When San Francisco transportation officials began taking requests for “traffic calming” designs on residential streets, the projects piled up quickly.
That was in 2013, and city leaders were just starting to elevate road safety as a priority — it would take another year to adopt Vision Zero, the initiative to end traffic fatalities within a decade. But people already grasped the idea that subtle changes to a street could reduce the risk of crashes, while making the environment quieter and more livable. Applications poured in for speed bumps and raised crosswalks, concrete islands and rubber road cushions, durable posts and new markings to make lanes wider or narrower.
Now, with a looming budget crisis and a backlog of about 300 resident proposals, leaders of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency decided it’s time to suspend the program…