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The latest news and announcements from Mayor London N. Breed

Mayor Lee Announces Vision Zero Projects Completed Ahead of Schedule With More on the Way

City Exceeds Goal and Completes 30 Safety Projects in 24 months; Sets 2016 Goal for Additional 13 Miles of Treatments to Make Streets Safer

Today Mayor Edwin M. Lee and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced the completion of 30 high-priority safety projects in support of Vision Zero, the City’s goal to eliminate all traffic deaths in San Francisco, six additional projects from initial goal.

“We are moving rapidly to meet our Vision Zero goals to make sure our streets are safe for everyone whether they are walking, biking, driving or taking transit,” said Mayor Lee. “We completed our high-priority Vision Zero projects with six additional projects ahead of schedule and we are committed to do even more. Next year we will make 13 more miles of our streets safer and better with increased enforcement and additional education to protect our residents and visitors.”

As part of the City’s commitment to Vision Zero, the SFMTA developed a list of 24 expedited Vision Zero projects in 2014 to improve safety on San Francisco’s streets. The agency had committed to implementing these 24 Vision Zero engineering projects in 24 months – by February 2016. By November 2015, the SFMTA not only completed those 24 projects ahead of schedule, it committed to delivering six more by the original February 2016 deadline. The agency has now completed those 30 high-priority Vision Zero projects, along with more than 100 other projects that support the City’s goal of ending traffic deaths in a decade.

“When we completed the 24 projects ahead of time, we added six more high-priority projects to reflect our agency’s sense of urgency and philosophy that traffic deaths are not acceptable,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “Getting to zero traffic deaths is achievable. We are moving in the right direction by continuing to build safer streets, increasing enforcement, expanding our education work and advocating for supportive policy changes.”

Guided by San Francisco’s Vision Zero resolution, these projects were selected because they were located on San Francisco’s High-Injury Network, where just 12 percent of San Francisco streets account for 70 percent of severe and fatal traffic injuries. Furthermore, these projects were visible, demonstrated a range of safety treatments, and were thought to be feasible within 24 months.

“Walk SF commends the City on exceeding their goal,” said Nicole Ferrara, Executive Director of Walk San Francisco, which leads San Francisco’s Vision Zero Coalition. “We’ve seen a shift in the City’s ability to deliver projects quickly. Now we’re eager to see the bigger projects, like Better Market Street, Polk Street, and Masonic, which include more drastic improvements, take shape in 2016 to help move the needle on Vision Zero.”

The 30th high-priority Vision Zero engineering project completed brought bulbouts and better street lighting to the Persia Triangle in the Excelsior neighborhood, bound by Persia, Mission and Ocean streets. Bulbouts increase pedestrian safety by shortening crossing distances, making people walking more visible, and slowing turning vehicles. Better lighting also increases nighttime visibility of all road users.

A full list of the 30 Vision Zero projects completed can be found online at: sfmta.com/30VZprojectsin24months.

In addition to these newly engineered streets, the SFMTA is incorporating street safety into every project the agency works on, from transit improvements on the Mission corridor to creating a safety video which has been viewed thousands of times by all city agency large vehicle drivers and large vehicle operators at various organizations such as AC Transit, Marin Airporter and Meals on Wheels.

By the end of 2016, the City will have improved hundreds of the highest need intersections with near-term safety measures like high-visibility crosswalks, traffic signal re-timing and red zones. The City will also start major construction efforts to make high-injury corridors like Masonic Avenue, 2nd Street and Polk Street safer.

In 2016, SFMTA will focus on reducing excessive speed citywide. Speed is the leading cause of traffic collisions in San Francisco and greatly reduces a person’s chance of surviving a collision. Someone hit by a car going 20 mph has a nine in 10 chance of surviving. Someone hit by a car going 40 mph only has a two in 10 chance of surviving.

In 2014, the City and County of San Francisco adopted Vision Zero as a policy, committing to build safer streets, educate the public on traffic safety, enforce traffic laws, and adopt policy changes that save lives. Engineering safer streets is one component of the city’s Two-Year Vision Zero Action Strategy, which outlines the projects and policy changes the City is pursuing in the next two years to increase traffic safety on San Francisco’s streets. The Action Strategy encompasses a range of solution to address street safety through engineering, education, enforcement, evaluation and policy. For more information, go to: visionzerosf.org.