On March 16, a family of four was killed when a woman drove an SUV into a bus stop in West Portal, which is part of District 7.
The family โ Matilde Ramos Pinto, Diego Cardoso de Oliveira and their two young children โ were standing at the bus stop at Ulloa Street and Lenox Way. It was the day of their wedding anniversary, and they were waiting for the bus to go to the zoo.
The driver, Mary Fong Lau, 78, was driving the wrong way down Ulloa Street. She was arrested the following day, and police are still investigating the incident. She has not been charged, and is cooperating with investigators.
It is a devastating incident, and one that prompts our question for this weekโs candidates: How can San Francisco prevent this kind of accident from happening again?
For Boschetto, City Hall and Vision Zero โ the cityโs 2014 plan to eliminate all traffic deaths within a decade โ have been ineffective in addressing public safety. He promised that, as supervisor, he would work with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to identify all danger zones in District 7 and โtake precautions to make sure we avoid tragedies like this,โ though, in 100 words, he did not specify exactly how.
The city has failed in its Vision Zero goal: Fatal collisions have increased since 2014, and 2022 saw the most traffic deaths in San Francisco since 2007.
For Martin-Pinto, it is โimportant to let the facts come out in this caseโ before proposing solutions, though he did suggest changing the configuration of bus stops and enforcing traffic regulations. Likewise, the two other candidates noted that lack of traffic enforcement is an issue.
Traffic enforcement has collapsed across San Francisco since 2014, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. Police officers are issuing a small fraction of the citations they did 10 years ago, leading supervisors to hold pointed inquiries into the problem last year.
Melgar, for her part, pointed to both enforcement and slowing down cars, alongside physical protective infrastructure like bollards. She also went further by suggesting that certain areas around public transportation hubs should be fully pedestrianized and closed to cars altogether.
Their answers are below, but I also wanted to let you know that I will be in your district on Monday, March 25 at 1 p.m. at Ballast Coffee (329 West Portal Ave.). Iโll be around for an hour, and then in the district, talking to residents and businesses. Check back here to see where I will be next.
Stephen Martin-Pinto
- Job: Firefighter/major, U.S. Marine Corps reserves
- Age: 46
- Housing: Tenant in SF, property owner and landlord in Lemon Grove, California
- Transport: Fairly evenly split between car, Muni and walking
- Languages: Spanish, Russian, Georgian
- Education: University of California, Davis
- Residency: Living in District 7โs Sunnyside since 2014, and earlier from 1983 to 1998
As long as we have humans living in cities, there will always, unfortunately, be accidents. Furthermore, itโs important to let the facts come out in this case before we can declare ourselves experts in preventing this kind of accident from happening again. However, here are some ideas:
- Eliminate bulb-out bus stops that more closely expose passengers to traffic. Replace with pocket bus stops.
- Use a combination of engineering and enforcement. Vision Zero has failed precisely because weโve chosen haphazard engineering with zero enforcement โ we decided enforcement was discriminatory, so we stopped doing it. Now, people are paying the price with their lives.
Endorsed by: Former District 7 Supervisor Tony Hall, former Planning Commissioner Michael Antonini, former Police Chief Tony Ribera, drug policy advocate Tom Wolf, BART Board Director Debora Allen … read more here
Myrna Melgar
- Job: District 7 supervisor
- Age: 56
- Housing: Homeowner
- Transport: Bike
- Languages: Spanish, French, Swedish
- Education: Bachelor’s degree, Excelsior College; master’s degree in urban planning, Columbia University
- Residency: Living in Ingleside Terraces since 2011, and lived in District 7 while in college at SF State between 1987 and 1991
We have seen a plummeting of enforcement of moving violations during the pandemic, due to low staffing at the SFPD. We need enforcement, and we need to slow the cars down. Additionally, we absolutely must invest in physical infrastructure to reduce deaths and injuries from traffic violence: bulb-outs, bollards (concrete and metal) at bus stops and corner crosswalks in high injury corridors, concrete dividers, and pedestrianizing high traffic areas where pedestrians are at risk and we want to prioritize public transit and other modes of transportation.
Endorsed by: SF Labor Council, SF Tenants Union, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Supervisor Connie Chan, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, Supervisor Catherine Stefani, Senator Scott Weiner, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins … read more here
Matt Boschetto
- Job: Small business owner
- Age: 35
- Housing: Homeowner
- Transport: Car
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in philosophy, Saint Mary’s College of California
- Residency: Living in District 7 since 2014
The tragedy last weekend is beyond words, and raises serious questions about our approach to pedestrian safety. With traffic fatalities remaining relatively unchanged since 2014, and with a high of 39 in 2022, City Hall and Vision Zero have been ineffective addressing the issue and public safety, in general. As Supervisor, I promise to work with the SFMTA to identify all dangerous zones in our district and take precautions to make sure we avoid tragedies like this, as much as possible. Furthermore, I will work with SFPD to reestablish traffic enforcement, especially in problematic areas.
The order of candidates alternates each week. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. Got a question for the candidates? Email me: kelly@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
So long as there’s no realistic plan to integrate public transit, cars and bikes, people will continue to die. SF has totally failed in its endeavor for Vision Zero, cobbling a mishmosh of bike lanes wherever political lip service is expedient, bus lanes all over the place, and pedestrian improvements. All of this with zero enforcement against anyone, peds, bikes or cars. Bike lanes need to be modeled after a sensible European model where bikers are protected from vehicle drivers who refuse to see cyclists (try Munich). Delivery trucks should deliver between midnight and 6 am. Jaywalkers facedown in their phones walking in the middle of Market St. with a child in hand need to be arrested for felony child endangerment.