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Engineering and Safety OverviewThe 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:
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 ZonesIn 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 CrosswalksIn 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 SchoolsSan 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.
San Francisco School Traffic Safety Project
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 ProgramApproximately 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 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:
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: One South Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor San Francisco, CA 94103-5417 Phone: (415) 701-4690 School Safety Contact Information:San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Phone: 311
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