How Vision Zero progress in SF stacks up to other cities

San Francisco recorded fewer per-capita traffic deaths than five of 12 comparable cities within and outside of California during one of the final years of its initial decadelong quest to eliminate such fatalities, according to a recently published Controller’s Office report.

The City Controller on Wednesday published dashboards of data measuring injuries, fatalities, commute methods, annual public-transit trips and traffic citations in The City and 12 other jurisdictions from 2012 — two years before San Francisco pledged to eliminate all traffic deaths before 2024 — to 2022.

The benchmarking metrics also included street-network speeds as of April 2024 and the percentage of city streets with separated bike lanes as of 2022.

The dashboards, city officials said, were intended to contextualize The City’s progress toward its Vision Zero goals for residents and policymakers, while also providing crucial data that could shape future planning decisions.

According to the recently published data, San Francisco recorded nearly zero bicycling traffic deaths per 100,000 residents in 2022, which was a lower rate than all of 12 cities measured and down from a peak of about 0.5 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2013.

Traffic-injury rates also declined in The City over the measured timespan, from 455.5 per 100,000 residents in 2012 to 414.8 in 2022. Pedestrian-injury rates declined from 111.8 per 100,000 residents to 71.37, as did bicyclist-injury rates, from 72.9 to 44.8 per 100,000 residents.

But compared to seven other California cities, San Francisco had the highest and second-highest rates, respectively, in the latter two injury categories in 2022. The Controller’s Office noted that a greater proportion of San Francisco’s population uses walking and biking as daily modes of transportation than its peer cities in the state. The report didn’t examine injury rates in cities outside of California because of differing data and reporting methods.

“It’s unacceptable that pedestrian injuries and fatalities continue to rise,” said Christopher White, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

White’s organization said Thursday that a bicyclist who died of his injuries stemming from a crash with a parked San Francisco Public Utilities Commission vehicle on May 30 had collided with the car’s open door .

Walk San Francisco said that the death of 41-year-old Miguel Angel Barrera-Cruz in a hit-and-run earlier this week marked the 10th pedestrian death in San Francisco this year, which has already exceeded the totals from 2023 (seven) and 2022 (nine).

San Francisco transportation leaders and advocates marked the 10th anniversary of The City’s Vision Zero pledge earlier this year — and its failure to eliminate all traffic deaths during that time — by committing to make further progress.

Pedestrian-safety advocates told The Examiner it was important for city officials to continue dedicating time and resources to that goal, particularly as the data presented in the Controller’s Office dashboard could help guide conversations as to what The City needs to do to make streets safer.

Among the 12 cities the office examined, for instance, San Francisco had a lower share of residents (35%) commuting by car in 2022 than all but New York and Washington, D.C. That same year, New York was the only measured city in which public-transit riders averaged more trips annually (259) than San Francisco (143).

Marta Lindsey, communications director for Walk San Francisco, said that these benchmarks “point out how San Francisco is a city where a lot of people get around not in a car.”

“We are a walking city where too often it’s dangerous to simply cross the street,” she said. “These benchmarks get at some of the contributing factors to safe streets, but many aren’t here.”

Most cities examined in The City’s report had their own ideas for achieving zero traffic fatalities, though none succeeded in fully eliminating them.

Research has shown decreasing street widths and reducing posted speed limits can reduce the risk of deaths. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that a pedestrian hit by a car going 20 miles per hour has a 90% chance of survival. The chance drops down to 60% if the car travels at 30 miles per hour.

As of April, just 5.4% of San Francisco’s streets had a speed limit no faster than 20 mph, according to the dashboard. That was a higher share than in Los Angeles (0.04%), Oakland (0.3%) and San Jose (0.3%), but considerably lower than those of Washington, D.C. (60%), Seattle (61.5%), Minneapolis (71%) and Portland, Ore. (76%). Of those four cities, Washington and Portland averaged more per-capita pedestrian deaths than San Francisco in 2022.

Luke Bornheimer, a sustainable transportation advocate, said that “if San Francisco is going to address its roadway-safety crisis, it needs to help significantly more people shifting trips from cars to bikes and public transportation.”

He told The Examiner that he believed one effective method for doing so would be to install a connected network of protected bike lanes, as well as offering financial incentives for purchasing or leasing electric bikes. The Controller’s Office found that San Francisco had built protected bike lanes on 3% of its streets as of 2022. Of the nine other cities where the report quantified such lanes, only New York (3.3%) had a higher percentage.

White said that The City has “a long way to go to the level of safety where everyone can feel safe biking.”

Five moving violations were reported to be among the top factors for accidents — running red lights, running stop signs, speeding , failing to give pedestrians the right of way and failing to yield while turning. Red-light citations (10.6%) made up a greater share of San Francisco’s total citations than five other cities with examined infractions (Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle).

Injury rates were also examined, though the report compared San Francisco to eight other California cities to ensure that the enforcement of traffic laws didn’t differ from state to state. In 2022, The City had more pedestrian and bicyclist injuries per capita than the other California cities examined.

Advocates said that The City faces a combination of threats, including increases in dangerous driving and the proliferation of bigger, heavier cars on the roads.

“San Francisco is going to need to go all-in to meet the many threats and protect all of us, no matter what our mode is,” Lindsey said. “But we know that people outside vehicles are the most vulnerable and should be the priority in how a dense, walkable city is designed.”

White said that designing streets with lower speeds and prioritizing people while also investing in sustainable, active transportation networks would improve safety outcomes.

“The data doesn’t create that change on its own,” he said. “It’s a tool that advocates and citizens can use to demand a commitment to safer infrastructure and people-prioritized streets and then hold elected leaders accountable to that commitment.”