Commentary - Eyewitness to tragedy on 19th Avenue

As I came to a stop at a red light while driving home along 19th Avenue in San Francisco, I saw an elderly woman on the curb about to cross the street in front of me. She wore a light blue, down jacket with a purse over her shoulder. Perhaps it was her hair that was silver, not gray, or the style of her large glasses, but she immediately reminded me of my own elderly mother. As she began to cross with the green light, she walked slowly but with purpose as she crossed the three lanes to the center island. As she reached the median the light turned yellow and she quickened her pace. It then turned red as she started toward the other side. Since in San Francisco there is no safety pause during which all lights are red, the oncoming traffic immediately received a green light to “go.”

I watched with mounting concern. The old woman was obviously frightened about being stranded in the middle of such a busy street. She began to wave her arms in the air to get the traffic to stop while she tried desperately to make it to the other side. The drivers in the inner two lanes of oncoming traffic waited patiently while she moved halfway across. Just then there was the roar of an engine and from up the street a vehicle came down the outer lane. I watched in horror as he sped forward and whipped around in front of the stopped cars.

The old woman had only an instant to see him coming and made a few faltering steps as she tried to retreat to the center island. The oncoming vehicle struck her with such force that her light blue, down jacket literally burst into a cloud of feathers, like one might expect to see at a pillow fight. Her frail body ricocheted off the windshield and was thrown spinning head over heels a good 12 feet into the air and then came to rest in the middle of 19th Avenue.

I rushed to her side and knelt in the rapidly expanding pool of bright red blood on the pavement. She still had a pulse, but was unconscious. In moments, the gushing stopped, she became pulseless and her life ended as she lay crushed and broken.

Later, as I stood on the side of the street waiting for the police to take my statement, I noted several things: the impersonal and sterile yellow sheet they placed over her body which matched the yellow “Police Line Do Not Cross” ribbon they put up around her body, her bare ankles and white shoes sticking out from beneath the sheet, the unopened letters she had been carrying scattered about in the street, which made me think that she had friends, family and loved ones who cared about her. Then I noted that this intersection does not have any “Walk/Don’t Walk” pedestrian signals.

During my interview with the police, one of them commented with a sad shake of his head that this is the seventh recent pedestrian death at that same intersection of 19th Avenue and Noriega in San Francisco. A bystander added that she had just read an article in a local paper that lamented the high rates of pedestrian injuries and fatalities in San Francisco. After the police spoke with me, I quietly drove home and pondered with increasing consternation the remarkable number of other intersections along 19th Avenue in San Francisco that do not have any crossing signals.

When do we say, “Enough!”? How many more old ladies have to die? When are we as citizens of this proud city going to start taking responsibility for our actions? What will it take to make our streets safe? How about crosswalk signals with countdowns at all busy street intersections so that pedestrians can judge their ability to get to the other side safely? How about crosswalk buttons at the same intersections that when pressed will hold the green light long enough for an older person or one with disabilities to safely cross? How about stricter enforcement of the traffic laws, and if we don’t have enough police to enforce them then let’s hire more? How about better public transportation to decongest our streets? How about pedestrian crossing bridges over our busier thoroughfares?

Why has the state of California refused to make 19th Avenue, which is also California Highway 1 and thus under their jurisdiction, a safer street? And why is it that other cities have a two-second safety pause in between lights where the intersection is red in all directions, but not in San Francisco?

If you dismiss my ideas as reactionary, then I suggest you consider for a moment the image of your own mother, her silver hair soaked in an expanding pool of blood, as she ends her life lying crushed and broken on the streets of San Francisco.

A local group of concerned citizens is forming in response to Alice Wallace’s death and pedestrian safety issues on 19th Avenue. For more information, send an e-mail to SafeSF19th@yahoo.com.