WalkSF

Location: San Francisco, CA

Website: walksf.org

Since 1998, Walk San Francisco has been San Francisco’s only pedestrian advocacy organization. Through smart, targeted advocacy, Walk SF and its members, are improving city streets and neighborhoods and making San Francisco a more livable, walkable city by reclaiming streets as safe, shared public space for everyone to enjoy.

Walk SF is organized into two separate organizations: Walk San Francisco, a 501(c)4, and the Walk San Francisco Foundation, a 501(c)3. The board governs both organizations and ensures that charitable efforts of Walk SF are separate from restricted activities of the Walk SF Foundation.

Mission Statement:

Walk SF makes walking in San Francisco safer for everyone, so that our community is healthier and more livable.

Top Goals:

To make walking safer

To make walking more enjoyable by improving the pedestrian environment.

To make walking the preferred way to get around.

Current Campaigns

Everyone walks at some point in their day, but over the past century, pedestrian safety has become an afterthought in most street design. The result? A built environment in San Francisco which makes walking both unsafe and uninviting. Walk SF partners with city agencies, residents, and nonprofits to undo past decisions and prioritize the redesign of the city’s most dangerous streets - the six percent of streets where more than 60% of pedestrian crashes occur.

To improve San Francisco’s walking environment by eliminating preventable injuries, and addressing inequities for neighborhoods including the Tenderloin, Chinatown, and South of Market – where seniors, children, and underserved community members are at greatest risk -

Walk SF three core campaigns include:

Vision Zero/Pedestrian Safety Safe Routes to Schools Walkability

Past Campaign Wins

Launching the first citywide Walk to Work Day event in 2013.

Making San Francisco the first city in the state to establish safer 15-mph school zones around 181 schools citywide in 2012.

Helping design Green Connections: a new network of quiet, green streets to reach parks.

Securing funds to improve streets for walking, including a $50 million Streets Bond in 2011.

Watch-dogging the police and District Attorney to make sure they enforce laws that keep you safe when you walk.

Helping launch car-free Sunday Streets and advocating for parklets to reclaim streets as shared public space.

Improving safety on the city’s most dangerous streets, including 19th Ave, Masonic, and Cesar Chavez.

Making developers pay the real cost of car traffic and its impacts on pedestrians.

Raising fines on cars blocking sidewalks.

Winning media and decision-maker attention to all these and the perspective of people who walk!