San Francisco Nixes Slow Street

Despite having support from more than 80 percent of respondents to a city survey, San Francisco officials plan to dismantle one of its remaining ‘slow streets.’ “It’s unclear why the city made this decision after it worked so hard to confirm that a clear majority of people in the area wanted to keep the street unavailable for cut-through traffic,” writes Roger Rudick in Streetsblog San Francisco.

Over the last two years, since Lake Street’s initial closure to through traffic, the city has solicited several rounds of public input, during which only a small minority objected to the closure. Yet the city is canceling plans to install concrete diverters and plans to remove existing slow street infrastructure. Advocates say the move is in blatant opposition to the city’s stated Vision Zero goals, as “traffic deaths and serious injuries in San Francisco just keep getting worse because the city signs pledges and makes promises but then backs off nearly all concrete action to make streets safer.”

In May, CBS Bay Area reported on San Francisco’s slow streets program. At that time, four of the city’s nearly 30 slow streets were approved to stay in place, including Lake St.