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San Francisco Chronicle
17-05-2025
- Automotive
- San Francisco Chronicle
Downtown S.F. rush hour traffic at pre-pandemic levels despite tepid return to office
San Francisco may be a transit-first city, but driving is the main way to get downtown, according to a new study by the County Transportation Authority. The primacy of automobiles was among several sobering findings in the Downtown Travel Study published this week, which was first reported by the Frisc. Focusing on the period between 2019 and 2023 that includes the COVID-19 lockdowns and nascent economic recovery, the study provides a window into how travel patterns are evolving — and how much people love their cars. While downtown trips declined 69% overall, with more people working remotely and fewer leaving their homes to shop or eat out, the share made by private automobiles grew from 24% to 37%. Walking and biking are still preferred modes for people zipping through the city, but by a narrowing margin. In 2019, pedestrians and cyclists made 43.4% of weekday trips to, from or within San Francisco's metropolitan center — which in the study extends from the waterfront to Van Ness Avenue on the north side, 11th Street in SoMa and 17th Street in the Mission and Dogpatch neighborhoods. By 2023, the share of trips made by foot or bike had dropped to just under 40%. At the same time, traffic has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels during evening rush hour, even as the return to offices has stagnated. Despite fervent efforts to lure workers back, workplace attendance at the end of 2024 was about 45% of what it had been prior to COVID, the study said. It attributed much of the current freeway congestion to workers driving from the East Bay to the Peninsula or South Bay. For a city and region where political leaders have long tried to wean people off cars, the results of the study may seem dispiriting. But the key points did not surprise Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who chairs the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. 'I'm grateful that the TA did this, and that it gave us a temperature check on where we're at,' Melgar told the Chronicle, noting that the data helped corroborate San Franciscans' day-to-day observations. Anyone who is out on the roads experiences the misery of downtown traffic and knows it is getting worse, she said. Melgar also views the study as a potential roadmap for city and regional policy. It shows the need, she said, to create incentives for people to walk, bike or take the bus. 'I'm afraid that the increasing traffic situation is going to deter people from coming to work in person, or going out after work with their friends, because they know that getting back in the car is going to suck,' she said.
San Francisco Chronicle
24-04-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
This S.F. district has $700K for traffic safety. What's on the wish list?
Take a walk through San Francisco's District 5 — from the Tenderloin to the edge of Golden Gate Park — and you'll see a galling illustration of the city's challenges with road safety. Drivers barrel down one-way arterials. Cyclists and scooter riders swerve to avoid collisions. People enter crosswalks warily, as though preparing to dodge enemy fire. City leaders have worked for years to reimagine the street design in these neighborhoods, a project that now falls, at least partly, on Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. Shortly after taking office in January, Mahmood scoured the ledger books and found he had inherited $700,000 to spend on small capital projects for roads or intersections. The money stemmed from a grant that the County Transportation Authority dispenses every five years, to each district supervisor, for its Neighborhood Transportation Program. Mahmood opted to set aside $100,000 of the program money to paint no-parking zones on the 'approach' side of crosswalks, in compliance with the state's daylighting law. Beyond that, he put the question to constituents: If you had $600,000 to spend on traffic safety, in one of the highest-collision areas of the city, what would be on your wish list? 'We wanted to raise awareness that this money exists, and let the community know they have influence over it,' Mahmood said. 'We wanted to show that, yes, we're facing a budget deficit. But there are available pots of money to make progress on Vision Zero,' the citywide goal to alleviate traffic deaths. To kick-start the work, Mahmood will post a survey for District 5 residents on Thursday, asking them to choose among three types of traffic-calming infrastructure: speed humps, raised crosswalks and additional marking for the daylighted buffers (in the form of flexible posts or bollards, and tan paint on the pavement). Respondents will cast their votes for what's needed most, and suggest where to put it. Ultimately, the County Transportation Authority board will approve the plans, and the Municipal Transportation Authority will determine whether they are feasible. Crowd-sourcing such decisions isn't a new idea in San Francisco. Supervisor Myrna Melgar has long used a participatory budgeting process in District 7, including for projects related to Vision Zero. Even so, pedestrian safety advocate Jodie Medeiros praised Mahmood's approach, particularly his efforts to accelerate daylighting. While the city has advanced its Vision Zero goals in some parts of District 5, largely by daylighting intersections and lowering speed limits in the Tenderloin, residents in other areas still grapple with dangerous roads. 'Fell, Oak, Gough and Franklin streets all definitely need attention,' said Medeiros, who is the executive director of the group Walk San Francisco. 'It's something we heard about consistently during the campaign and in town halls, in every neighborhood from the Tenderloin, to Alamo Square, to North of the Panhandle, to Western Addition,' he said.
