Nils Hayat
Luke BornheimerWhat’s it like to live on a “residential” street in San Francisco?
4,000+ cars and trucks per day (metrics measured between 6 AM and 8 PM only)
This is policy and infrastructure failure.
This “residential” street is also a common route for people on bikes.
@NACTO’s guidance for all ages and abilities bike facilities states this street should have a protected bike lane.
Currently, people on bikes are required to “share the road” with cars.
Navigation apps (e.g. Waze) have resulted in residential streets being used as cut-throughs at all hours.
Transportation agencies (e.g. SFMTA) need to implement policy and infrastructure to fix this issue, make residential streets safer / more livable, and fight climate change.
Turns out there are even more cars/trucks!
Second day had 4,600+ cars and trucks during daylight hours (when the sensor can properly count), so the street likely has more than 5,000 cars and trucks per day.
This is unacceptable for a residential street; SFMTA should address it.
A holiday weekend shows this “residential” street sees 4,000+ cars/trucks per day even on weekends and holidays.
Meanwhile, the V85 speed — the speed of the 85th percentile of all cars/trucks — is ~25 mph, despite >6% of drivers going over 31 mph, highlighting an issue with V85.
SFMTA is using an even worse metric — “median speed” (or V50) — for Slow Streets, making Slow Streets more dangerous for people and ineffective at getting people to shift trips to active/sustainable modes (e.g. bikes). SFMTA should use V95 to make Slow Streets safe and effective.
Paul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0@LukeBornheimer and of course it's that tail of increased speed that really really increases risk: higher speed means both less time to react (so more likely to collide) and damage is more severe.
But stats on median speed look so comforting, why scare people by pointing out the higher risk segmen
lisa c@LukeBornheimer this is crazy. My street is one of the residential streets that has been greatly changed by the Uber and Waze apps. There used to be not too much traffic and now it's bumper-to-bumper during rush hour. I can easily count 30–40 or more cars rolling the stop sign where I wait for the cable car in 30 minutes or so.
stevenray@LukeBornheimer is this a specific street or a median value, Luke? Thanks.
@stevenray A specific street (15th Street).
@LukeBornheimer thanks much.
@stevenray You’re welcome!
DΛNIEL TʘMΛN@LukeBornheimer wow, may I ask what street? or generally what area. just curious
Absolutely, 15th Street between Church and Dolores.
@LukeBornheimer yeah that should be the more residential part of 15th St, agreed. 15th can be pretty busy E of Guerrero where it’s a one way, but you’re 2 blocks W of Guerrero where it’s a normal both directions street.
(you know this of course, just thinking out loud for others’ context.)
are they still traffic calming on Church, has that had an impact on your street, people looking for alternate routes?
also a block off Market. thru drivers should prefer 16th & 14th right?
Alex Rosenberg@LukeBornheimer Interesting device that unfortunately wouldn't work on our curved street with few street-facing windows. I wonder if anybody has a similar classifier for security cameras.
You could try to put the device in a weatherproof case with external power connected, or get someone to hack something together using OpenCV.
Jym Dyer 🚲🌎@LukeBornheimer - My own residential street also has a steady stream of AVs rolling down it. I see at least one a day, usually two, and I don’t really hang out on the street or even the front of the house all that much.