Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Vision Zero topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
SFPD highlights Vision Zero enforcement gains; advocates urge more targeted action on bike lanes and double parking
Summary
Commander Mannix reported increased traffic enforcement under Vision Zero, including higher shares of citations focused on five primary collision factors and new tools such as e-citation rollout. Walk San Francisco and the Bicycle Coalition praised the gains but called for more consistent enforcement in downtown high-injury corridors.
San Francisco police officials on April 6 reported a measurable uptick in targeted traffic enforcement tied to the city's Vision Zero strategy, but community groups said enforcement must be more consistent in high-injury corridors and must address blocking and double-parking that endanger cyclists and pedestrians.
Commander Mannix, presenting the quarterly Safe Streets for All report, said the department is focusing enforcement on the five primary collision factors that most often lead to serious crashes: speed, red-light running, stop-sign violations, failure to yield to pedestrians, and failure to yield on turns. Mannix described citywide operations, DUI checkpoints and targeted saturation patrols and said the traffic company and district captains are prioritizing data-driven enforcement at high-collision intersections.
Key facts and figures cited
- The department reported a year-over-year increase in citations tied to the top-five collision factors; Mannix described a 62% increase between 2014 and 2015 in those focused enforcement actions and said the traffic company accounted for a high share of targeted enforcement in several quarters. - Commander Mannix noted citywide enforcement results including 516 DUI arrests and 1,277 citations related to pedestrian and bicycle violations in the six-month reporting period. - The department said it will pilot an e-citation program this month, issuing moving-violation citations from a smartphone with a planned May 1 rollout to all traffic-company officers.
Community reaction and priorities
Kathy DeLuca of Walk San Francisco and Janice Lee of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition thanked the SFPD for raising the focus-on-5 percentages, but urged more resources in downtown and Tenderloin corridors where collision rates remain high and where focus percentages lag. "These enforcement efforts really matter," DeLuca said, and the Bicycle Coalition pressed for more citations for vehicles blocking bike lanes and stricter enforcement against double parking.
Commander Mannix said the department will continue to coordinate with MTA, Department of Public Works, Walk SF and the Bicycle Coalition and expects to receive additional lidar guns through grant funding later in the year to support speed enforcement.
Ending: The commission scheduled a May meeting to keep quarterly reporting regular and called for continued collaboration among enforcement, engineering and education partners to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries.
