Is Your Street Safe and Walkable? Here’s How to Audit It
With several recent pedestrian deaths, we’re thinking of what makes a street walkable. How does the City and County of SF measure walkability? And how can folks do a walk audit to better advocate for safe streets?
The Streets Aren’t Safe
The community is in deep mourning for some of the recent people who have been struck by vehicles these past few weeks, including a beloved bartender from Zeitgeist who comforted this writer more than once after a tough day at work. But what can San Francisco do about it?
The Center for Disease Control tracks pedestrian safety. They point to several factors in vehicle-related deaths and injuries. One risk factor is an urban setting where there’s a mix of restaurants and shops plus a high-capacity road with a speed limit of 30 or higher. In San Francisco, that pretty much covers the map.
What’s San Francisco Done To Make Streets Safer?
Slow Streets, a project from the Pandemic that stuck around, make it a little safer. But even that program has faced pushback from drivers. There’s also WalkSF, a nonprofit dedicated to the issue.
But something’s not clicking. SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin said the recent death of an elderly man at Parnassus was unavoidable, pointing to speed control measures like humps being impossible near an Emergency Room. While that’s true, the community is demanding a walk signal with flashing lights, which costs only a few thousand dollars.
Is There Anything We Can Do?
The sad thing is, there are lots of ways to prevent a death but it usually takes a death to identify where and what can be done. That’s why this week we’re diving into walk audits.
People in a democracy often forget that elected officials have to listen to them. Not just during a campaign, but all the time. If you want your neighborhood to be safer, you don’t have to enmesh yourself with a nonprofit. You can do your own DIY walk audit and send the data in a compelling email to your district supervisor.
What’s a Walk Audit?
A walk audit is “the first step” to improving things on your block. In San Francisco, our tax dollars go to SFMTA to fund walk audits of schools. Too bad the district botched their unnecessary school closure process because one of the rippling effects was a delay in the list of school sites for next year’s walk audit.
But do we have to wait for the government to do it? Nope. You can DIY a walk audit. It’s just a fancy way of saying a walk where you jot down observations and compile data on the safety and cleanliness of your street. Sometimes it’s helpful to have a worksheet or toolkit to guide you, and the good news is there are a ton out there.
What Resources Are Out There?
AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, has an excellent walk audit toolkit. And there’s one toolkit geared toward safe school routes, as well. You can even build a virtual version to make it more inclusive, or get help translating resources for any monolingual neighbors.
So get out there. The next time you’re on a walk with your dog, or walking in a bar crawl, or just walking for your mental health, take some notes. And then use that data to tell the people you elected to get off their asses and do something about Vision Zero.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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