Changes Approved for Pedestrian Safety on San Francisco's Sixth Street

"Sixth Street will lose one southbound traffic lane and gain wider sidewalks in an effort to enhance pedestrian safety, after a 6-1 vote by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Tuesday," report Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez. "The board also approved eliminating a traffic lane on nearby Taylor Street to widen sidewalks for safety."

A driver of a motor vehicles strikes a pedestrian once every 16 days, on average, on the notoriously dangerous Sixth Street, according to the article, so the reconfiguration is designed to make the street safer for pedestrians. Still, the approval "came despite heated opposition from business groups to the Sixth Street improvements, including the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Council of San Francisco," according to Fitzgerald Rodriguez.