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Police Commission reviews Vision Zero enforcement as department cites citation surge, block-the-box effort
Summary
The San Francisco Police Department told the Police Commission it issued more citations in 2014 than in documented history and is prioritizing speed enforcement and data-driven operations to reach Vision Zero goals; community groups pressed for more transparency and shared operations plans.
The San Francisco Police Department told the Police Commission on May 13 that it issued about 129,000 traffic citations in 2014 and is intensifying data-driven enforcement to reach the city's Vision Zero goal of zero traffic fatalities.
Commander Mannix, presenting the department's quarterly statistical report, said each district is focusing on its top five collision factors but "speed is still the number 1 in all police districts." He described operations such as expanded LIDAR speed enforcement and a "block the box" campaign, which the department says produced more than 3,500 citations since December to keep intersections clear.
The presentation said red-light camera violations total roughly 15,000 per year and that 94 percent of citations in 2014 were issued to drivers in cars, with bicycles and pedestrians accounting for a small share. Mannix and department staff described efforts to increase training on new speed-measurement devices and to work with the Municipal Transportation Agency on data sharing.
Nicole Ferrara of Walk SF and Tyler Frisbee of the Bicycle Coalition praised targeted enforcement in bike lanes and urged the department to publish operation plans and collision reports more rapidly. "Sharing those operation plans with the public" and improving how collision reports are shared with MTA were offered as steps to monitor whether stations meet the department's stated goals.
Commissioners repeatedly asked for station-level breakdowns and monthly accountability measures; Mannix endorsed more granular reporting and said the department is working to improve citation geocoding and officer reporting, including support for an eCitation app and an epidemiologist to analyze hospital and collision data.
The commission requested an update next quarter on the department's "focus on the five" metric and progress toward a 50 percent target for relevant traffic citations, along with updates on the proposed eCitation app and school/senior center operations.
