Thanks to a $140,000 federal grant, San Franciscans will be seeing a greater police presence around schools, senior centers and other at-risk areas in the coming months. These motorcycle officers will be patrolling the areas, enforcing speed and other basic traffic laws in an attempt to make them safer for pedestrians. Violators will be fined $155 per violation.
SFPD has not yet released the names of those areas in which it plans to increase its presence, but Walk SF Director Elizabeth Stampe is hopeful that it will be around schools and centers located adjacent to major thoroughfares like Market Street. While this targeted increase in enforcement is good news for San Francisco’s most vulnerable pedestrians, the children and the elderly, it is not enough for most of the city’s cyclists and pedestrians. As was pointed out in this blog’s ealier post about Valencia street, San Francisco needs more enforcement, period. San Francisco drivers must be made aware that they will be caught and fined when they drive recklessly and put the lives of the city’s cyclists and pedestrians in danger.
As Stampe commented, “this is helpful and we’re glad to have it, but this is a short-term approach”. What San Francisco needs is an increase in police enforcement of basic traffic laws across the city.
Source:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/transportation/2012/12/beefed-traffic-enforcement-coming-vulnerable-areas-san-francisco