> We CAN slow traffic down in SF through basic traffic calming measures.
Hello, Betsy,
First of all, please send me information on joining Walk San Francisco.
I actually walk more than I take the bus. Often, it's almost as fast!
(I remember when I worked at UCSF while living in the Mission, I found
that I could walk it in about an hour while I had to allow just that
time to make sure I could get there on time via BART and an N-line that,
even ten years ago, was extremely unreliable. When everything worked as
it was supposed to, it was a twenty to thirty-five minute trip -- five
minutes on BART, up-to-ten minute wait at Civic Center, plus fifteen to
twenty minutes on N; worst case should have been thirty-five minutes --
but that was very rare. Even today, I can walk from 25th and Bryant to
my office at Mission and Beale in an hour-and-ten minutes, while I have
to allow forty minutes to make sure I get there on time via 27 Bryant +
14 Mission. The exercise is more important to me than the thirty
minutes I would save taking the bus.)
Be all that as it may, while your suggestions would undoubtedly help, I
remain pretty cynical about drivers. The Examiner said the city was at
a loss to determine why pedestrian deaths have doubled. Anybody who
spends ten minutes on the street can answer that question. It's
drivers, being ever more rude and selfish, acting as if the streets
belong to no one but them. I'm afraid that the only way we're going to
make drivers look out for pedestrians is to set the penalties so high
that they _have_ to. E.g., "The second time you run a red light, you
never drive again." Or, "You run over a pedestrian, you, personally,
pay all of their medical bills -- and never drive again; why should the
city pay for something that you, a driver, did?" Until the penalty is
set so high that drivers will actually slow down and _look_, nothing
will change except around the margins.
I also noted that the city is claiming that one-third (I think) of the
pedestrians were run over because of "inattention" on the pedestrian's
part. This is absurd. No one can be one-hundred percent attentive all
the time, but, as the ones doing the dangerous activity, drivers hold
the greater responsibility to remain attentive: i.e., "If you can't /
didn't see that pedestrian, you are going too fast, full stop. Slow
down." We cannot let drivers re-define walkers as the ones who are
creating a danger!
Coincidentally, I saw the immediate aftermath of someone getting run
over today in front of my office. Drivers have to make a cross-traffic
left turn to get from Mission to Beale, and they always rush that to get
through before the light changes. Today, an older man was hit hard
enough to cause extensive physical damage to the car; the vehicle must
have been going very fast making that turn. Almost without question,
this was the driver's fault since the pedestrian was in the cross walk.
-- Donald
_________________________
Donald F. Robertson
San Francisco
donaldrf@hooked.net
Donald's Space Exploration page:
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