Our Vision Zero Campaign
Traffic Deaths Are Preventable
We know that Vision Zero – ending all severe and fatal traffic crashes in San Francisco by 2024 – is ambitious. Yet we believe it is achievable if we design our streets in ways that truly protects the safety of everyone on them, as well reduce speeds. Traffic deaths are not accidents. They are preventable.
Our Vision Zero advocacy is focused on:
Fixing San Francisco’s Most Dangerous Streets
Our advocacy focuses on the high-injury network. Every day – and with your help – we advocate for city agencies and leaders to act aggressively to make life-saving changes to these deadly roads. This means exceptional pedestrian safety infrastructure that serves all people, and keeps car traffic at safe speeds.
Sadly, safety projects can get bogged down (and often watered down) during planning and approval. Walk SF’s work is focused on making sure that does not happen, and we won’t settle for anything less than pedestrian-first streets for people of all ages and abilities. Explore our campaigns to learn more and get involved in fixing the most dangerous streets.
Ending the Inequities in Traffic Violence
In San Francisco, crashes do not happen randomly or affect everyone the same. Of all severe and fatal crashes in San Francisco, 68% happen on only 12% of our streets. These streets, our city’s most dangerous, are called high-injury corridors (see a map of the high-injury network).
Certain groups are more likely to live on or near high-injury corridors, which means they are much more likely to experience traffic violence. These groups include low-income communities, communities of color, immigrants, transit-dependent individuals, and seniors and people with disabilities.
Seniors are at even greater risk than most groups. Although they make up only 15% of San Francisco’s population, they comprise at least 50% of all people killed in traffic crashes each year.
Ending these inequities is at the heart of Walk San Francisco’s work. Our campaigns and Safe Routes for All programs prioritize the people and places that have been left behind or discounted for too long. We have a crisis in neighborhoods like SoMa and the Tenderloin, where the vast majority of streets are designated as high-injury corridors.
All communities deserve safe streets. Preventing traffic injuries is a social justice issue, which means Vision Zero must be grounded in principles that advance and support social justice on San Francisco’s streets.
Explore our campaigns to fix the most dangerous streets and our Safe Routes for All programs.
Addressing Deadly Speeds
Speed is the number one factor in severe and fatal crashes in San Francisco. This is in great part because small increases in speeds are exponentially more dangerous.
For example, if you are hit by a car going 20 mph, you have a 90% chance of survival. If the car is going 40 mph, your chance of survival plummets to 20%. This data shows that reducing speeds on our streets will save lives.
Yet traffic officers can’t be everywhere at every moment of the day enforcing speed in our busy city. That’s why as part of our Vision Zero campaign, Walk San Francisco is working with San Francisco Bay Area Families for Safe Streets to get automated speed enforcement, or speed safety cameras, implemented in San Francisco.
Help win safe speeds on our streets and join our Automated Speed Enforcement campaign now.
Banner image: Michael Halberstadt