May 1, 2025, at the intersection of 7th Street and Howard Street. The sixth was a 47-year-old pedestrian who was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver on May 12, 2025 at the intersection of Bayshore Boulevard and Jerrold Avenue. The seventh was a pedestrian who was fatally hit by a driver on May 27, 2025 at the intersection of 10th Street and Folsom Street.

24 people were killed while walking in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number since 2007. A total of 42 people were killed in traffic crashes in San Francisco in 2024, the highest number in a decade. 

“Our neighbors, friends, and family members are paying the ultimate price for dangerous streets,” said Lindsey. “ City leaders are not doing enough to protect people as they get around San Francisco. As the death toll rises, we are looking to Mayor Daniel Lurie to step up and make safe streets a priority.”

“We’ve now lost two lives on one street just this year,” said Lindsey. “More must be done to redesign dangerous streets like Geary, where thousands of people walk every day. More than anything, we need the City to take comprehensive actions to keep drivers at safe speeds.

Last month, Walk SF, crash victims with Families for Safe Streets, and Senior & Disability Action protested on the steps of City Hall before delivering a letter to Mayor Lurie asking for a new Vision Zero policy and plan – with a focus on addressing dangerous speeding citywide. 

The letter delivered to Mayor Lurie is available here. Beyond asking for a new Vision Zero policy by July 30 and a new interagency plan by September 30, it outlines seven actions for the City to take to accelerate progress in the next few years. 

These include: 

• Lowering speed limits by 5 MPH on every eligible high-injury street and commercial street by December 2027, plus pursuing state legislation by 2028 to make all residential streets at 20 MPH.
• Installing ‘turn calming’ at all eligible high-injury intersections by December 2027 to slow drivers as they navigate turns, addressing one of the greatest threats to pedestrians.
• Reforming the existing Residential Traffic Calming Program in 2026 to proactively determine where speed humps and cushions are needed across neighborhoods, with data-driven design standards agreed to by SFMTA, DPW, and SFFD. 
• Redesigning all wide one-way, multi-lane, high-injury streets with known speeding problems like Harrison, 9th, 10th, Bryant, Gough, and Franklin by 2028. 
• Holding all City agency employees in city vehicles accountable for dangerous speeding, with driver education and correction plans for repeat offenders. 
• Focusing SFPD’s limited traffic enforcement capacity on complementing and amplifying the effectiveness of the speed camera program.  

“It’s been 152 days since the City’s Vision Zero policy expired, and we have seen no action from Mayor Lurie to get agencies focused on traffic safety,” said Lindsey. “San Francisco needs an ambitious, strategic, timebound, and data-based Vision Zero plan to keep our communities safe – and we need Mayor Lurie to lead this effort. Safe streets are possible here in San Francisco, but only if this issue is a priority for our leaders.” 

Vision Zero is a data-driven, preventative, and interagency approach and commitment to end severe and fatal traffic crashes. San Francisco’s Vision Zero policy expired last year (152 days ago), and the last interagency action plan for Vision Zero is from 2021. 

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Walk San Francisco (‘Walk SF’) advocates for safe streets for everyone who walks, which is everyone. Since our founding in 1998, Walk SF has been leading the way to make San Francisco a pedestrian-first city where people of every age and ability can walk safely. Learn more.

San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets is a group of people who have been directly affected by traffic crashes, including crash survivors and people whose loved ones have been killed or injured in traffic crashes. Learn more.