Community Adds Missing Crosswalk to The Wiggle
Last Saturday night, the evening before Wigglefest brought hundreds of people to the area of Steiner St and Duboce Ave, community members took to the street to paint a crosswalk where many people were already crossing the street.
Community members applying paint and reflective glass beads to a new crosswalk at Steiner and Duboce Ave.
The Wiggle is a walking and cycling route between Market Street and the Panhandle which is short, pleasant, and relatively flat, following a long-buried stream. Not only does it form the easiest route to bike between the east and west sides of San Francisco, it also passes multiple parks (Duboce Park and the aforementioned Panhandle) and runs through commercial areas along Haight and Divisadero Streets. Thousands of people travel through the area every day whether on crosstown trips or enjoying the many parks and businesses alongside it.
Last weekend's Wigglefest was promoting Wiggle Plaza, the proposal to pedestrianize Steiner between Duboce and Waller to reduce car through traffic and make a space space for pedestrians and bikers.
The corner of Steiner, Duboce, and Sanchez is a particularly busy and complex intersection. Despite its proximity to many destinations, including a stop on the N Judah line, not all natural crossings are marked. Due to the offset nature of the streets, there is a natural path many people walking take from the east side of Steiner to the west side of Sanchez. Despite this, there was previously no marked crosswalk at this location.
The term "unmarked crosswalk" has a legal definition which this intersection meets. As drivers are required to yield to people crossing at both marked and unmarked crosswalks, upgrading this location with paint helps to protect people exercising their legal right. The crosswalk saw heavy use starting the moment the paint dried that night, and this continued through the Wigglefest on Sunday, where hundreds of San Franciscans came out to celebrate car free spaces and multimodal transportation.
Despite the community quickly embracing the new crosswalk, DPW came out Monday morning to remove it. They refreshed the paint on the remaining crosswalks at the intersection as a consolation on Wednesday morning.
This level of urgency to actively reduce safety at a high-traffic intersection is notable compared to the relative inaction undertaken this year in response to actual roadway fatalities. At the time of publishing, the city has 8 fatalities listed on the Traffic Fatality Dashboard and recommended actions to prevent future fatalities at these locations are almost exclusively limited to repainting crosswalks and curbside daylighting. This response shows that the Mayor's office has the willpower and ability to quickly respond with more than just paint when they believe a street needs an urgent change, but that their view of urgency is tied to someone violating their process, not serious safety concerns like traffic fatalities.
People in the community, who experience our streets on a daily basis, know where improvements are needed and can execute them quickly. We are calling on the city to recognize and formalize this crossing, and get cars off the Wiggle entirely. Wiggle Plaza will become reality, sooner rather than later. In the meantime, people will continue to cross here. It's only natural.
A pedestrian crossing the intersection along the path of the removed crosswalk
Check out our full video on the subject: