Chinatown group delivers pedestrian safety petition

By Adam Martin, Bay City News Service

March 18, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO(BCN) - Activists with the Chinatown Community Development Center delivered a petition to San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin Friday calling for traffic safety measures.

The group began circulating the petition after a cable car hit and killed 76-year-old Chinatown resident Joyce Lam at the corner of Mason and Filbert streets in January.

The Rev. Norman Fong, who heads the development center, said his group presented Peskin with 3,000 signatures and that another 1,000 on petition sheets had not yet come into its office.

"We could probably go for more, but I don't think we need to,'' Fong said.

Fong said the petition makes three major demands: It calls for a traffic light to be installed at the intersection of Filbert and Mason streets, orders a study to be done this year examining pedestrian safety along the cable car lines and calls for a plan to slow traffic down citywide.

"Enough is enough. I don't know what they're going to do, but we need to do something to slow the traffic down,'' Fong said.

Of the 12 pedestrians and cyclists killed by vehicles in the city this year, three were killed by San Francisco Municipal Railway vehicles, including Lam.

Fong said Peskin had registered frustration that the city is dedicating a great deal of resources to combat homicides, while little seems to be done to lower the pedestrian mortality rate.

Peskin could not be reached for comment.

In an unrelated move Friday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office contributed $10,000 to a $20,000 hit-and-run reward fund. The family of Benjamin Weaver contributed the rest of the money in the reward, which is being offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the driver of a van that hit and killed Weaver at Bayshore Boulevard and Silver Avenue Feb. 18.

The San Francisco Police Department describes the van as a panel van, dark in color, with tinted windows. It sustained front end and undercarriage damage in the crash.

Anyone with information in that case is urged to call Inspector James Custer, with the department's hit-and-run division, at (415) 553-9516.

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