Before: lanes on Masonic hardly discernible
After: Northbound travel lanes on Masonic
Re-striping from Fell to Turk
SFMTA crews started re-striping the badly faded traffic lanes of Masonic Avenue last Friday, beginning with the northbound side of the corridor. As of Tuesday morning, fresh thermoplasty stripes had been applied from Fell to Turk streets. Hopefully, this morning's showers will cause only a temporary delay on completing the work in both directions. Other traffic calming measures due to appear are stenciled 25 MPH advisories on the pavement and merge indicators.
Although the work was planned for several weeks, the Masonic striping occurs in the midst of renewed concern about the safety of the corridor. A 35-year-old woman was struck by a motorist running a red light on Masonic at Grove yesterday morning. She broke both legs and suffered internal and head injuries. The woman was jogging through the crosswalk with the right-of-way at the time of the collision. The motorist hit her and then continued through the intersection and collided with another vehicle. A second person was also injured and taken to the hospital. SFPD Park Station has announced that officers will focus their traffic enforcement operations along the Masonic corridor for the rest of April.
After seeing this story yesterday I was extra cautious along Masonic, both for runners and cops. Light turned yellow on me approaching Oak so I stopped, meanwhile cars (yes multiple) from both directions blew past me, accelerating through the light that had turned RED. 7am this morning and didn't see any cops out there.
ReplyDeleteClydesdaletri: today's and yesterdays' BIKE NOPA posts and comments are being sent to Captain Denis O'Leary at SFPD Park Station. Thanks for your eyes-on-the-street report.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think that the driver ran the red light because the crosswalk lines needed repainting?
ReplyDeleteRob: I don't take this as a serious question. For many drivers, re-striped lanes or crosswalks or obviously RED LIGHTS will not deter them from speeding and endangering others' lives. No one would expect one traffic calming measure on its own to solve these problems. I do think that the complete package of several measures, as proposed in the Boulevard plan for Masonic, has the best chance to reduce risks, avoid injuries, and create safer passage for all users.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rob Anderson's insinuation that the city should install speed bumps on Masonic.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is---and the city's annual collision reports show it---that Masonic Avenue is not particularly dangerous for anyone, especially considering the volume of traffic in handles, more than 32,000 cars a day.
ReplyDeleteThere are no Masonic intersections on the list of dangerous intersections for the years of 1995-1997 on page 5 of the MTA's "San Francisco 2008 Collisions Report," of December, 2009, the most recent such report. Nor are there any Masonic Ave. intersections on the list for 2005-2007 on page 6.
But Masonic and O'Farrell/Anza is on the list for 2008 (page 12). There were 4 injury accidents there in 2007 and 7 in 2008, not exactly a bloodbath. But the report tells us on the next page that to improve that intersection it did some "signal timing and parking changes in 2008 to improve the operation of this intersection."
But Masonic/O'Farrell/Anza doesn't appear on the list of intersections with the most injury collisions over a three-year period (2006-2008). In other words, the seven accidents in 2008 were probably a anomaly. We'll see in the next collision report. But Masonic doesn't consistently have any of the most dangerous intersections in the city.
But there has been an increase in "motor vehicle involved with bicycle" injuries at Fell and Masonic, but the numbers aren't big---17 such accidents between 2006 and 2008, up from only four between 2003-2005. But that's probably due to the sheer volume of cyclists that cross that intersection, which is in the middle of the Panhandle's foot/bike path on the north side of the park. The "City of San Francisco 2010 Bicycle Count Report" does show an increased cyclist count at that intersection.
The Powerpoint presentation (http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/CDG/docs/masonic/Masonic_Community_Meeting_One.pdf) that the city gave the Masonic neighborhood last year also has numbers on Masonic showing that there aren't that many accidents on Masonic: in the six years between 2004 and 2009, there were 27 "collisions" involving bicycles on Masonic. That's a little over four a year on a street that carries more than 32,000 vehicles a day. On page 31 we learn that 17 pedestrians have been injured on Masonic during that same time, an average of less than three a year. The city doesn't tell us who was responsible for these accidents, and the assumption is that speeding motor vehicles are at fault. But the city's 2008 Bicycle Collision Report of Feb. 2010 admits that cyclists are responsible for at least 50% of their own injury accidents due to their reckless, unsafe riding on the streets of the city. I suspect the same is true of pedestrian accidents, but the city doesn't have that information.
There's no indication that anyone either at Bikenopa or on Streetsblog is reading these documents, or maybe you have and are ignoring them because they don't support the sense of emergency you're trying to create around the alleged safety problems of Masonic.
I cross Masonic on foot almost every day, since I often shop at Lucky's, and I never feel at all unsafe.
Rob: As indicated in the several surveys of Masonic area residents,a majority do not feel as safe as you do using Masonic -- walking, biking or driving.
ReplyDeleteYou and the Bicycle Coalition have whipped up a lot of hysteria about the alleged dangers on Masonic---shamelessly using the occasional accident in the campaign---but the facts show that Masonic isn't particularly dangerous for anyone. As I say, I've never seen any evidence that you and your allies at the SFBC and Streetsblog even read the city's reports. On the other hand, why should you bother if you can get City Hall to do your bidding without doing so?
ReplyDeleteI believe that the statistics above are a bit skewed as Masonic is such a fast moving thoroughfare that currently few cyclists use it. If it were calmed cyclists and pedestrians would more likely be able to use this strategic link between the northern and southern parts of the City.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that when Target is added to the mix, the O'Farrell/Anza intersection will see far more accidents if that intersection is not redesigned with a southbound Masonic left turn signal into eastbound O'Farrell.
Collisions, injuries, street design:
ReplyDeletehttp://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/04/15/a-bicycle-riders-crash-on-valencia-street-and-a-failure-of-design/
That accident on Valencia had nothing to do with street design. The cyclist fell off his bike in the path of a car.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to regrettably agree with Rob, and the story, that it was completely an accident. I can't agree that Masonic is a "safe" street. Doug correctly points out that no cyclist in their right mind would ride on Masonic in its current state. Right now it is nearly a freeway in the city. If/when it is renovated, it could be a vibrant area, but currently a blemish.
ReplyDeleteClydesdaletri: Some clarity about the incident on Valencia mentioned in this thread. We all recognize that street design did not CAUSE the terrible circumstances of the cyclist falling, apparently into the vehicle traffic lane. But a fully-separated bike lane design with cyclists travelling in a more protected space could have reduced the severity of the outcome. The condition of Masonic speaks for itself, as significant majorities of residents in the area have repeatedly stated. Is this belief unanimous and the street experience uniformly shared? We know where we live.
ReplyDelete