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Ed Lee Promises to Cut Through Bureaucracy on Traffic Deaths

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Advocates displayed 28 shoes for the people who’ve been killed in traffic collisions this year. (Photo: Bryan Goebel/KQED)

On Friday, safe streets advocates and the families of victims killed in collisions held a rally and memorial on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to call on Mayor Ed Lee to take quick action to fix the city's most dangerous streets.

The advocates said they are tired of hearing promises from city officials, only to have important safety projects caught in red tape, and delayed. Now that voters have passed two transportation funding measures, Propositions A and B, they say the city is out of excuses.

Today, responding to Friday's call to action, Mayor Ed Lee says he will move quicker to complete 24 projects that were prioritized as part of the city's Vision Zero plan to end all traffic deaths by 2024.

"Now that we have Prop A. passed, we’re going to be proceeding in a very aggressive way, completing all those 24 projects," Lee said after an event marking the opening of a new supportive housing facility for homeless veterans.

"I’ll do my best to accelerate all these programs," he said, adding that he's been meeting with officials at the Department of Public Works and the Municipal Transportation Agency. "I’m basically going to break down any bureaucracies that hold us back on getting these projects done. "

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Transportation officials say 60 percent of fatal and serious-injury collisions are on 6 percent of city streets, mostly in the Tenderloin, South of Market and Chinatown, where most residents walk, take transit or ride a bike to get around.

Twenty-eight people have been killed in traffic collisions this year, including 18 pedestrians.


A KQED News video from San Francisco's Ride of Silence on May 21, 2014, remembering cyclists and pedestrians killed in the city.

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