Turk Street Safety Project
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees all ground transportation in the city, today joined District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim to announce the completion of the Turk Street Safety Project. The project directly supports Vision Zero, the city’s goal to eliminate traffic fatalities, by implementing pedestrian and bicycle safety upgrades on Turk Street from Mason to Polk streets.
Over a five-year period, the area had seen a total of 174 traffic collisions, with 92 of the reported collisions involving people walking and biking. For years, Turk Street has been on the city’s “High-Injury Network” – the 13 percent of streets that account for 75 percent of the city’s severe and fatal traffic crashes. In order to address the safety concern, the SFMTA, Supervisor Kim and the Tenderloin community started work in spring 2016 to develop and implement the much-needed safety improvements on Turk Street.
“Turk Street is on the high injury network and is an essential part of the bike network, I am proud to bring the first protected bike lane to the Tenderloin community as it will keep our cyclists safe and bring San Francisco a step closer to achieving vision zero.”
New additions to Turk Street include high visibility crosswalks, painted safety zones, signal improvements and a protected bike lane. The new protected bikeway, the first for the Tenderloin Neighborhood, runs from Mason to Polk streets, guarded by vertical flex-posts and a 10-foot buffer. While no parking will be allowed in this buffer, active loading will be allowed to support the needs of local merchants and residents.
“The Turk Street Safety Project is an example of how our communities and city agencies are working together to create safer streets in support of Vision Zero,” said Ed Reiskin, SFMTA Director of Transportation. “By using data to identify the traffic safety issues on Turk and the community’s ideas to redesign the street, we were able to install the first protected bikeway in the Tenderloin while making the street work better for all modes of travel.”
Turk Street is a vibrant corridor with an ecletic mix of residents and businesses. The street supports an extremely high density of both historic buildings and newer developments. Home to playgrounds, schools, light industry, retail, entertainment, and a number of service providers and care facilities, Turk is a street teeming with San Francisco’s life and energy.
"We’re ecstatic to be celebrating our newest protected bike lane. Collaboration with our community partners has been central to arriving at a dramatically transformed street which works well for everyone. From now on, people riding their bicycles won’t have to fight for space with three lanes of traffic, and people walking and in wheelchairs won’t have to navigate people riding on the sidewalks," said Charles Deffarges, Community Organizer.