5th Street

Harrowing Intersections, Especially Near the Highway

5th Street is one of the city’s most dangerous streets for people walking, and one of the SoMa neighborhood’s many high-injury corridors. Collisions are frequent, and the wide one-way streets and the highway on- and off-ramp areas can be harrowing to cross as a pedestrian.

The 5th Street Improvement project, running from Market Street to Townsend Street, has the potential to create a much safer and more enjoyable 5th Street for people walking, biking, and taking transit. We’re pushing for this project to come to life as quickly and comprehensively as possible because the need is so dire. There’s no time to wait.

We Need to Speak Out for Strong Safety Features

The 5th Street project is currently being developed. We are tracking its progress and speaking out for strong safety improvements at every opportunity, including:

• Pedestrian safety treatments such as wider crosswalks, bulb-outs, and pedestrian head-start signals.
• Wider sidewalks to provide a safe and comfortable space for people walking.
• A “road diet” that will calm traffic through reducing a lane of traffic and free up street space for the pedestrian improvements that are needed, including wider sidewalks.
• Transit stop improvements such as transit bulbs.

Our campaign will have lots of opportunities for you to get involved in winning a safer 5th Street. We will be doing some “tactical urbanism” along the corridor in early 2019 to show what it would look and feel like to have a wider sidewalk, shorter crossings at intersections and street greening, in thanks to a grant received from the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.

Join our 5th Street campaign and be alerted of upcoming campaign events and decisions we need you for.

Banner image: William McLeod