Hello!
It’s been a minute since my last update in December and I hope this finds you well.
On Saturday, we launched our latest analysis, a deep dive into 19M SFMTA parking citations and 300K complaints over the past 15 years. This was a huge project that took 100s of hours over the past four months.
The data is alarming, of the approximately 3,000 parking tickets SFMTA writes daily, only 5% are for violations that affect public safety such as blocking a sidewalk, bike lane, bus stop, safety zone or for abusing a space reserved for the disabled. The vast majority are focused on generating revenue for the SFMTA as quickly and effortlessly as possible primarily through street cleaning and expired meters. Yes, the SFMTA needs money but they absolutely can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time and we’re calling on them to immediately deploy a data-driven parking enforcement strategy that balances public safety with revenue collection and to install commercial loading zones where repeat offenders are racking up thousands of tickets.
Heather Knight at the San Francisco Chronicle reported on our analysis and it was their top story this weekend.
If you’re tired of seeing cars blocking your right of way on the sidewalk, forcing you into traffic by blocking the bike lane, slowing down your bus ride or abusing the space we reserve for the disabled, please take 2 seconds right now to send an email to the SFMTA Board demanding they start taking public safety seriously.
Supervisor Mandelman renews calls for SFPD to enforce our traffic laws.
Last August I released an analysis of 5 years of SFPD traffic enforcement data which alerted San Francisco to the fact that 45 cops are only writing 10 tickets a day. Supervisor Mandelman responded by calling a hearing at City Hall where Luke Bornheimer and I provided recommendations that would make traffic enforcement far more effective and equitable across the city.
Sadly, 9 months later it appears that not much has changed and so on Tuesday Supervisor Mandelman renewed his call to SFPD Chief Bill Scott to deliver a plan to increase enforcement of moving violations on our High Injury Network, the 12% of streets where 68% of fatal and severe traffic related injuries occur, by the end of June.
Last year, San Francisco lost a record 39 people to traffic violence in addition to the 3,495 that were injured. Approximately every 3 hours someone crashes their car and injures someone in San Francisco. That’s 8 times a day, every single day. Enough is enough. The SFMTA must pick up the pace on installing infrastructure that protects pedestrians and cyclists from cars and the SFPD must stop making excuses and immediately start enforcing our traffic laws.
We’re gaining momentum and I need your help.
Since I launched Transpo Maps last April we’ve released 5 projects which have been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Bold Italic, The SF Standard and Streetsblog. More importantly, our work is getting attention at City Hall and I’ve been working with policy makers to reduce our dependency on private cars and make our streets safer. Over the past year, I’ve also been building the infrastructure that will allow our work to scale to other cities which I’m excited to share more about soon.
All of this takes an enormous amount of time and energy and I need your help to continue doing this work. Here are a few ways you can help:
Donate. Every dollar helps keep us moving and goes entirely towards our research, analyses and hosting costs. As a fiscally sponsored project of Seamless Bay Area Alliance, your donation is tax deductible.
Hire Us. If you need help with web design / development or data analysis / visualization let’s talk.
Help us fundraise. Our work is getting press coverage and is turning heads at City Hall. It’s just a matter of time until it inspires policy changes that make our city more livable and safer. If you have experience writing grants or are amazing at fundraising, please reach out. If you know someone who can support our work, please make an introduction.
Share our work. I try to regularly post on all the socials. Every like, retweet and share really helps and is greatly appreciated!
It’s really exciting to see our hard work getting attention and I can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.
Thank you, as always, for supporting me on this journey.
Stephen
SF, CA May 2023