WALK!

When I walk down the street and approach an intersection, as often as not a car driver aggressively crosses my path, right over my curling toes. Out of fear and frustration, I've started rapping on their rear panels as they roll by me to remind the driver that pedestrians have the right of way. I don't think it really does any good.

Aggressive drivers perceive as impediments the very thing that makes this city beautiful-the residents. Pedestrians are native to the streets, but are seen only as inconveniences to car traffic. The unlucky people who die crossing the street are treated as no more than "collateral damage."

I thought I might be the only one who felt upset about the conditions I face as a pedestrian, but when I asked friends about their feelings, I was surprised by how vociferous the response was. "Whenever the light turns red and I have the 'Walk' signal, I enter the intersection." said one man I know. "Of course I take care to not get hit by any red light runners but I try to give them a good scare. And yes, I do force the issue. Sometimes, they stop, get stuck and opposing traffic honks at them. Sometimes, they swerve, honk and give me mean looks. I yell out 'Thanks for driving safely!' Most of the time I ease off because most drivers are just completely insane. My dream is to see some kind of major non-injury collision caused by one of these red light runners. That would be justice."

Car drivers are slow to understand that pedestrians are the first users of the road, so fed-up people are actively taking the city's streets and sidewalks back. Now there's a better way than playing chicken-it's called Walk San Francisco.

Walk San Francisco is both a coalition of existing organizations and an association of individual members. Its mission is to improve San Francisco's pedestrian environment through both activism by informing people directly and through advocacy to institute more pedestrian-friendly policies within city agencies. The group's name, which some say sounds rather, well, pedestrian, is inspired by pedestrian rights groups in other cities across the U.S., including the successful Walk Boston. Walk San Francisco is part of a larger Bay Area-wide pedestrian advocacy project called BayPeds, sponsored by Oakland-based Urban Ecology and coordinated by Zac Wald.

Walk San Francisco's first major advocacy campaign will be to get the city to adopt a well-funded and quickly implemented traffic calming program, and to convince neighborhood associations, parks groups, and PTAs to ask for traffic calming projects in their areas. A flyer for sidewalk parkers and their neighbors is on the streets, as are demonstrations and outreach.

Pedestrian activism should not be considered a secondary issue for bicyclists. "To bring about significant long-term change, we need a multitude of groups working together," says San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Board Member Betsy Thagard, who has assumed leadership of Walk San Francisco. Bicyclists and pedestrians should "unite to promote their common interest against the auto-dominated transportation priorities of the City of San Francisco."

Forty years ago, our beautifully wide sidewalks were significantly narrowed to make space for automobiles. Today, she says, with the ever-increasing number of private automobiles in the city, "pedestrians are finding even this last bit of public space available to them covered with cars," as parking on the sidewalk goes unticketed and public parks and school playgrounds are proposed as sites for parking garages.

The time is right for vigilant pedestrian activism not just because people feel overpowered by cars, but because a general movement towards transportation reform has been growing in the last decades. Today, even some die-hard drivers are realizing that the current system doesn't work, while it is dawning on the general population that radical changes are needed and that walkable streets make better neighborhoods.

-Anna Sojourner,
Reprinted from WalkSF

To become a Walk San Francisco member (it's FREE! it's FREE! Woo Hoo!), or to find out about the next Walk San Francisco meeting check out www.walksf.org or email Betsy Thagard at bt@audiocafe.com, or call her at (415) 921-8064. For more information about BayPeds or pedestrian activism in other Bay Area cities, contact Zac Wald at baypeds@netspace.org, or (510) 540-6509, or try www.baypeds.org.

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