Safe Streets for Seniors

“Streets will always serve as transport routes, allowing citizens to move around the city – yet the forms of transport that dominate those routes will determine if streets can fulfil their other key role, as centres of communities. Streets that prioritise pedestrians, bikes, buses and other types of mass transit are far more likely to be places where people want to meet, socialise, shop and live.” – Mark Watts, “Streets can kill cities: on the Fossil-Fuel-Streets Declaration,” City Metric, December 18, 2017 

San Francisco’s dense population of 874,000 residents in 49 square miles and ride-hails (45,000 Uber and Lyft drivers account for 15% of all vehicle trips inside San Francisco) put pressure on streets.  Uber and Lyft account for two-thirds of congestion-related traffic violations in Downtown SF. 

Over 800 pedestrians are struck in traffic collisions each year in San Francisco, which has the highest level of pedestrian collisions in the state, and over 50% of all traffic fatalities are pedestrians, the second highest rate in the country.  Each year, over 200 people are seriously injured and another 30 are killed while traveling the streets of San Francisco.  

In 2014, San Francisco adopted Vision Zero to prioritize street safety and eliminate traffic deaths within a decade, or by 2024.   

To accomplish this goal, Vision Zero SF (VZSF) is implementing its Two-Year Action Strategy 2017-2018, and focusing on a 3-prong effort of E’s: 

• Engineering: SF Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA) implemented reduced speed limits earlier this year, and identified safer street designs. Based on data obtained from SF General Hospital (about 50% of its trauma patients are people injured in traffic crashes) and SF Police Department (SFPD)’s Collision Report, SF Department of Public Health (SFDPH) released a High Injury Network map showing red lines on high injury streets, where traffic safety improvements are most needed.  According to SFMTA, 70% of San Francisco’s severe and fatal traffic injuries are focused on just 12% of the City’s streets.
• Enforcement: SFPD implemented Focus on Five mandate of 50% of all tickets issued for the most dangerous traffic violations (speeding, running red lights, failing to yield to pedestrians at crosswalks, failing to yield while making left or U-turn, failing to fully stop at stop signs) that contribute to traffic injuries and death.  However, because annual tickets issued by SFPD have dropped since 2016 (by 23,000), making it easier to meet its mandate, street safety advocates favor a bill (AB 342) to legalize Automated Speed Enforcement cameras. 

• Education: SFMTA, SFPD, SFDPH and Walk SF collaborated on Safe Streets SF  education campaign to promote safer habits (take pledge to slow down and look around, know the rules of the road, be alert, etc.) to reduce the number of pedestrian collisions, injuries and deaths.  

Just last month before his sudden death, 65-year-old SF Mayor Ed Lee created a Vision Zero “rapid response team” directing better collaboration among city agencies to speed up transportation and street improvement projects at sites of traffic-related fatalities.

Seniors and people with disabilities top the list of vulnerable populations at risk of injury inequities.  Seniors make up only 15% of San Francisco’s population, but accounted for 44% of all traffic deaths in 2016.  If one counts only pedestrian deaths (not motorists or cyclists), seniors make up 88% of people killed in San Francisco’s traffic collisions. Seniors are four times more likely than people under 65 to be killed by a traffic collision. To ensure that Vision Zero does not exacerbate existing inequities, community engagement is essential with targeted outreach for Safe Streets for Seniors to obtain input to identify and request engineering and enforcement improvements.

Walk SF Walk Audit

Community Organizer Natasha Opfell and Executive Director Jodie Medeiros of Walk SF  and Transportation Planner Shayda Haghgoo of SFMTA (dressed in orange vest) facilitated walk audit with residents from Rhoda Goldman Plaza (RGP) Assisted Living in the Western Addition.  Walk SF provided yellow Vision Zero safety vests for participants.

• Curb ramps: present (one side or both sides of street)? lead straight across the road—not into center of street or aligned across the street? street curb landing level is appropriate (e.g., smooth/blended to avoid tripping)?
• Crosswalks: marked (continental or standard striping)? paint is clean/bright and uninterrupted?
• Street conditions: good (no cracks, potholes, or other uneven surfaces)
• Signals: pedestrian countdown on each side of crossing (if yes, auditory or non-auditory? if auditory, can hear clearly or not clear/loud enough?), crossing time is sufficient to make it all the way across to the other side of the street?
• Drivers, speed and turns: most drivers seem to be obeying speed limit? most drivers yield to pedestrians when turning? cars allowed to turn right on red?

For consideration prior to the walk audit, Natasha provided an overview of engineering improvement solutions (“person might fail, but road should not”) for reduction in crashes:

• Increased time to cross: Walk SF is partnering with Senior & Disability Action (SDA) to change feet per second formula 
• Accessible pedestrian signals/non-visual features: audible tones, raised buttons
• Curb ramps, even pavement: safety necessities; property owners are responsible for repair of sidewalks adjacent to their property, while Department of Public Works is charged with enforcement
• Curb extensions (bulb-outs): shorten crossing distance, improve visibility and slow turning vehicles
• Painted curb extensions
• Advance limit lines: more room for people to cross
• “Daylighting”: increases buffer between crosswalk and parked cars
• Continental “zebra-striped” crosswalks: more visible 
• Raised crosswalks  
• Pedestrian scrambles 
• Pedestrian refuge islands 
• Flashing beacons: yellow light when crossing
• Mid-block crossings: for safe and predictable places to cross
• Fewer lanes of car traffic

RGP residents voiced concerns about cars speeding along Scott Street, increased car traffic by drivers seeking to avoid Divisadero and Geary corridors (one block away from Post and Scott Streets) during rush hours, lack of pedestrian countdown so they don’t know how much time left to cross before signal turns red, need for mid-block crossing as short-cut from RGP front entrance to park or Western Addition Branch Library across the street, fixing uneven pavement at corner of Post and Scott. 

Shayda presented an overview of Western Addition Community-Based Transportation Plan for near-term intersection improvements to include: advance limit lines (more separation between cars and pedestrians), daylighting, leading pedestrian intervals (let pedestrians walk before giving green signal to drivers to turn vehicles), and painting continental crosswalks.  She explained that a pedestrian countdown might take longer to happen due to high cost (new signal is $300,000); however, she encouraged residents to continue advocacy efforts with Walk SF.

SDA Crosswalk Timing Campaign

Beginning in the 1990s, Senior Action Network (predecessor of SDA) has advocated for senior pedestrian safety in San Francisco with demands for banning use of cell phones while driving, banning right turns on red light, increase timing of crosswalk signals.  

Since April 2017, SDA’s Transit Justice Group (TJG) has held 4 press conferences to emphasize to City officials that seniors and people with disabilities—even without canes and walkers--don’t have enough time to cross the streets of San Francisco safely.  In late October, SDA received a DPH grant for Safe Streets for Seniors to fund pedestrian safety activities.  Last month, SDA held a bilingual Spanish-English Pedestrian Safety Leadership class at Centro Latino de San Francisco Senior Center in the Mission District.

According to 2009 Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), walking design speed is 3.5 feet per second.  Previously MUTCD suggested 4 feet per second as a normal walking speed.  Yet, in one study of people age 70 or older, the normal walking speed for 90% of the group was less than 4 feet per second.  Other research estimated pedestrian speeds at 2.5 to 3.25 feet per second for older people.  Researchers also found:

·       older pedestrians cross more slowly than younger pedestrians;

·       within both age groups, women walk more slowly than men;

·       those who comply with traffic or pedestrian signals cross more slowly than noncompliers 

SDA Health Care Organizer Ligia Montano and TJG Organizer Pi Ra, who holds up sign in Spanish that reads in English translation: “CAUTION! Many pedestrians have been hit at this intersection. QUESTION: At this intersection, DO YOU NEED MORE TIME TO CROSS SAFELY? Contact 415.546.1333 or srira@sdaction.org.”

Pi explained that the 4 feet per second formula (i.e., 10 seconds to cross 40 feet crosswalk) was based on 1970s test of college students walking in Boston, and he met one former participant who is now 75 years old and cannot cross so quickly.  Pi said the City favors 3.5 feet per second, though the federal standard is 3 feet per second in areas with a lot of senior pedestrians.  SDA is advocating for the City to adopt 3 feet per second standard.  

Starting January 2018, TJG will conduct observation studies (walking speeds and crossing capabilities of seniors and people with disabilities at 10-12 high injury intersections) and opinion surveys (asking which intersections they routinely walk that are difficult to cross safely), and present data analysis by early Spring 2018.

Pi also proposed a solution from Singapore, which has the world’s fastest walkers:  Green Man Plus provides that Singaporeans who are age 60+ or with disabilities can apply for special transit cards, which can be swiped at sensors in intersections for an extra 3 to 13 seconds to cross streets.  

(Effective January 1, 2018, in California, pedestrians can legally enter a crosswalk during a countdown signal if there is enough time to reasonably complete the crossing safely.)