Fisherman’s Wharf Parking-Free Streets to Expand

“Two years after the city gave Fisherman’s Wharf a people-friendly redesign on two blocks of Jefferson Street, business is booming. Despite merchants’ fears that removing all car parking on the blocks would hurt their sales, they now say it had the opposite effect.

The second phase of the project, which will bring a similar treatment to three blocks of Jefferson from Jones Street east to Powell Street, is taking a step forward. D3 Supervisor Julie Christensen and other city officials announced today that $1.7 million has been allocated for design and engineering for the expansion. The rest of the funds for the second phase, totaling $13 million, haven’t been identified, but it could be constructed as early as 2017.” View the full article.

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Collision Avoidance Systems as a Standard

The National Transportation Safety Board suggests in a new report that 2,200 lives could have been saved in 2011-12 if the cars involved in crashes had collision avoidance systems.

“The NTSB report lays out a strong case for requiring collision avoidance in future car models. First, a quick primer on what the agency has in mind with such technology. NTSB defines a complete “collision avoidance system” as a “suite of technologies”: driver alerts (when a collision seems possible), dynamic brakes (which prepare the car for a hard stop), and autonomous emergency braking (which applies the brakes on its own if the driver doesn’t do so).” View the full article.

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5 Lessons from Vision Zero Success in Europe

Former head of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Leah Shahum is spending two months in Sweden, The Netherlands, and Germany researching researching successful citites’ approaches to traffic safety. Some key lessons she has taken away thus far revolve around speed, street design, engineering, private sector buy-ins, and planning for future steps. View the full article.

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Black Boxes Tested in NYC Taxis

Recently, New York initiated a pilot program to test black boxes in some of its taxis. According to the article, “Nearly a dozen cabs will test-drive data-recording black boxes under a Taxi & Limousine Commission pilot program announced Tuesday. The devices will keep tabs on speeding, acceleration, hard braking and abrupt turns.” View the full article.

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Seeking Zero Fatalities in the Richmond

“The city of San Francisco has adopted Vision Zero, which means that we are committed to reducing traffic collision fatalities to zero by 2024. As part of that commitment, the officers of Richmond Station write more than 1,000 traffic citations in an average month. The majority of those citations are for the vehicle code violations that are most often to blame for collisions in the Richmond Police District. These violations are: speeding, failing to yield to pedestrians, stop signs, red lights and unsafe turns.” View the full article.

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New CHP, Police Operation on Embarcadero

As part of Vision Zero SF, San Francisco police and the CHP recently joined forces to catch speeding drivers on The Embarcadero and improve safety for pedestrians. As stated in the article, “the speed limit on The Embarcadero is 30 miles per hour, but law enforcement officials said people often see it as a modified expressway, often traveling at much faster speeds. At Green Street and The Embarcadero, law enforcement officers on motorcycles were lined up, waiting to nab speeders going 40, 45 miles an hour and up.”

Officers also made an effort to nab motorists not looking out for pedestrians. According to the article, “a citation for failing to yield in San Francisco is a $238 fine and a point on the driver’s license.” View full article.

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