Skip to main content

San Francisco launches congestion management strategy

San Francisco mayor Edwin M. Lee has launched the city’s congestion management strategy to improve traffic flow and safety, especially in the South of Market neighbourhood where construction and growth remain the highest in the City. The strategy outlines additional efforts the city could undertake, beyond traditional approaches such as the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT). These additional efforts include smarter traffic enforcement, better construction permitt
December 11, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
San Francisco mayor Edwin M. Lee has launched the city’s congestion management strategy to improve traffic flow and safety, especially in the South of Market neighbourhood where construction and growth remain the highest in the City. 

The strategy outlines additional efforts the city could undertake, beyond traditional approaches such as the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT). These additional efforts include smarter traffic enforcement, better construction permitting, and coordinated efforts through the City’s new traffic management centre (TMC).

4802 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will coordinate rush hour traffic enforcement and traffic management.

Parking control officers will also focus on preventing gridlock by enforcing ‘blocking the box’ violations, a strategy that proved successful in a summer 2014 pilot.

Over the next two years, additional efforts will focus on data and technology, planning and enforcement. SFMTA will assemble currently available real-time data from traffic cameras and public information cutting-edge public data feeds to establish a monitoring function in its new TMC. By the end of next year, SFMTA will connect the city’s traffic signals to the TMC to allow engineers to diagnose signal problems in real time, fix signals quickly, and manage traffic peaks during rush hours and special events. SFMTA will use its real-time Twitter feed to provide and receive traffic information.

“San Francisco is experiencing unprecedented growth, and as a result, we are seeing increased demand on our streets,” said Mayor Lee. “These new focused measures to combat congestion can help make Muni, taxis, shuttles, bikes, and cars move through the City more smoothly and predictably, and can make the streets safer for everyone, particularly pedestrians. This new strategy will get us to our Vision Zero goal of ending pedestrian fatalities.”

“Smart, data-driven, targeted efforts to reduce congestion in San Francisco can make it easier and smoother for people to get around the City,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “These efforts will also help us make Muni more reliable and help us reach our long-term goals – to achieve Vision Zero, and to make transit, bicycling, car share, taxi and walking great ways to get around San Francisco.”

Related Content

  • Emissions reductions targets to have major impact on transport
    October 28, 2015
    As bold moves aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been introduced in California, David Crawford looks at the ramifications for transportation. California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent dramatic raising of the bar on emissions reduction policy for the state has won him praise from Japan, Australia, Europe and the secretariat of the critical UN conference on climate change being held in Paris in November/December 2015. His April 2015 executive order aimed at bringing emissions to 40% below 1990 lev
  • TfL to launch world-leading trials of intelligent pedestrian crossing technology
    March 7, 2014
    The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Transport for London (TfL) have outlined plans for trialling new pedestrian crossing sensors to help make it easier and safer for people to cross the road throughout the capital. The introduction of pedestrian Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique, or pedestrian SCOOT, is the first of its kind in the world and uses state-of-the-art video camera technology to automatically detect how many pedestrians are waiting at crossings. It enables the adjustment of traffi
  • City of Seattle implements SCOOT adaptive traffic management
    May 2, 2017
    Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has implemented a new adaptive traffic control system at 32 intersections along Mercer Street between 3rd Ave W and I-5, which has been one of the city’s most congested corridors for over 40 years. Developed by the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory, the SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) system coordinates the operation of the traffic signals in and around the corridor to help vehicles move more efficiently. SCOOT works in real-time to reduce delay
  • US transportation secretary Foxx announces US$100 million in grants
    September 26, 2014
    US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx has announced US$100 million in competitive grants to 24 recipients in 19 states to significantly improve bus service and bus facilities in urban and rural communities where residents depend heavily on public transportation. The grants are provided through the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Ladders of Opportunity Initiative, which supports the modernisation and expansion of transit bus service across the nation, with the purpose of connecting disadvantaged an