A road diet for Channel Street between Fourth Street and the traffic circle; more speed cameras citywide and in District 6; more red-light cameras; more cops; and greater enforcement of traffic violations for all modes of travel. Those are the five key safety measures that our District Supervisor and City officials will push for, attendees of a Mission Bay Street Safety Town Hall heard on April 9.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who organized the Town Hall, started promptly at 6 PM by acknowledging the tragedy that prompted the meeting with condolences to the family, and friends of the family, of the two-year-old girl killed while walking with her mother in the crosswalk at Fourth and Channel streets on Feb. 27. 

“The changes in Mission Bay in the last two years have been profound,” he went on to say of the neighborhood’s growth. “Street safety is an all-hands-on-deck issue.” He then introduced a panel of officials he described as safety experts, from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD), and the Mayor’s office. 

Before moving into the panel discussion, Dorsey acknowledged that implementing safety measures will almost certainly be affected by a citywide funding deficit.

“We have a daunting city budget deficit,” Dorsey, who serves as vice-chair of the Board of Supervisors’ (BOS) Budget Committee, said of the more than $600 Million shortfall. “We’re going to have a lot of departments that are going to have to do a lot more with a lot less. We face constraints at the State level as well.”

Dorsey plans to introduce a resolution at the BOS to bring more speed cameras to the city. A pilot program for 33 speed cameras citywide was implemented in March 2025, with seven cameras installed in District 6, more than in any other supervisorial district, due to the concentration of freeway on- and off-ramps that cross city streets throughout South of Market. Owners of vehicles exceeding 10 miles per hour above the speed limit are cited.

Viktoria Wise, SFMTA Director of Streets, said the agency is logging an 80 percent reduction in speeding due to the cameras. One camera is located at Fifth and King streets, at the base of the I-280 off-ramp onto King Street. 

This location targets vehicles exiting the I-280 freeway that might still be traveling at freeway speeds as they head onto city streets. However, motorists speeding through traffic lights on King Street to I-280 southbound remain a problem, Wise acknowledged. (Note: King Street, due to its width, has the only speed camera in the city that captures speeding vehicles in only one direction.)

Pedestrians cross King Street to get to the Safeway and the Caltrain depot at Fourth and King, as well as the N-Judah platform in the middle of King Street. Crowds of visitors cross King on their way to Oracle Park and Chase Center. If more speed cameras can be secured for San Francisco, a logical location for one is on southbound King Street, ahead of Fourth Street, where motorists frequently speed up to go through one of the most heavily foot-trafficked intersections in the city. (Note: The 2023 pedestrian fatality here occurred when a vehicle turning from a second right-hand turn lane struck a family with a 4-year-old in a stroller. The second right-hand turn lane was subsequently eliminated.) 

Although not discussed by panelists, but as Berry Street residents who regularly cross the stub of Fifth Street that ends at Berry can attest from first-hand experience, the speed camera for motorists entering the city one block away has not changed behaviors of motorists who blow through the All-Way STOP sign at Berry in order to race toward Fourth Street. That definitely is still happening.

(Note: Just an observation but… One block in either direction from Fourth and Berry, a child was struck and killed in a crosswalk.)

Wise also noted that SFMTA is expanding the red-light camera program. Six more red-light cameras are being added to the 13 already installed citywide. A few are in District 6, but none are in Mission Bay. 

Road Diet, Anyone?

South of Mission Creek, Channel Street has two vehicle lanes in both the eastbound and westbound directions between Fourth Street and the traffic circle, and is one of the widest streets in Mission Bay. SFMTA panelists declared Channel Street to be “too wide” along this stretch. It could be reduced to a single vehicle lane each way, and allow room for dedicated bike lanes, pending further study.

Violation-Based Enforcement

SFPD’s renewed effort to crack down on moving violations is based on “enforcement of the type of violation we see, not the mode of transportation,” reported Brien Hoo, SFPD Commander, Special Operations Bureau. 

It’s “injury-based enforcement,” added Steven Betz, Assistance Chief of Public Safety for the Mayor’s office. Data from high-injury network reports are used. Regulations lag behind rapidly changing motorized or battery-powered modalities available to roadway users. For regulating e-bike users, City officials “will develop a strategy.”

Having more cops assigned to the Southern Station is another strategy Supervisor Dorsey is going to pursue. See related story that follows.

Police response time to the Feb. 27 crash at Fourth and Channel, from when the first 911 call came in to when police arrived on the scene, was three minutes.

A Few Improvements Already Underway

Improvements already planned for Mission Bay include the pedestrian-activated flashing beacon for Fourth Street and Mission Rock Street, a traffic signal at Long Bridge Street, and the Mission Bay Blvd. Quick-Build Project that have all been covered in MB News. 

Wise noted that 70 percent of intersections in Mission Bay have been day-lighted. Day-lighting – a strategy that removes parking near crosswalks to improve visibility for approaching roadway users – “is centered mostly on the high-injury network and near schools, parks, libraries, and senior centers,” she said. 

Julie Kirschbaum, SFMTA’s Director of Transportation, noted that in March 2025, the SFMTA Board of Directors adopted the San Francisco Biking and Rolling Plan, the first comprehensive update to the city’s bicycle network in over a decade. The plan aims to create safer, more connected streets for cyclists and scooter users over the next 20 years. 

Other Town Hall Highlights

Comments from the audience were taken following the panel discussion.

A request for Audible Pedestrian Signals, referred to by SFMTA as Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS), came from a blind neighbor who attended the Town Hall with his guide dog. He commented that the neighborhood is too new not to have them installed already, and said that he’d submitted multiple 311 ticket requests for the signals at several key intersections, notably for crossings of wide streets such as Sixteenth Street and Terry A. Francois Boulevard. 

APS devices use nonvisual formats like sounds, words, or tactile vibrations to communicate to visually impaired persons when it’s safe to cross. These are the yellow devices that have a push-button, make ticking noises, are typically marked with a picture of a person in a wheelchair or using a cane, and carry the words, “Accessible Message Only.” 

Though APS devices are available at crosswalks throughout the city, the neighbor pointed out that they’re needed in locations throughout Mission Bay. Because these devices use sounds to communicate, the neighbor said they can also benefit sighted people “who are often looking down at their phones.” 

Another resident, attending with her family, drew attention to the fact that two events were taking place the night of the traffic fatality, one at a Pier 48 warehouse and one at Chase Center, and there was no crossing guard at Fourth and Channel, nor a police presence anywhere. She called for crossing guards and a greater police presence on nights when events bring visitors to the neighborhood. 

“We love the events, but we’re families,” she said, and “there needs to be balance and traffic enforcement” on neighborhood streets.

A third resident requested STOP signs on Terry A. Francois Blvd., especially at Mission Bay Blvd. North and South. Terry Francois is a very wide street which many pedestrians cross to get from the east end of Mission Bay Commons to Bayfront Park or a waterfront stroll to China Basin Park. Motorists treat the wide straightaway that has no traffic regulation on it as a speedway. 

“All the attention is being focused on Channel Street and Fourth Street and the streets nearest the school, and we appreciate that,” the speaker told the panel, before describing the dangerous conditions and the need to make Terry Francois a safer roadway. “A lot of the children in this neighborhood live over here,” she said, indicating the blocks east of Third Street, itself a wide, busy street. “Children need to be able to get to the school from here, too.”

Sizable Crowd + Neighborhood Engagement = Message to Officials

The Town Hall drew a crowd estimated at 120. There were a range of ages, and a contingent of parents brought young children, including a few babies. A play area for younger kids was set up in the back.

Instead of the smaller community room where monthly Southern Station meetings are held, the Town Hall took place in the spacious lobby of the Public Safety Building. The capacity crowd indicated by a show of hands that many in the audience were residents of Mission Bay. 

One attendee wrote to this correspondent following the event: “The packed room at the Street Safety meeting was excellent. A very good start. Shows active interest from residents. This type of participation will force city officials to notice and heed the voice of Mission Bay residents.” 

Attendees included folks from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Chase Center, the Port of San Francisco, Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure (OCII), Mission Bay Development Group (MBDG), and several members of the Mission Bay Citizens’ Advisory Committee (MB CAC), on the night the advisory committee would have met for its regular monthly meeting. Nonprofit advocacy group Walk SF’s executive director Jodie Medeiros also attended.

New Driveway for Seventh Street Not Mentioned in Town Hall

Referencing the Biking and Rolling Plan, and how Seventh Street is on this network, MB News took the opportunity following the Town Hall to ask Kirschbaum if she knew that the Amazon last-mile distribution center planned for 900 Seventh Street proposes to cut a new driveway across the Seventh Street bike lane so that the building can disgorge more than 500 delivery vans directly onto Seventh Street, in waves of 20 to 40 vans at a time, in a two-hour window on a daily basis. Amazon expects to send an employee out to the street to wave a flag in order to stop all modes of traffic for the vans to exit. 

She had not heard of this, she said, and looked skeptical. She thanked me for flagging it, and said she’d “look into it with Planning.” 

SFPD Needs to Get Serious About Staffing Southern!

Supervisor Matt Dorsey has announced he will hold a hearing at the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on increasing staffing for the Southern Station. The upcoming committee hearing, likely to be scheduled in May, was made at the April 7 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (BOS). 

Dorsey represents Supervisorial District 6 on the BOS, which for the time being conforms more or less to the current San Francisco Police Department (SFPD)’s Southern District. However, due to recent redrawing of the city’s 10 police district boundaries, the Southern District has been designated for expansion later in 2026. Southern is the only police district which will have a significant geographic expansion, and the additional blocks will substantially increase the volume of police service calls which come into the already overburdened and understaffed Southern Station.

Mission Bay falls with District 6 on the BOS, and the Southern Police District. 

The Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee hearing will be a venue more focused than the SFPD Police Commission or the monthly Southern Station meetings for the community to get updates on the SFPD’s plan to assign more officers to Southern. Police redistricting and Southern Station’s understaffing is a double-sided story that MB News has been following closely. 

“We were promised more officers if we took on more territory, and the Department needs to be held accountable to that promise,” District 6 legislative aide Madison Tam wrote to D6 stakeholders following the announcement. “We are asking them to answer to the Supervisor at a formal Board hearing.” 

 Below is Supervisor Dorsey’s April 7 address to the BOS: 

“I am today submitting a hearing request to address ongoing police staffing challenges in the Southern Police District.  Simply stated, Southern is not staffed at levels that reflect its workload, or its complexity. When scrutinizing police call volume, response times, population density, and the concentration of commercial and nightlife activity — as many of my constituents routinely do — it has become evident that Southern is stretched far too thin, far too often. 

“Even as SFPD’s overall citywide recommended staffing levels saw significant increases in the last year, Southern is failing to keep pace with other districts that face similar — and, in many cases, lesser — demands.

• According to the 2025 SFPD Staffing Analysis, Southern patrol officers respond to 390 calls per officer, the second highest workload in the city 
• And its sector patrol is currently staffed at only 78% of its recommended level — while many other districts come meet, or even exceed, their recommended number. 

“This imbalance has real consequences. It means longer response times, fewer opportunities for proactive policing, (and) increased strain on the officers who are assigned there. No public safety imperative — whether it’s policing drug markets, responding to violent crime, or enforcing traffic laws — is well-served by an understaffed station. It also makes it more difficult to build the kind of consistent, community-based presence that residents and businesses in District 6 both expect and deserve.

“Many of my constituents are voicing serious concerns that the existing challenges will only be exacerbated later this year, when the Southern Police District expands to take on even more territory on Market Street. During the police redistricting process, I was clear with the community and the Department that increased call volumes must come with a commensurate increase in additional officers. 

“District 6 stakeholders deserve transparency about SFPD’s plan to increase staffing to meet the new workload, and also to address systemic understaffing that has plagued this district before its boundaries were expanded to include the Market Street corridor. Every neighborhood deserves a level of police service that matches its needs. And I yield to no one in the work I have done — not all of it successful — to increase police staffing citywide. But right now, I don’t believe Southern is getting a level of service commensurate with its needs. 

“I’m committed to working with the Department to develop a strategy that closes that gap in a meaningful and lasting way. My constituents deserve nothing less.”

The District 6 office will notify community members when the hearing will be held so we can engage on this topic. 

Parks in the Pipeline

Requests for Proposals (RFP) for the future parks on P12, P13, P15, and P7/P9, were recently completed. Design teams will lead an approximately 12-month Schematic Design phase, to be followed by construction documents and permitting. Plural Landscape Architects, who led the outreach phase, will be the design lead for the P7/P9 active recreation parks. CMG Landscape Architecture, with TS Studio as Associate Landscape Architect, will lead the redesign of the three Commons parcels on P12, P13 and P15 that have been occupied in the interim by the soccer field, Parklab Community Garden, SPARK Social, Parklab Gardens and Stagecoach Greens, the mini golf course. “We should have more detailed design concepts to share later this summer,” reported Luke Stewart, managing principal for Mission Bay Development Group (MBDG). The future “parks in the pipeline”, as well as more housing that’s planned for Mission Bay, were also mentioned by Supervisor Dorsey during his opening remarks at the Town Hall as reasons “street safety has never been more important” here.

Calendar

Mission Bay NA Launch!
New Civic Group Hosts Guest Speaker Supervisor Matt Dorsey

Date: Thursday, May 7
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: LUMA Hotel, 100 Channel Street
Details: After months of planning, a new Mission Bay Neighborhood Association is forming, just when Mission Bay is going to need all the representation it can get on key issues and just plain getting to know neighbors. Supervisor Dorsey will be our first guest speaker, and LUMA Hotel has graciously offered to be our community partner by providing a meeting room in which to hold our meetings going forward. A dynamic group of neighbors are working on this. Please contact bettina.cohen@sonic.net if you want to get involved. All are welcome. Click here to RSVP!