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The death of San Francisco's Market Street

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Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#71

Post by tuchsen »

hammock wrote: post #39
Arainach wrote: post #3

So many things wrong with this, but let's call out one of the most obvious: > But a bus will kill a pedestrian just as easily as a car will, which is why Market Street remains empty of pedestrian traffic No citation, just pure nonsense. As a pedestrian and cyclist: bus drivers are great. They have higher licensing standards, their income is tied to maintaining a license, they're well trained and professional. Meanwhi…

Per government data, San Francisco Muni bus pedestrian fatalities are roughly 2 per 100 million miles, while general motor vehicle pedestrian fatalities are a fraction of that, about 0.4 per 100 million miles. Even if you limit strictly to surface streets, Muni buses remain 2-3x more likely to be involved in a pedestrian fatality per mile driven than general vehicles

Can you cite a source for that one? Of the 25 fatalities in sf in 2025 all but two were someone driving a car, truck, or van.

Of the two others, one was a scooter operator striking and elderly person, and then the other was an elderly person on a mobility device swerving out of the way of pedestrians crossing against the light. Zero bus accidents involving pedestrian fatalities.

I believe that their was one bus fatality this year, but of 12 total, I haven't looked up the causes of those accidents yet but I'd guess that the majority of them are going to be caused by drivers as well.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#72

Post by kansface »

brudgers wrote: post #43
Arainach wrote: post #3

So many things wrong with this, but let's call out one of the most obvious: > But a bus will kill a pedestrian just as easily as a car will, which is why Market Street remains empty of pedestrian traffic No citation, just pure nonsense. As a pedestrian and cyclist: bus drivers are great. They have higher licensing standards, their income is tied to maintaining a license, they're well trained and professional. Meanwhi…

I don’t disagree. As a pedestrian, cyclists are a huge danger because cycling culture is built on aggression, ignoring traffic laws like stop signs and cross walks, and treating humans as street furniture.

Similarly, I’ve seen more than one accident caused by a pedestrian stepping into traffic without looking, taking out a cyclist in the process (from between vehicles, eyes on a phone). Nothing too serious, but only by luck. No one is overtly concerned by traffic laws in SF regardless of the mode of transit.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#73

Post by hammock »

jrockway wrote: post #40
hammock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per government data, San Francisco Muni bus pedestrian fatalities are roughly 2 per 100 million miles, while general motor vehicle pedestrian fatalities are a fraction of that, about 0.4 per 100 million miles. Even if you limit strictly to surface streets, Muni buses remain 2-3x more likely to be involved in a pedestrian fatality per mile driven than general vehicles

How about by hour? Cars are not causing a lot of pedestrian fatalities driving on the freeway between Nowhere and Flyover, but they rack up the miles there.

I provided the surface streets only metric, which eliminates freeways

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#74

Post by hammock »

woodruffw wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per government data, San Francisco Muni bus pedestrian fatalities are roughly 2 per 100 million miles, while general motor vehicle pedestrian fatalities are a fraction of that, about 0.4 per 100 million miles. Even if you limit strictly to surface streets, Muni buses remain 2-3x more likely to be involved in a pedestrian fatality per mile driven than general vehicles

That makes sense, given that the median car mile probably isn’t in a dense urban core. The more accurate comparison would require us to know pedestrian fatalities per mile in urban areas.

This is for SF, so 100% urban for both bus and vehicle data

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#75

Post by hammock »

pessimizer wrote: post #47
hammock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per government data, San Francisco Muni bus pedestrian fatalities are roughly 2 per 100 million miles, while general motor vehicle pedestrian fatalities are a fraction of that, about 0.4 per 100 million miles. Even if you limit strictly to surface streets, Muni buses remain 2-3x more likely to be involved in a pedestrian fatality per mile driven than general vehicles

They also tend to be carrying 5-25x more people than cars, so there are far fewer of them. They also tend to be driving in the city on the busiest streets, whereas arbitrary cars are more often driving on vacant streets and highways. so try the comparison using (miles x flow) instead of miles if you're measuring safety, and if you're measuring worthwhile risk, multiply that by passenger-miles. If you're talking about…

I was directly responding to a comment arguing that bus drivers were more adept at avoiding pedestrian killings than SUV drivers. Unfortunately extra training cannot change the physics of a 40,000 pound hunk of metal.

If you look at passenger-miles (pax in the bus) or some other metric the rate might be lower for buses but that’s not relevant to what I responding.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#76

Post by woodruffw »

hammock wrote: post #74
woodruffw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense, given that the median car mile probably isn’t in a dense urban core. The more accurate comparison would require us to know pedestrian fatalities per mile in urban areas.

This is for SF, so 100% urban for both bus and vehicle data

That’s fascinating; like others, I’d love to see the source data.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#77

Post by dgoldstein0 »

fishtoaster wrote: post #37
Arainach wrote: post #3

So many things wrong with this, but let's call out one of the most obvious: > But a bus will kill a pedestrian just as easily as a car will, which is why Market Street remains empty of pedestrian traffic No citation, just pure nonsense. As a pedestrian and cyclist: bus drivers are great. They have higher licensing standards, their income is tied to maintaining a license, they're well trained and professional. Meanwhi…

As a cyclist, I couldn't agree more. Cars are crazy murder machines, pedestrians will jump out at you just for fun, and the worst of the bunch is other cyclists! But a bus- with a bus you know where you stand. They're slow, they're predictable, you can see the coming a mile away- I've never felt unsafe around SF Muni.

I'll give you that buses tend to be more predictable - they run fixed routes, you can guess where the stops are - but my biggest problem is whether they can see me or not. They are large so if they don't see me and start moving while I'm trying to pass it could end badly. Usually I try to only pass if they just stopped and I clearly have plenty of room and time.

Cars tend to scare me more as there are way too many impatient drivers who are all to happy to speed around me without much clearance and then cut me off. And they could easily misinterpret me weaving a little to avoid a bump as me scooting over it pulling over for them or starting a turn. And don't get me started on how many cars have tried to right turn on red arrows across bike lanes which have a green signal.

Other bicyclists and pedestrians often suck too, but worst case if I run into them is pain, not death.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#78

Post by dgoldstein0 »

kansface wrote: post #70
fishtoaster wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a cyclist, I couldn't agree more. Cars are crazy murder machines, pedestrians will jump out at you just for fun, and the worst of the bunch is other cyclists! But a bus- with a bus you know where you stand. They're slow, they're predictable, you can see the coming a mile away- I've never felt unsafe around SF Muni.

I biked 3x weekly to work for a decade from NoPa. Muni busses repeatedly “tried” to kill me - so much so that going up McAllister, I’d hug the double yellows to keep buses from precariously passing me and then cutting me off every other block. The ass end of accordions in particular would rest half way into the other lane, leaving absolutely no where for me to go, and no ability to start from a stop in the middle of…

Mmm accordion buses definitely sound like extra danger

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#79

Post by dgoldstein0 »

woodruffw wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per government data, San Francisco Muni bus pedestrian fatalities are roughly 2 per 100 million miles, while general motor vehicle pedestrian fatalities are a fraction of that, about 0.4 per 100 million miles. Even if you limit strictly to surface streets, Muni buses remain 2-3x more likely to be involved in a pedestrian fatality per mile driven than general vehicles

That makes sense, given that the median car mile probably isn’t in a dense urban core. The more accurate comparison would require us to know pedestrian fatalities per mile in urban areas.

Buses are also more massive so more likely to cause serious injury in an accident. They can't stop as fast as a car/bike /etc. But that's also why they seem to move more slowly, takes them longer to accelerate, which one would think might give others an advantage to avoiding them.

Re: The death of San Francisco's Market Street

#80

Post by pandaman »

Arainach wrote: post #3

So many things wrong with this, but let's call out one of the most obvious: > But a bus will kill a pedestrian just as easily as a car will, which is why Market Street remains empty of pedestrian traffic No citation, just pure nonsense. As a pedestrian and cyclist: bus drivers are great. They have higher licensing standards, their income is tied to maintaining a license, they're well trained and professional. Meanwhi…

No citation for your nonsense either so I actually went and looked. It turns out busses get into accidents more often per mile travelled [1]: "the number of bus accidents per million passenger miles (3.04) is comparable to the number of car accidents per million driven miles (3.21)" considering that a bus has more than 1 passenger on average it means their accident rate per mile travelled is way higher than a car.

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...

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