SFMTA

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Established by Proposition E in 1999,[i] the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is San Franciscos mobility manager. The SFMTA Pedestrian Master Plan (PMP) includes a Better Streets Plan detailing a vision for a walkable San Francisco, goals, an advisory committee, and informational resources. However, the SFMTA is ineffective leading pedestrian safety efforts for the following six reasons. 1) The SFMTA is ineffective because the agency spends outrageous amounts of money on pedestrian safety improvements like $10,000 per crosswalk, $350,000 for each signalized intersection, and $1 million to reconfigure one block.[ii] 2) The SFMTA is ineffective because implementing pedestrian safety tools in San Francisco takes an extraordinarily long time and often requires lengthy environmental impact reports. For example, a new crosswalk takes 2-3 months, a signalized intersection takes 30-36 months, and reconfiguring one block takes approximately 36-48 months to implement.[iii] In fact, it takes longer to build a stoplight in San Francisco than it took to build AT&T Park.[iv] In the time it takes to build a stoplight, 2,400 pedestrians will have been hit.[v] 3) The SFMTA is ineffective due to a lack of funding. The SFMTA only has $1 million available in revenue annually for pedestrian projects. Pedestrian safety accounts for an average of 1.5 percent of federal transportation funding, and San Francisco only spends 0.5 percent of its federal transportation dollars on safeguarding pedestrians.[vi] Bridget Smith of SFMTAs Sustainable Streets explains, Its literally about the funding, (and) many projects like 15 mph school zone pilots are waiting on grants to do study and implementation. Unfortunately, the SFMTAs timeconsuming analysis and funding procedures encumber many of the agencysprojects.[vii] 4) The SFMTA is ineffective because implementing necessary improvements such as intersection bulb outs, countdown signals and reduced speed limits can be difficult because no single city agency is responsible for pedestrians.[viii] A lack of coordination exists amongst dozens of local agencies, which are all partially responsible for safeguarding pedestrians.

5) The SFMTA is ineffective because of pushback from traffic engineers. The SFMTA Sustainable Streets Division is responsible for designing, directing and managing all traffic engineering functions within San Francisco, including placement of signs, signals, traffic striping, and curb markings.[ix] Walking away from their responsibility to protect pedestrians, San Francisco city planners and road engineers often consider pedestrians as obstacles to speedy traffic.[x] 6) The SFMTA is ineffective because city planning, transportation, and public health professionals do not have the practical tools necessary to properly evaluate the effectiveness of pedestrian safety initiatives.[xi] Unfortunately, Few validated measures exist for assessingpedestrian safety behaviors.[xii]

[i] Wikipedia contributors, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia 15 Aug. 2011. [ii] Aaron Bialick, Citys Pedestrian Crash Toll Dwarfs Preventative Safety Costs, SF Streets Blog 12 Apr. 2011 <http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/04/12/citys-pedestrian-crash-toll-dwarfspreventative-safety-costs/>. [iii] Aaron Bialick, Citys Pedestrian Crash Toll Dwarfs Preventative Safety Costs, SF Streets Blog 12 Apr. 2011 <http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/04/12/citys-pedestrian-crash-toll-dwarfspreventative-safety-costs/>. [iv] Ben Shore, Walking in San Francisco Beautiful, But Look Both Ways, Reset San Francisco <http://www.resetsanfrancisco.org/news/may16-11/walking-san-francisco--beautiful-look-both-ways>. [v] Ben Shore, Walking in San Francisco Beautiful, But Look Both Ways, Reset San Francisco <http://www.resetsanfrancisco.org/news/may16-11/walking-san-francisco--beautiful-look-both-ways>. [vi] Dangerous by Design 2011, Transportation for America <http://t4america.org/ resources/dangerousbydesign2011/>. [vii] Aaron Bialick, Citys Pedestrian Crash Toll Dwarfs Preventative Safety Costs, SF Streets Blog 12 Apr. 2011 <http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/04/12/citys-pedestrian-crash-toll-dwarfs-

preventative-safety-costs/>. [viii] Will Relsman, Momentum builds for pedestrian safety in San Francisco, The San Francisco Examiner 23 March 2011. [ix] SFMTA < http://www.sfmta.com/cms/vhome/hometraffic.htm>. [x] Paul Lewis, The Basic Question: What Are Streets for?, San Francisco Examiner < http://www.ppic.org/main/commentary.asp?i=198>. [xi] Rajiv Bhatia, et al. An area-level model of vehicle-pedestrian injury collisions with implications for land use and transportation planning, Accident Analysis & Prevention 17 Aug. 2011, Academic Search Premier, 137-145. [xii] Marcus J. Hanfling, et al. Validity of instruments to Assess Students Travel and Pedestrian Safety, BMC Public Health 17 Aug. 2011, Academic Search Premier, 257-264.