AS SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT gears up for the first day of school on Monday, educators and law enforcement are urging the public to travel with extra caution to ensure students can get to and from school safely.
SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su, Interim Police Chief Paul Yep, District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Director Julie Kirschbaum, SFUSD Commissioner Supryia Ray, and others gathered outside Ulloa Elementary School in the Sunset District on Thursday for a press conference reminding drivers to be mindful of students on the streets.
“Thousands of students travel to school every day, by bus, by car, on foot and in many other ways,” Ray said in a speech. “However they get here, they all deserve to be safe.”
Mellisa Jew, the principal of Ulloa Elementary, said she has previously witnessed dangerous maneuvers by drivers around her school.
“Sometimes we have cars double parking, or letting students get out their cars in the middle of the street. Sometimes we have people doing U-turns in front of our schools,” Jew said in an interview. “It does get congested because there are multiple schools around this so a lot of times people are running late.”
SFPD’s traffic division will conduct police operations for bicycle and child pedestrian safety around public schools in the city as part of back-to-school season, according to Yep.
“We will focus our enforcement efforts on behaviors that jeopardize pedestrian and bicycle safety, including failure to yield to pedestrians, red light and stop sign violations and other dangerous behavior,” Yep said in a speech.
Officers will also be on the lookout for traffic law violations involving electric bicycles and scooters.
“We’ve seen a proliferation of electric scooters and E bikes in our city and around the region,” said Yep. “Unfortunately, there have been several collisions in and around our jurisdiction in recent weeks that have led to fatal or serious injuries.”
We all need to play our part. We want to make sure that everyone gets to school safely, Get home safely, and that we’re respecting and honoring everyone.
Maria Su, SFUSD Superintendent
On Friday, Aug. 9, a 4-year-old boy was killed in Burlingame in a chain-reaction involving an E-bike. According to the Burlingame Police Department, a vehicle accelerated onto the sidewalk where the boy was standing after the car was hit by an E-bike.
Last month, a 77-year-old pedestrian died after being struck by an E-bike at the intersection of Market and Sixth streets in San Francisco, according to police.
“If you are riding an E-bike or scooter, you must obey traffic laws and watch out for pedestrians,” Yep said.
For this first time this school year, all curbs at crosswalks surrounding schools have been painted red in accordance with the statewide “daylighting” law, which went into effect January 1. The law makes it illegal to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk.
“One of the things that we’ve been working on particularly hard over the last six months is to do daylighting around our school zones, because kids are shorter, they’re often harder to see around cars,” Kirschbaum said. “Parking a little bit back from the intersection can be just a really simple way to keep kids safe, and we’ve been painting red curbs so drivers know how to abide by that critical safety rule.”
There were also school bus drivers and crossing guards at the conference discussing appropriate ways to maneuver near school buses and cross walks with children.
Joel Kashimer is a crossing guard who works at the busy 19th Avenue and Judah Street crosswalk. He has encountered pedestrians who become upset at crossing guards who limit them to crossing only when it is safe.
“We just urge people to be more respectful to the crossing guards,” he said in an interview. “We try to protect people. Sometimes they get angry or impatient if they’re in a hurry to catch their bus, but I hope they wouldn’t take out their frustrations on us.”
Starting off the school year on a safe note, Su said, is a team effort that requires drivers, students, pedestrians, cyclists to all follow the rules of the road.
“We all need to play our part,” Su emphasized. “We want to make sure that everyone gets to school safely, Get home safely, and that we’re respecting and honoring everyone.”