Assessing Public Outreach About Slow Streets in San Francisco

Abstract

In April 2020, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) launched a Slow Streets program, shutting down 24 corridors to thru traffic. To assess resident perceptions of the program, SFMTA issued an online questionnaire in April 2020. In addition, SFMTA received more than 1,000 emails from residents providing comments and requests about the program. This study set out to analyze the recommendations from the questionnaire and resident emails to extract implications for future Slow Streets and help guide SFMTA’s outreach and communication efforts moving forward. The spatial analysis demonstrated that out of all the criteria that SFMTA laid out for the program, the biggest discrepancy in resident understanding is in land use. The program is designed to be on residential corridors, but many of the Slow Streets recommendations were for primarily commercial corridors. The majority of the resident emails were in favor of the program. However, the most common complaint was about traffic safety and missing signage (often together).

About the Project

In response to the increasing need to socially distance on the streets, many cities nationwide — and especially in California — have installed Slow Streets that prohibit thru traffic on roads. However, because Slow Streets are new, few cities have extensive data about resident responses to these new walkways. SFMTA has issued a questionnaire to better understand resident attitudes and understandings of Slow Streets. This project will perform a qualitative and quantitative analysis to provide insight into the responses from San Francisco residents.