(a) The Board of Supervisors finds and declares that it is in the public interest to officially recognize walking as an important component of our transportation system, and as a key component to creating livable and suitable communities. Accordingly, the Board of Supervisors seeks to develop and implement focused policies that encourage pedestrian safety, education, and convenience in transportation and city planning.
Over the past fifty years, many American cities, including San Francisco, have seen a dramatic shift away from pedestrian and public transportation toward a reliance on the private automobile for primary transportation. In that same time period, the City has seen a reduction of its public walkways, pedestrian rights-of-way, and valuable inner-city green spaces.
In San Francisco, as throughout the world, the quality of urban life is being threatened by encroaching environmental actors. San Franciscans also suffer from increasing poor air quality, elevated noise levels, increased traffic congestion, longer trip times, and diminishing public space. These and other factors have led San Francisco to adopt a Transit-First policy favoring public transportation, bicycles, and pedestrian travel over the use of automobiles.
The City's streetscape is similar to many cities and towns in Europe. Narrow streets and interesting destinations combine to make our streets conducive to walking. Encouraging pedestrian presence on our City's streets and sidewalks not only reduces our City's reliance on the automobile, but also helps create communities and neighborhoods that are deemed livable and desirable. Better pedestrian planning and policies will not only serve the approximately 10% of San Franciscans who walk to work on a regular basis, but also all visitors to and residents of San Francisco because each person is a pedestrian at some point in every trip they take.
San Francisco has an unusually high rate of pedestrian injuries for a city its size. In the past five years, nearly 5,000 pedestrians have been injured on city streets, and over 130 people have been killed. Our seniors, youth, and citizens with disabilities are especially at risk for being injured and/or killed in a motor vehicle collision. Nationally, pedestrians account for only 13% of traffic fatalities and 2.2% of traffic injuries. However, in San Francisco, they account for more than half of the motor-vehicle related deaths and about one-third of the hospitalizations and have outnumbered or equaled car occupants in traffic fatalities in San Francisco in nine of the past ten years.
(b) There shall be established a Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee. This Advisory Committee, composed of concerned and informed residents, will provide a source of expertise on issues concerning pedestrian safety, convenience, ambiance, and planning. The Advisory Committee shall consist of 17 voting members appointed as set forth below.
(1) Seat 1 shall be held by a representative from a pedestrian safety organization, appointed by the Board of Supervisors.
(2) Seats 2 and 3 shall be held by representatives from senior or disability organizations, appointed by the Board of Supervisors.
(3) Seat 4 shall be held by a representative from a bicycle or other non-motorized wheeled personal transport organization, appointed by the Board of Supervisors;
(4) Seat 5 shall be held by a representative from a transit or environmental organization, appointed by the Board of Supervisors.
(5) Seats 6 through 16 shall be appointed by individual members of the Board of Supervisors, with each member of the Board appointing one member of the Advisory Committee.
(6) Seat 17 shall be held by a parent of a student in the San Francisco Unified School District, appointed by the Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District. If at any time the Superintendent declines to appoint an individual to Seat 17 for 60 days or longer, the Board of Supervisors may appoint a new member with the same or different qualifications to fill the seat for the remainder of the term.
(c) The Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District may appoint a member of the San Francisco Unified School District’s Student Advisory Council to serve as a non-voting member of the Advisory Committee. The individual appointed to this seat may participate in Advisory Committee discussions to the same extent as other members of the Advisory Committee but may not vote on any matter and shall not be counted toward a quorum.
(d) The following City departments shall designate a non-voting representative to attend Advisory Committee meetings at the request of the Advisory Committee: the Department of Public Health, the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Department of Public Works, the Planning Department, the Police Department, the Recreation and Park Department, District Attorney’s Office, and the Mayor’s Office on Disability. Any other City departments whose work impacts pedestrians shall also designate a non-voting representative to Advisory Committee meetings upon request of the Advisory Committee. Every year by July 1, each department required to designate a non-voting representative shall inform the Advisory Committee in writing of the name, work phone number, and work email address of its representative.
(e) All City departments, commissions, boards, and agencies shall cooperate with the Advisory Committee in conducting its business. The Board of Supervisors also requests that the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, San Francisco Unified School District, the Successor Agency to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, and the National Park Service assist in the work of the Advisory Committee.
(f) Advisory Committee members shall serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority. Any Advisory Committee member who misses three regular meetings of the Advisory Committee within a six-month period without the express approval of the Advisory Committee at or before each missed meeting shall be deemed to have resigned from the Advisory Committee 10 days after the third unapproved absence. The Advisory Committee shall inform the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors of each such resignation, and the appointing authority shall appoint a successor to that seat.
(g) The term of each Advisory Committee member shall be two years. The seats formerly numbered 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 23 shall terminate on the effective date of the ordinance in Board File No. 160964 amending this Article IV. The terms for all other seats on the Advisory Committee shall continue following the effective date of that ordinance, and the members holding those seats may continue to hold the renumbered seats until the expiration of the term as provided in this subsection (g) unless removed by the appointing authority. The terms for seats 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17 shall expire on March 31, 2018, and every two years thereafter. The terms for seats 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 shall expire on March 31, 2019, and every two years thereafter.
(h) At the initial meeting of the Advisory Committee, and annually thereafter, the members of the Advisory Committee shall select a Chair, and any other officers as deemed necessary by the Advisory Committee.
(i) The Advisory Committee shall establish rules for its own organization and procedures and shall meet when necessary as determined by the Advisory Committee. All meetings shall, except as provided by law, be open to the public.
(j) The Board of Supervisors urges the Municipal Transportation Agency to support the Advisory Committee with funding and staff resources and to present a monthly interdepartmental report to the Advisory Committee.
(Added by Ord. 85-02, File No. 012133, App. 6/7/2002; Ord. 127-07, File No. 070082, App. 5/31/2007; Ord. 287-08, File No. 081340, App. 12/5/2008; amended by Ord. , File No. 160964, App. 11/10/2016, Eff. 12/10/2016)
