Mourners gathered for a vigil at Cortland Avenue and Mission Street in San Francisco on Thursday to remember a man who was killed in a hit-and-run earlier in the week.
The collision was reported about 3:40 a.m. Monday. Police found the 41-year-old pedestrian had life-threatening injuries after being hit by a car. He was pronounced dead at the hospital despite the efforts of medics and emergency responders, said San Francisco police Officer Robert Rueca.
The man’s name had not been released as of Friday. Candles, flowers and a pair of white tennis shoes, which represent a pedestrian fatality, were placed around a pole at the collision site. The intersection of Cortland Avenue and Mission Street is a busy area for traffic and is a high-injury corridor, said Jodie Medeiros, executive director of Walk San Francisco.
Thursday’s vigil was organized by Walk San Francisco, which advocates to improve pedestrian safety and fix dangerous streets.
‘This is not an isolated incident’
“It’s already been 10 this year and that’s 10 too many,” Medeiros said. “This is not an isolated incident. This is happening throughout San Francisco.”
On average, there are over 500 severe traffic-related injuries every year in San Francisco, according to a preliminary report released last week by the city’s Department of Public Health. Pedestrians are the most vulnerable for both critical and severe injuries in traffic collisions.
“Right now our biggest issue is we have a huge lack of traffic enforcement,” said Jose Morales, who is running for District 11 supervisor in the November election.
“For the past four or five years, SFPD has been issuing less than 20,000 tickets per year in all of San Francisco. Prior to that, they were issuing about 120,000 tickets per year,” said Morales, referring to recently released data from police on traffic citations in the city.
Morales said that making the streets safer is a big part of his campaign.
“SFMTA keeps pushing their Vision Zero goals but they have been incredibly stagnant, so we have things like this happening. They’re not focusing on the actual root cause of the problem.”
Vision Zero is a citywide road safety policy aimed to dramatically reduce traffic-related deaths in San Francisco. Adopted in 2014, outcomes have had little to no change in the past 10 years. Traffic fatalities remain at an average of 30 per year.
Supervisor Hillary Ronen was also in attendance and spoke with Walk San Francisco, hearing their calls for the city to prioritize pedestrian safety. District 9, where the collision occurred, is represented by Ronen on the board of supervisors.
Anyone with information on Monday morning’s hit-and-run is asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD. Tips can remain anonymous.
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