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6th Street

6th Street

Frequent Collisions and Poor Pedestrian Conditions

6th Street is one of San Francisco’s most dangerous streets for people walking. Shockingly, on average someone is hit by a car and critically injured while walking on 6th every 16 days. Between navigating alleyway crossings, narrow sidewalks, and fast-moving traffic hurrying toward the freeway, it’s easy to see why 6th Street is so unsafe.

Thankfully, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has a major pedestrian safety project happening on 6th in support of the city’s Vision Zero initiative.

We want this project to happen as quickly and comprehensively as possible. Specifically, 6th Street cannot be made safer for people walking without narrowing the street and increasing sidewalk space for people on foot and in wheelchairs.

We support a wide range of pedestrian improvements to 6th Street, including:

  • 24 new corner bulb-outs to shorten crossing distances, increase pedestrian visibility, and slow turning vehicles
  • Three additional traffic signals and painted crosswalks at key alleyways
  • Widened sidewalks on both sides of the street
  • Traffic calming via the removal of a southbound vehicle lane
  • Pedestrian-scale lighting, which will increase safety
  • Trees and greenery to make 6th Street a more beautiful place to walk

Community Engagement and Traffic Calming

At every turn of this project, Walk San Francisco has urged the city to act aggressively to calm traffic and reduce speeds, including by removing vehicle lanes. We have also advocated for painted crosswalks with signals at all alleys along 6th, as well as widened sidewalks so that the many people on 6th Street have ample room to walk and socialize.

In September of 2018, Walk SF staff spent the day talking to people on 6th Street about the changes they’d like to see to improve safety along this dangerous corridor. Read our blog post to find out what we heard.

In October 2018, the SFMTA approved comprehensive plans for 6th Street, including everything we advocated for. We can’t wait to see these life-saving changes happen!

Banner image: Michael Halberstadt