Our Impact

The Collapse of San Francisco Traffic Enforcement

On August 5th, 2022 we published a detailed analysis of 5 years of SFPD traffic enforcement data that showed a 95% collapse in traffic enforcement in San Francisco between 2019 and 2022 and that 45 officers were writing just 10 citations per day on average citywide. We brought the story to Heather Knight who published it in the San Francisco Chronicle which prompted District 8 Supervisor Raphael Mandelman to call a series of hearings demanding that the San Francisco Police Department come up with a plan to return traffic enforcement to 2019 levels. On October 19th, 2022 we presented our analysis at City Hall alongside recommendations on how the SFPD can optimize its limited traffic enforcement resources.  We applaud Supervisor Mandelman's efforts to hold the SFPD accountable and look forward to the next hearing on traffic enforcement which is scheduled for early 2024.

Hayes Valley Shared Streets

Hayes Valley is a vibrant commercial corridor tucked between Alamo Square and the Civic Center in San Francisco. In August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hayes Valley Merchant Council applied for a permit to close Hayes Street to vehicle traffic on the weekends so merchants could safely operate their businesses outdoors. The Hayes Valley Shared Streets program, as it came to be called, became an economic lifeline for businesses along Hayes Street and created a safe, open space for the community to congregate as the pandemic subsided. In October 2023 however, the SFMTA and San Franciso Fire Department threatened to shut down the program claiming that it was impeding the fire department's ability to respond to emergency calls in the neighborhood.

To challenge this, we analyzed crash data and 911 emergency calls to Hayes Valley since the shared spaces program began and found that the number of vehicle crashes had gone down and the fire deparment's response time to the neighborhood had not been negatively impacted by the street closure. Our analysis, alongside support from Supervisor Dean Preston's office, the Hayes Valley Merchant Council and SFMTA board helped preserve this critical open space for local businesses and people  and helped launch a movement to make Hayes Street permanently car-free.

Showing How Slow Streets Improve Public Safety

On December 8th, 2022 we published an analysis of crash data on 15 San Francisco "Slow Streets" which showed that all but two had experienced a significant decrease in motor vehicle crashes resulting in injury during the 18 months since becoming a slow street compared to the 18 months prior. Ricardo Cano published our analysis in the San Francisco Chronicle and Stephen highlighted our analysis during the SFMTA Board of Directors hearing  where the Slow Streets program was ultimately approved.

Converting Metered Parking to Passenger & Commercial Loading in Mission Bay

In January 2020, a Safe Lanes user who had been using our app to document illegally parked vehicles on 4th Street in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, reached out to us to see if we could help them take the data they had collected and use it to pressure the city to convert metered parking on 4th Street to passenger and commercial loading. Once we saw the data, we submitted the request to the SFMTA, presented our case at a subsequent engineering hearing and successfully had the metered parking converted to loading zones which has eliminated double parking in the unprotected bike lane that is there, making it much safer for everyone traveling along 4th Street.