7 Dangerous San Francisco Intersections Getting Improvements To Encourage Safe Left Turns
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency on Tuesday announced that seven city intersections will receive improvements in order to encourage drivers to make safer left turns and reduce traffic fatalities.
The Left-Turn Traffic Calming project was launched this month as part of Pedestrian Safety Month and expands on the city's Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate all traffic fatalities citywide.
According to the SFMTA, in 2019, nearly 40 percent of all traffic collisions in the city involved vehicles making a left turn.
The intersections chosen for the project are part of the city's High Injury Network, city streets that have the most severe and fatal crashes, and are also in areas that have high levels of minority and low-income households, as well as seniors and immigrants.
Under the project, the intersections will get visual cues like left-turn guide bumps, painted safety zones and delineators to encourage slower speeds when making left turns. The intersections include 10th and Folsom streets; Broadway and Montgomery Street; Gough and Sacramento streets; Ellis and Leavenworth streets; Leavenworth and Sutter streets; 17th Avenue and Lincoln Way; and 18th Avenue and Lincoln Way.
"We're keeping up our efforts to reduce traffic fatalities in our city and make our streets safe," Mayor London Breed said in a statement. "As we continue reopening and people start moving around the city more, we know we're going to see traffic increase—and with that comes a higher risk of crashes and traffic-related injuries and fatalities."
Breed said, "That's why the SFMTA has installed traffic-calming measures to reduce the speed of left turns at especially dangerous intersections, which will help keep our community safer."
In addition to the project, the SFMTA has also launched the "Safety—It's Your Turn" campaign, which encourages drivers making left turns to slow down to 5 mph, make 90-degree turns and to always look for pedestrians and bicyclists.
According to the SFMTA, the left-turn calming project is inspired by similar projects in cities like New York and Portland, Oregon.
© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. and Bay City News Service. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.