Mounting Pedestrian Deaths Spur San Francisco Meeting

San Francisco’s combination of precipitous streets, frenetic intensity and harried pedestrians can have deadly consequences.

Seventy-one-year-old Anne Holt, killed by a delivery truck as she stepped into the street Thursday, was the 18th pedestrian to be killed this year, and the fourth person to be hit in the streets in one week. City officials say pedestrian accidents have reached crisis levels.

Holt died the day before the city’s big pedestrian safety meeting, which city leaders organized to address the never-more-pertinent problem.

“It’s the age we live in, the need for speed, the race for space,” said Larry Morgan, engineering director at a downtown building next to where Holt died.

At the meeting Friday, more than 200 people gathered to talk about ways to make San Francisco a safer place to cross the street. Suggestions included speed bumps, lighted crosswalks, stiffer speeding penalties and better enforcement.