SFMTA Safety Projects Are Killing Too Many Residents
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By: George Wooding
The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency (SFMTA) must stop building slow -streets, traffic neckdown road configurations and quick-build traffic safe -projects immediately as they are killing residents at an increasing rate.
Definitions:
Vision Zero: a SFMTA program to reduce traffic deaths from 2014 -2024 to zero. The program failed miserably and is now causing more traffic deaths than reducing traffic deaths by accelerating traffic congestion. Vision Zero was stopped in 2024.
Quick-Builds--The Vision Zero Quick-Build Program is an SFMTA effort to quickly implement pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements on the Vision Zero High Injury Network.
A traffic neckdown-- perhaps the stupidest Slow-Street of all time. It takes a two-way street and converts it into a one-way street. The cars are facing each other. Neckdown bicycle lanes remain intact. Automobile drivers dnot know who has the right-of-way. Go to 9 th Avenue and Kirkham and see the show.
According to the April 24, 2025 Budget and Legislative Analyst (BLA) report, an estimated 100,000 vehicular crashes occurred in San Francisco streets between 2018 and 2022, causing 193 deaths and costing $2.5 billion, according to a new report from the Board of Supervisors Budget & Legislative Analyst. The numbers, while stunning, are based on extrapolations.
The BLA report states, “Though many of its projects have goals of reducing congestion and collisions the SFMTA does not separately track and report such projects and related initiatives. The agency reports that their FY 2024-25 operating budget for streets-related activities is approximately $85.8million. Excluding $52.4 million for parking enforcement, the remaining amount is approximately 33.4 million, which includes any efforts aimed at reducing collisions. The agency's FY 2024-25 capital budget for streets, which likely includes, but is not limited to projects aimed at reducing collisions is approximately $60 million, including some carry forward funding for projects started in prior years.”
According to the BLA report, one component of city was related to traffic crashes is claims and litigation costs according to the city attorney’s office, the city paid approximately 61.4 million in settlements and judgments from claims and litigation related to traffic collisions involving city vehicles over the five- year period from 2020 through 2024, for an average of $12.3 million per year. Over this., the city settled 1,628 claims and settled or paid judgments in 129 lawsuits, for a total of 1, 757 incidents. Additional city costs for settlements and judgments stemming from collisions caused by this city street design and infrastructure were $243,500 for 2020 through 2023.
The major causes of traffic-related deaths, based on the most cited SFMTA analysis:
Speeding
Failure to yield to pedestrians.
Red Light Running
Stop Sign Violations
Other contributing factors: cell phone usage, distracted driving, impaired driving, reckless driving, jaywalking is now legal
Traffic Congestion, the underlying cause of many of these traffic accidents is seldom even mentioned.
Traffic Congestion is the real cause of accident victim deaths in San Francisco. In the “On The relationship Between Congestion and Road Safety in Cities”(ORBC & RSIC) report. This report studied 129 large cities in Europe and showed the following results:
“There is strong evidence of a quadratic relationship between congestion and deaths in accidents, using both parametric and non-parametric econometric techniques. The threshold point at which the relationship between congestion and deaths in accidents is reversed and becomes positive occurs when congestion results in about a 30 per cent increase in travel time compared to a free flow situation. For most congested cities, any effective measure to contain congestion may also lead to better safety outcomes.”
In other words, when San Francisco’s congestion level rises above 30%, more people will become involved/die in traffic accidents. When San Francisco’s congestion level remains below 30% there will be fewer accidents.
The San Francisco Examiner reported on January 30, 2025, “The City’s vehicle congestion level of 32% — meaning it took drivers an average of 32% longer to drive a mile than if there were free-flowing traffic — was the fifth-highest of any city in the country. That represented a 6% increase from last year.” As the vehicle congestion level continues to rise there will be more traffic accidents. In fact, San Francisco’s 6% increase in congestion is less than the 10% congestion increase in the 92 largest U.S. cities.
Fatalities were higher in 2024 than in any other Vision Zero year. In total, fatalities in 2024 were almost 50 percent higher than the average over the decade. As traffic patterns continue to adjust to the post-pandemic world, it is unclear if the high fatality rates of 2024 are an outlier or a warning of what is to come. Traffic congestion is certain to become worse [review above chart] beyond 2024 if the SFMTA continues to build traffic barriers.
If current traffic congestion trends continue, San Francisco congestion rates will rise to approximately 37% in 2027. This will cause 45 to 47 vehicle deaths per year.
“In 2024, the average driving speed in San Francisco was 14 mph, 0.3 mph slower than in 2023, and the second-slowest mark of any major U.S. city. San Francisco was faster than only New York City (12 mph), according to traffic data recently published by the Dutch-based location technology firm TomTom.
There has been a rapid increase in deaths from 2022 to 2024. In 2024, 42 people died in traffic accidents. This is the most deaths ever recorded. An additional 12 people have already died in 2025. With a declining population of only 808,000 people, why are more San Francisco residents being killed in traffic accidents?
The answers are simple, the SFMTA traffic slowing methods are a failure. The SFMTA’s project safety planning staff is “guessing”---not really knowing--- how to make San Francisco streets safer.
San Francisco transportation officials are suspending a popular, long-running program that allows residents to request street safety improvements in their neighborhoods. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said it would be “temporarily pausing” its Residential Traffic Calming Program, citing “rising construction costs, record demand, and a challenging fiscal landscape.”
The move comes as the agency faces an anticipated $322 million budget deficit next year when federal and state one-time relief funds run out. The SFMTA never had a real plan for traffic safety.
SFMTA planners don't know what they are doing. The SFMTA is trying to apply traffic slowing methodology that only works in suburban, less congested cities. San Francisco is an extremely dense city with high levels of traffic congestion, hills, bicycles, pedestrians and alternative wheeled vehicles.
The SFMTA needs to stop building road barriers immediately. They may also need to reduce public safety barriers so that there will be less congestion in San Francisco. The SFMTA's plans to slow traffic in San Francisco is ill-advised and will only cause more traffic deaths.
George Wooding July 9, 2025