PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2026

CONTACT: Jodie Medeiros, Executive Director, Walk SF, jodie@walksf.org, 415.596.1580

Two-year-old killed in Mission Bay marks 3rd pedestrian death this year

Vigil today at 5:00PM at 4th & Channel Streets

San Francisco, Calif. – Walk SF learned from the San Francisco Police Department that a two-year-old girl was hit and killed by a driver on February 27, 2026 at the intersection of 4th and Channel Streets in the Mission Bay neighborhood. The child’s mother was also injured in the crash. No additional information is available at this time.

“We are heartbroken and heartsick. We grieve for the loss of a child and hold their family close in our thoughts,” said Jodie Medeiros, executive director for Walk San Francisco. 

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, including post-crash checklists in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog, are available at walksf.org/fss. 

Walk San Francisco and Families for Safe Streets will hold a vigil for the victim at the crash location at 4th and Channel Streets today, Monday, March 2 from 5:00-6:00PM. This will be a space for the community to come together and grieve for the loss of this child. 

This marks the third pedestrian death of 2026.  The first pedestrian death in 2026 was a 76-year-old woman on February 3rd at Bayshore Boulevard & Silver Avenue. The second was a 47-year-old woman who was hit and killed at Bayshore Boulevard and Arleta Avenue on February 14th.

“These tragedies are a heartbreaking reminder that San Francisco must do more to design and enforce streets that keep people safe,” said Medeiros. “But they must also be a call to action for city leaders to make traffic safety a consistent priority.”  

The intersection where the crash occurred is less than 0.2 miles from where a four-year-old girl was hit and killed by a driver at the intersection of 4th & King Streets in 2023. 4th Street is designated as a dangerous street on the city’s 2022 “high-injury network” map: the 12% of streets where 68% of traffic crashes occur. There have been 9 other traffic crashes at the intersection of 4th and Channel Streets since the beginning of 2016. This neighborhood is dense with new housing, businesses, and young families. The section of 4th Street where the crash occurred is 50-feet-wide with three vehicle travel lanes and is near community amenities like Gus’ Market, Mission Creek Park, the Dahlia School of San Francisco, and an affordable housing complex. 

In 2025, San Francisco elected leaders pledged to make faster progress on traffic safety. The Street Safety Act, authored by District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors on September 16, 2025. Then on December 16, Mayor Lurie signed a wide-ranging executive directive on traffic safety.

These commitments, paired with much more accountability and oversight for agencies from the Mayor’s Office, could make Vision Zero a success story in its second decade. 

“Mayor Lurie and our Supervisors have laid out a path to accelerate the City’s progress in ending severe and fatal crashes,” said Medeiros. “But now they must ensure agencies deliver. We need safety to be the priority in how our streets are designed and enforced everywhere, every time. Too often, driver convenience is prioritized over our safety.”

March 25 will mark the 100th day since Mayor Lurie signed the Street Safety Act.

“We are looking to Mayor Lurie to push forward what he’s boldly committed our city to do in his Street Safety Act,” said Medeiros. “His leadership can help end these tragedies.”  

“San Francisco made meaningful progress in the first decade of Vision Zero,” said Medeiros. “These efforts are making a difference, from speed cameras and speed humps to Quick Build projects and daylighting. But solutions aren’t yet at the scale needed given the threat.”

Pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year high nationally. While people inside of vehicles have never been safer, those outside the vehicle are now much more at risk. Vehicles are bigger and heavier, which raises the stakes if a crash occurs. Vehicles are also more powerful, making it easy for drivers to accelerate to high speeds in just a few seconds. For every mile faster a driver goes, the odds and severity of crashes skyrockets. 

While in 2025 San Francisco had one of the lowest numbers of traffic deaths in a decade, the previous year was the highest (42) since 2014. Of the 16 pedestrians killed in 2025, 12 were seniors. More than half of pedestrian deaths were hit and runs. These are disturbing trends that indicate how much work remains. 

There’s another worrisome trend: the percentage of total crashes resulting in death has been rising in recent years, as well as the number of speed-related crashes (read more in this 2024 SFMTA report). 

The Street Safety Act, which District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar authored earlier this year, renewed the City’s commitment to Vision Zero and included a suite of actions for agencies including:

• Adding ‘Complete Streets’ infrastructure improvements (like pedestrian bulb-outs, turn calming, hardened daylighting, and pedestrian safety islands) anytime a high-injury or arterial street is repaved or updated in other ways 
• Replacing the Residential Traffic Calming Program with a proactive approach for adding speed humps and cushions across neighborhoods with data-driven, pre-approved design standards so these can be installed quickly
• Planning for bringing ‘hardened daylighting’ to the high-injury network (once all intersections citywide are painted), plus establishing a process for community groups or residents to enhance daylit corners 
• Increasing and focusing SFPD traffic enforcement on the driving behavior most likely to result in a traffic crash, plus conducting monthly strategic enforcement operations on speeding to complement the locations and effectiveness of the speed camera program
• Prioritizing the use of automated enforcement, including speed cameras and red light cameras, including pursuing more legal authority to expand the use of speed cameras
• Establish street design standards and maximum review periods for approval by the Fire Department so safety projects are implemented faster. 

Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Street Safety Initiative includes important actions including:

• Establishes a first-ever Safe Streets Task Force within the Mayor’s Office, a key element of the most successful Vision Zero cities around the world.
• Brings 15 agencies together on traffic safety. 
• Commits to a safe systems, data-driven, multiagency, and preventative approach. 
• Establishing a public dashboard updated quarterly with outcomes-based metrics to assess progress toward ending severe and fatal crashes, plus more regular updates of the high-injury network and crash data analysis.
• Directs agencies to complete many of the actions in the Street Safety Act. 

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Walk San Francisco (‘Walk SF’) advocates on behalf of all pedestrians in San Francisco. Since its founding in 1998, Walk SF has successfully pushed for solutions to design and enforce streets where people of all ages and abilities are safe walking. 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.