SF’s Speed Cameras Are Coming in March. Will They Help Cut Traffic Deaths?

After a delay, San Francisco is on track to be the first city in California to install automated speed-enforcement cameras, realizing a goal long sought by street safety advocates frustrated by the city’s lack of progress on its long-term goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries.

City officials say the cameras will begin operating on a warning-only basis in mid-March — nearly a year and a half after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill authorizing the devices in San Francisco, Oakland, San José, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale. All except San Francisco are still in the planning stages for camera deployment.

San Francisco’s 33 cameras are set to arrive in the wake of the city’s highest traffic death toll in nearly two decades. In 2024, the year San Francisco aimed to eliminate traffic deaths under Vision Zero, 41 people died in vehicle collisions. Twenty-four pedestrians were among those killed.

The spike in fatalities has led to widespread calls for the city to intensify its traffic safety efforts, as activists, the public and some members of the Board of Supervisors chide the Municipal Transportation Agency for falling behind on its ambitious “quick build” program to rapidly improve conditions for people walking and rolling at more than 900 locations across the city by the end of 2024.

About three-fourths of the projects, including improving crosswalks and resetting traffic signals to give pedestrians more time to cross, have been finished, and 15% are in progress.

“There is a problem when we articulate a public goal and are very clear about it and respond to people who are concerned about whether we can make that goal and over and over again to reassure them that we can — and then don’t,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said at the Dec. 17 meeting of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Board. “That’s something that I think drives our public a little nuts.”

Mandelman asked Shannon Hake, the SFMTA’s Vision Zero program manager, why the cameras are deploying in March after the agency had set a target of February.

“Are we sure they’re going in March?” he asked.

Hake attributed the extended deployment timeline to factors like identifying a contractor to run the system, completing electrical and structural engineering and working out an agreement with the city’s Public Works agency to mount the cameras on light poles.

With that work done, Hake said, “I am very, very confident that these will be launching in March.”

Between now and then, drivers will see signs that the cameras are coming to the 33 locations the city has identified as having at least one significant traffic safety risk, including a history of injury collisions or a high incidence of speeding.

Camera installation and testing are scheduled for February, along with a state-required public information campaign featuring warning signs near camera locations.

For the first 60 days after cameras begin operating in March, drivers who exceed posted speed limits in the camera zones by at least 11 mph will receive no-fee warning notices. Citations with penalties ranging from $50 up to $500 will be issued starting in mid-May.

The penalty schedule, included in the program’s authorizing legislation:

• $50 for driving 11 to 15 mph over the posted speed limit
• $100 for driving 16 to 25 mph over the posted speed limit
• $200 for driving 26 mph or more over the posted speed limit
• $500 for driving at a speed of 100 mph or more.

Under terms of Assembly Bill 645, citations carry civil penalties only, will not be assessed as a DMV penalty point and won’t result in the DMV suspending or revoking a driver’s license.

Jodie Medeiros, executive director of AB 645 co-sponsor Walk San Francisco, said she’s confident that cameras will be “a game-changer” for traffic safety in the city.

She pointed to Philadelphia, where officials say speed cameras installed along one notoriously dangerous corridor have reduced speeding by 95% at the locations where the devices are present. Fatal and serious injury crashes throughout the corridor fell by 21% after the cameras began operating. Collisions involving pedestrians were cut in half.

“That’s exactly the type of results we want to see in San Francisco,” Medeiros said.

She said that while she doesn’t want to see the deployment timeline slip any further, city officials deserve credit for getting cameras up and running before any of the other authorized cities did.

“San Francisco is leading the pack in that way, and I think that’s something that we should be proud of,” she said.