• Engineering and Safety Overview
• 15 Mile Per Hour School Zones
• Repainting School Crosswalks
• Safe Routes to Schools
• San Francisco School Traffic Safety Project
• Adult School Crossing Guard Program

Engineering and Safety Overview

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Transportation Engineering/Livable Streets Subdivisions provide a number of services to help increase traffic safety around San Francisco Schools. Some of the services we provide include:

• Responding to traffic and pedestrian safety concerns related to schools
• Evaluating intersections for adult school crossing guards
• Coordinating the approval and installation of school bus and passenger loading (white) zones
• Working with individual schools to develop traffic circulation plans
• Coordinating with San Francisco Unified School District and other City departments on multi-jurisdictional issues

In addition, the SFMTA applies for and implements federal, state and regional grants to help fund school area safety upgrades to the existing City infrastructure. Grants help fund such safety devices as upgrading school crosswalks to yellow, continental-style crosswalks, replacing traditional yellow warning signs with fluorescent yellow-green warning signs, constructing new traffic signals, and constructing new traffic calming devices such as speed humps, medians and sidewalk bulb-outs. We also coordinate grants with other city departments on more comprehensive approaches to increasing traffic safety around schools which you can find on the School Safety Education/Encouragement page.

15 Mile Per Hour School Zones

In May 2012 the SFMTA completed its project to reduce speed limits around all of San Francisco's schools to 15MPH. The map below shows the streets that qualified for the speed reduction.

Repainting School Crosswalks

In 2011, the SFMTA received extra funds to repaint 25 faded school crosswalks. School crosswalks are yellow and have horizontal stripes like a ladder. If you know of a school crosswalk that could use a new paint job, e-mail laura.stonehill@sfmta.com with the location and attach a picture.

A Newly Painted School Crosswalk

A Faded School Crosswalk That Could Use a New Paint Job

Safe Routes to Schools

San Francisco has been actively applying for Safe Routes to Schools grants that are administered by the Caltrans Safe Routes to School Program to help fund traffic safety infrastructure improvements at various schools in the City. Since the Caltrans program’s inception in 1999, San Francisco has been awarded 12 grants which helped fund 12 school area safety improvement projects around the City.

Gateway Treatment on Excelsior Avenue at Madrid Street in front of Monroe School

San Francisco School Traffic Safety Project

 Longfellow Elementary School’s “Walk to Win Wednesday” Walking School Bus

This two-year program funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) helped address traffic safety concerns around schools by evaluating existing driver and pedestrian behavior, educating drivers about traffic safety around schools, and to better manage the pick-up/drop-off zones with new procedures and enforcement at 11 schools around San Francisco. This was a collaboration between the San Francisco Unified School District School Health Programs, the individual schools, a traffic safety consultant and the SFMTA.

The goal was to better manage these procedures to increase safety for children through engineering, education, encouragement and enforcement measures. With the help of each of the school’s assigned Traffic Safety Coordinators and additional input from parents, the SFMTA helped created circulation plans around each school. The SFMTA also helped optimize loading zones, and handed out educational materials for parents and children to review. Another component of the program was to help schools create education and encouragement efforts to learn about alternative transportation modes to get to and from school. This project helped create several walking school buses, school safety assemblies and new educational material. Last but not least, SFMTA Parking Enforcement was deployed to help enforce the parking laws around the schools.

Overall, the project helped reduce traffic violations at most of the participating schools – in one case, over 80%!  While we could not continue this project due to the funding expiring in 2009, many of the goals and procedures continue in the San Francisco Safe Routes to School Program which started immediately after this project was completed. In fact, some parts of this project such as the education and enforcement aspects have been expanded in the new program.

Adult School Crossing Guard Program

Approximately 140 adult school crossing guards serve public and private schools throughout the City, assisting children in arriving and departing safely each day. Placement and assignment of crossing guards is dependent on a number of criteria so that they are placed at intersections where they are needed the most. Learn more:

• Crossing Guard Locations
• Crossing Guard Primary Responsibilities
• Request a Crossing Guard
• Crossing Guard Program Contact Information

Crossing Guard Locations
Please click for the Map of San Francisco Crossing Guards (pdf). Zoom in on a school to see whether there is a crossing guard at a particular intersection.

Crossing Guard Primary Responsibilities
The primary responsibility of a school crossing guard is to cross students traveling to and from school, alone or accompanied by their parents in the designated crosswalks and according to existing intersection controls.   School crossing guards are not responsible for crossing all adults.  However, when there are no children crossing alone or with an adult, they may cross other pedestrians who need assistance to cross the street safely.  This may include any pedestrians with physical limitations that prevent them from crossing the street safely on their own.

Request a Crossing Guard
To request a crossing guard, you will need to fill out a Crossing Guard Request Form (PDF). The school principal must sign the request and send it to the SFMTA via fax (415.701.4737).

A traffic engineer or planner will conduct traffic surveys at the requested corners. Traffic surveys look at many factors, but four basic criteria must be met in order for a corner to be eligible for a crossing guard:

• The school must be K-8 grades or some subset thereof.
• The corner requested must be a designated school crossing (yellow ladder crosswalks).
• 300 or more vehicles per hour travel through the intersection before the school arrival or after school dismissal.
• A minimum of 10 student-pedestrians cross during a ten minute period before the school arrival or after the school dismissal.

All surveyed corners are scored and ranked. When budgeted crossing guard positions are available, the highest ranked corners are filled first.

Crossing Guard Program Contact:
Adult School Crossing Guard Program

One South Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94103-5417

Phone: (415) 701-4690
Fax: (415) 701-4737

School Safety Contact Information:

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Transportation Engineering/Livable Streets
One South Van Ness Avenue - 7th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103-5417

Phone: 311
E-Mail the School Safety Program via the San Francisco 311 Self Service Portal.