A cyclist posted on the r/sanfrancisco subreddit this morning that they were ticketed at 6:30 a.m. for attempting to cross a red light at an empty intersection.
โThe officer was friendly,โ they wrote, โbut he was saying that, starting today, police will be enforcing cyclists/mopeds/e-bikes/scooters heavily on Market St this entire month.โ
Furthermore, the officer writing the citation purportedly added, the order to begin issuing citations to two-wheeled vehicles on Market came directly from the mayorโs office.
Did the mayor recently order the San Francisco Police Department to go on the offensive against two-wheeled scofflaws riding down Market Street? The same Market Street that the mayor has begun to โinviteโ more commercial vehicles to make use of shortly after taking office in 2025?
When contacted by Mission Local, Charles Lutvak, Lurieโs press secretary, declined to confirm or deny whether the mayor asked SFPD to focus its ticket-writing efforts on cyclists on Market, and told Mission Local to ask SFPDโs press office.
โItโs not limited to Market Street,โ said Evan Sernoffsky, director of communications at SFPD. โAnd itโs not limited to cyclists.โ
Rather, Sernoffsky said, SFPD is working with the mayorโs office on doing โhigh-visibility enforcementโ on streets that are part of the cityโs high-injury network, as part of Mayor Lurieโs Street Safety Initiative, an executive order that the mayor signed on Dec. 10 of last year. โThe goal is to save lives and protect the public,โ Sernoffsky said.
When asked if the mayorโs office could confirm this account, Lutvak replied, โIf thatโs what PD said, then thatโs what you should use.โ
Krissa Corbett Cavouras, communications director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said that she had not received any reports today of police officers writing citations to cyclists en masse on Market Street.
But it appears it will be ongoing. The high-visibility enforcement will not last a month, Sernoffsky added. It will continue rotating through locations on the high-injury network indefinitely.
The most recent map of San Franciscoโs high-injury network was published in 2022, based on five years of data (2017-2021).
That map includes Market Street, as well as virtually every major road in San Francisco, but does not completely reflect shifts in the design and use of certain city streets that have taken root in the years since then, like Slow Streets (launched in April of 2020) and Better Market Street (which closed Market Street to most car traffic beginning in January 2020).
When asked if this enforcement would include ticketing pedestrians and riders of non-motorized bicycles, Sernoffsky replied, โAnyone who is committing a traffic violation.โ
An updated map of the high-injury network is due to be released in the next few months, said Sernoffsky, adding that he was not sure if SFPD was using the 2022 map, or an unreleased draft featuring more current data.
The day after this article was published, a new high-injury network map went live at sfgov.org, featuring data from 2020 to 2024.
A couple years back I performed an experiment, counting the number of cars running red lights across Market. In one hour, there were 97 red light runners. 13 of them entered the intersection after the light turned red. Yet, in years of biking down Market, I have never once seen a car get pulled over. Not even with the army of ubers now on Market cruising down the Muni only lane.
Dozens of people die every year from getting hit by cars. Meanwhile it’s been years since someone was killed by getting hit by a bike. If the police want to keep us safe, why not focus on the real threat? I think it has more to do with Lurie’s pro-car political base than any basis in logic.
“High visibility enforcement” of moving violations on the high injury network, aka “their jobs”?
Yes. If they did that everywhere and not just in targeted enforcement zones, drivers would be less likely to do stupid stuff.
If they only do it in targeted zones, drivers won’t know until they do something stupid in one of those zones.
But if you kill 4 people you don’t go to jail and you don’t lose your license? Or you do lose your license for a year or two? But yeah, ticketing cyclists and pedestrians… The killers are in the cars!
Get Them Off The Sidewalks!!! All Of Them.
Just do this ONE thing right and you’ll make the citizens happy.
I frequently walk along Market St. between Church St. and 8th St. It’s the wild west as far as e-bikes and e-scooters are concerned. So many are sailing through red lights, riding really fast on sidewalks. E-bikes are often moving as fast as motorcycles. Local and state officials better get ahead of this: helmets required and tickets for riding on the sidewalks. SF General is seeing lots of injuries too, aren’t they?
Why on earth would cyclists not be ticketed if they break traffic laws?
Surely they do nit expect blanket immunity?
Rotating zero tolerance needs to be replaced with data driven enforcement priorities where observed public health risks determine which traffic laws get enforced based on what modalities cause injuries and death to other modalities.
Breaking the law is breaking the law. I am more than an avid bike rider and see bicyclist run stop signs and red lights like never before in San Francisco. As a car driver in the past month I almost hit two running red lights and getting upset at me for going through the green light (it was not yellow nor did it just turn green). Be respectful. Killing someone even if their fault is devastating to all affected including car and bus drivers.
Given that there is a finite amount of resources for enforcement, we should prioritize those to save life and limb.
Most motorists are okay with cyclists maintaining momentum and “running” stop signs. Red lights are another matter entirely.
Ahh, bicycles are vehicles. Bummer when the laws are applied to them.
sad. market st is usually empty. bikes should be allowed to flow if there is no traffic, because when there is, it can be dangerous, with streetcars, ubers, closed construction lanes, and cars that aren’t supposed to be there in the first place. if they want to do the right thing, and revitalize market as a grand boulevard, sfmta should follow through on the plans to embed the separated bike lane on the sidewalk.
Cars bikes and and scooters seen breaking laws all over .
The operators should mature a little follow the laws and show some respect for others .
Bike riders dont get a pass
Get the idiots who use their scooters on sidewalks . Jailtime might help.
People in SF whether it be the persons operating these things or the addicts
are so entitled and selfish
And how about picking up your trash
Mature a little
Alliteration anyone ?
How about the Mayor’s Bodyguards as …
Billionaire’s Bully Bro Brawler’s ??
That they are.
I remember back when I got out of the Navy in 1965 and used to hang out at the Bamboo Lounge down at Jefferson and Pestalozzi and a few of the guys used to get picked up at another joint where Auggie Bush Jr. of the beer baron’s punk kid fame.
He’d pick up about a half dozen of them to go drinking.
What they were, w/out realizing was his bodyguards to protect him from retribution after some outrageous behavior …
“This martini sucks !!”
He’d yell that as he tossed his glass into the crowd or against a wall.
“We went into one joint and he was refused service !” one friend reported.
Guy had to start his own Country Club cause none of the exclusives would allow him in.
Hey, Lurie hasn’t gotten that bad and it got so bad that one of the Bush kids killed a friend when “a gun they were looking at went off accidentally”.
All in the St. Louis County cop records unless they were deleted.
I was a firefighter in Webster Groves, an adjoining upscale but quiet hundred year old academic and the like place at 21 and we shared a station with the cops which was a place that also was the Town Hall or so can you believe how time flies.
Dump the thugs, Daniel.
You ain’t Auggie Bush and you’ve got some reforming to do.
lol
go Niners !!
h.
Who’s got the number for that styley cyclist in the cover photo?
Stand further back,,
and this is another case of Trump like behavior.
He’s always hated the way some cyclists behave and so do I.
Scooters are worse and in a bike lane at 40mph ridden by a fat guy.
I know cause I’m out there cleaning up broken glass to help every single day.
Still, as in the Gangstah with tough bodyguards with guns in the alley last week, this is yet another example of a guy who believes that Revenge is proper Public Policy and just gave the Anti-SF Values cops a 15% raise last week for their mob like behavior and the head of their Union made $586,000 last year as a Patrolman and said it wasn’t enough and the Mayor agrees with him.
Hey, there’s a new Don in town and protecting him don’t come cheap.
go Niners !!
h.
What happens if you donโt pay? They revoke your registration?