Mayor Edwin M. Lee joined the Board of Supervisors, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), Walk San Francisco and other City partners and agencies participated in the third annual Walk to Work Day. As part of the City’s commitment to Vision Zero, a plan to eliminate all traffic deaths in San Francisco by 2024, Mayor Lee announced that just yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)’s Programming and Allocations Committee took a key step toward awarding $3.5 million in new funds to support San Francisco’s Vision Zero efforts. Mayor Lee also highlighted the recent activation of a new traffic signal in front of City Hall’s Goodlett steps that will increase safety for all.

“Walk to Work Day is another day that highlights and celebrates our walkable City,” said Mayor Lee. “With more than one million walking trips taken every day in San Francisco, we’re committed to building safer streets for everyone. We are invested in ensuring that our City’s streets are safe for all those who travel on them, and our commitment to Vision Zero – eliminating all traffic fatalities in San Francisco by 2024 – has never been stronger.”

Over the past year alone, the City has taken significant steps to improve safety for people walking, such as:
•    Completing 12 out of 24 high-priority Vision Zero projects in locations where safety improvements are most needed;
•    Launching a new safety training program for large vehicle operators in San Francisco;
•    Implementing safer crossings at 80 intersections in the Tenderloin by increasing visibility at crosswalks;
•    Seeing voters approve a $500 million general obligation bond that will allocate $143 million to building safer streets;
•    Lowering speed limits on streets like Sunset Boulevard, Fulton Street and Monterey Boulevard; and
•    Upgrading hundreds of crosswalks Citywide with a bolder design to increase pedestrian safety.

During that time, the City has also activated new traffic signals at key locations, such as Sunset Boulevard at Yorba Street and 6th Street at Minna Street. The most recent completed project in support of Vision Zero is the new traffic signal in front of City Hall, where tragically a City employee was struck and killed in the crosswalk in October 2014. Today, San Francisco streets are safer for all.

“Now more than ever, the SFMTA is investing in opportunities to build safer, better streets for people on foot,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “Every day, there are 1 million trips taken entirely by foot in San Francisco. But really every trip – whether it’s taken by bus, bike or car – begins and ends with walking.”

MTC’s full commission will consider the $3.5 million Vision Zero funding proposal at its meeting on April 22nd. These funds will be spent solely on materials such as paint, safe hit posts, signage, signal conduits and other materials that enhance street safety on San Francisco’s High Injury Network.

San Francisco adopted Vision Zero as a policy in 2014, committing to build better and safer streets, educate the public on traffic safety, enforce traffic laws, and adopt policy changes that save lives. The result of this collaborative, citywide effort will be safer, more livable streets as San Francisco works towards the Vision Zero goal of zero traffic fatalities by 2024. For more information, go to: www.visionzerosf.org.