San Francisco supervisors authorized a resolution Tuesday urging California lawmakers to expand the city’s automated speed camera program, which currently has 33 cameras operating in the city under a state pilot.
The board’s 10-to-1 vote on Tuesday, with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton voting against it, will not add cameras immediately, but formally asks the state to explore changes to the program.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has identified at least 80 additional high-need locations that could benefit from automated enforcement, according to a report filed with the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee.
Richard Zieman, whose son Andrew, a para-educator, was killed in November 2021 by a speeding driver outside Sherman Elementary School on Franklin Street, told Mission Local that city officials should do more.
“They waited for a tragedy,” Zieman said. Parents and school leaders had repeatedly asked the city to slow traffic on Franklin Street, where drivers barreled downhill toward the Marina, said Zieman.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who introduced the resolution, has said the city’s first year of automated speed enforcement shows that the technology works.
The SFMTA reported nearly an 80-percent reduction in drivers traveling at least 10 miles per hour over the speed limit at camera locations after the program launched in March 2025. San Francisco was the first city to implement the pilot authorized under Assembly Bill 645.
The pilot, however, is capped by state law at 33 camera locations. Tuesday’s resolution asks California lawmakers to consider allowing more, prioritizing corridors on San Francisco’s High Injury Network, including Franklin Street.
Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy group that spent roughly eight years advocating for the state legislation that created the pilot, called the resolution an important first step toward broader expansion.
“Thirty-three cameras is nowhere near the number of cameras we need for people to realize that San Francisco is a safe-speed city,” said executive director Jodie Medeiros. “This tool is working. People are lowering their speeds.”
District 6, represented by Dorsey, currently has seven of the city’s 33 cameras, most of them in SoMa. The district also records the highest number of crashes involving injuries or fatalities in San Francisco, making it a focal point in the debate over expanding automated enforcement.
The resolution advanced unanimously from the Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee last week, where Dorsey said the cameras have made streets “feel safer” and argued the early results show “why we should have even more of this life-saving technology.”
Zieman, whose son’s death prompted traffic-calming improvements and eventually a speed camera near Sherman Elementary, said the issue is urgent.
“There are probably other Franklin streets out there,” he said. “I just hope they don’t wait for someone else before they expand the program. It’s too late for Andrew.”
SFMTA eventually installed some paint and plastic posts at the intersections around Sherman, but you can hardly call it traffic calming. The downhill lights on Franklin are still timed for the speed limit of 35mph, which encourages speeding so drivers starting from red can catch the “green wave.” The traffic engineer on the “calming” project rejected removing a traffic lane to slow down drivers. Even though official SFMTA policy forbids it, he cited the “level of service” rating as the reason – explicitly prioritizing traffic speeds over safety. But sure, let’s ask for more cameras. This city never met a buck it couldn’t pass.
We should have the cameras all over the city it will catch the violators , it doesn’t catch the people who are responsible and driving the speed limit.
Residents west of Mission Street badly need speed cams along Guerrero from 18th to 14th. Since Valencia Street has been calmed, drivers use Guerrero like a freeway for cross-Mission transit. 50 MPH is common as is red light-running. As a result, all the Waymos have learned to drive accordingly. When the city lowered the basic speed limit to 25, they didn’t include much if any new signage. Since SFPD no longer appears interested in doing any traffic enforcement of any kind in person, the cams may be our only hope.
I donate to Walk SF, but have long disagreed with their focus on these cameras. We need infrastructural changes to slow cars in the first place, and better yet, shift car trips to sustainable modes of transportation. Catching speeders after the fact is no solution. Administering these cameras is more expensive, measured against results, than fixing the street layouts that evidence shows lead to speeding.
Also, while the laws enabling speed cameras do have better privacy safeguards than those for SFPD’s surveillance cameras and drones, there’s still plenty of abuse potential here anytime cops break the law, of which there are many, many examples.
Have you noticed the pace of traffic calming? Lethargic to barely noticeable is what I see. Installing and operating the cameras is wildly less expensive and much faster than the steps to remove a traffic lane or install curb protected bike lanes. While the understandable fear of traffic enforcement being racially oppressive caused Vision Zero to abandon traffic enforcement, the reality of the extremely slow pace of traffic calming is that we are going to see hundreds of traffic deaths and thousands of injuries before even half of Vision Zero is achieved. Enforcement is the obvious quick solution. Well, it would be obvious if the SFPD did traffic law enforcement. Instead we have the ridiculous situation where the California Highway Patrol does the traffic enforcement in SF. On the state highways only, but more than the SFPD does. So that leaves cameras if we want a decrease in speeds. Speed kills. More cameras means less speeding. When you see people on Fulton doing 55 mph you will realize that there is a reason for the rather spectacular crashes they have. When Great Highway was built there were no traffic lights between Sloat and Lincoln. Speeds were ridiculous, so lights were installed.
South Van Ness could desperately use some, especially if the police are not allowed to pull people over. Seems like a fine compromise to protect pedestrians.
Per usual Shamann Walton proves to be an impediment. What exactly is he here to do as a supervisor?
Instead of using speed cameras, try painting the speed limit directly on the streets. It is hard for drivers to know what area is a high injury network area. Signs can be hard to see because of all the other distractions signage the city puts up. Drivers are looking at the road, so paint the speed limit directly on the roads. I support cameras, but I don’t support how San Francisco implemented the 33 cameras. Do it right so that drivers who are trying to be mindful of not speeding will not be unjustly penalized for going over an obsured speed limit when there are no pedestrians or other vehicles on the road. Also, be mindful that it is unfair to drivers that speed limit cameras capture areas where an increase in speed is needed, such as on Monterey Blvd, where there is a slight uphill and you need to step on the pedal a bit more to go up the hill. The camera on Monterey Blvd is a joke. Take it down.
Yes, surveillance cameras “work” to make it more expensive, slower and more oppressive to get around San Francisco, with ZERO evidence they reduce traffic fatalities! Just like virtually all the ridiculous anti-driver road hazards that have been erected on City streets, costing millions of dollars, have made it harder than ever to move around the city without reducing the rate of fatalities. This is another scheme designed to extort ever more money from the working people of San Francisco (or naive tourists passing thru) to fund the unelected MTC’s black hole money pit projects, not make SF safer. Passing more performative “anti-car” legislation that only makes travelling around San Francisco worse for the vast majority of citizens, is insanely bad “public policy.” Thank goodness one Supe had the ethics to vote against it.
Speed kills. Slower speeds save lives. As per information from the SFMTA, as reported by growsf: “Citywide traffic deaths fell from 43 to 25 between 2024 and 2025, alongside speed cameras and other safety measures.”
As a pedestrian, I am thankful that we have speed cameras and, finally, a few safer streets.