>> present arms. ♪ [bugles playing "taps"] ♪

♪ [bagpipes adnd drums] ♪

>> welcome to your school. how're you doing? we are lowering the speed 2015. we are going to do it all over the city. thank you. good morning. welcome to your school.

we are posting the new signs for the miles per hour zone. we will lower them all to 15 around the school, just to keep it safe for the kids. i get to announce that today, so i thought i would welcome the kids. , on up. come on up. are you excited? thank you. good morning, everyone. i am happy to be here. you are going to learn a lot today. we are here to help make sure that you are safe. we want to always make sure that when our kids go to school it is safer. sometimes, as your parents will tell you, they will see a lot of cars and sometimes buses will go too fast on the street and you wish that they would slow down for your safety. you want to be safer? >> yeah!

>> i want you to be safe as well, and i will be joining in with your parents and all of the city officials. we have the police chief here, director of the transit system, our school board president is here as well to make sure that all of us join together with you, the school, and with the parents to make sure that you are always safe. so we are going to be putting of these new signs along all of the schools in san francisco beginning at peabody. you are the first school to get this. [applause] that must mean that you must be among the smartest kids in our city. that has got to mean something, right? let us go to peabody first because they must have some smart kids.

each school will be getting four signs. there will be 200 schools in san francisco that will get these new signs that lowers the speed to a maximum of about 15 miles per hour. that has proven to be much safer and having no signs or instructions. parents, i want to thank all of you for joining us. these recommendations come from the experts that are studying how we can increase the pedestrian and student safety around our schools. these are hot spots around the city. we want to say, we will join you in that effort, and our police department, and our school department officials, and our transit system. we are working together, we have continued meetings to make sure that we not only post signs, but the police will be out there enforcing this. they will start out by telling people and educating them, not

just by issuing a citation or fine right away. educating first so that people know that they have to drive slow around schools. with that, we hope to change the whole way people pay respect to pedestrian safety and school children safety. so with that, thank you very much. [applause] >> supervisor mar is here. he is a regular at the george peabody. he was here with us during back- to-school day last year. to you feel safer this morning? >> absolutely. peabody is one of our great schools in our districts. thank you to all the parents for getting their kids to school safety. by these measures, we can identify key risk factors. reducing the speed limit will keep everyone safer. thank you to everyone at peabody. [applause] >> george peabody students,

let's show our visitors what a great job we do in the morning walking into our class. >> good morning, everyone. thank you for coming out today. we are going to get going. before we start, i want to thank the principal for hosting us here today. i think he is already getting to work, but i want to thank him for letting us come here and either disrupt or enhance the morning drop off, and -- depending on your perspective. i am the director of transportation here in san francisco. happy to be here for a very important reason. my tenure here stretches all the way back to monday when i had my first day as the head of the municipal transportation agency. although i have only been here for four days, i have been with the city for four years, and

from the different perspectives i have served the city, i have been able to see and work on the issue that we are here to talk about today, which is pedestrian safety. particularly, safety for kids. kids need to be able to get to school, leave school, and have any other interface between the school and street -- for that to happen safely. that is what we are here to talk about today. we have a lot of people that will be giving you a lot of perspective on this. so without further ado, the man leading the effort, who really has created an aura of -- direction for collaboration between the many city departments, school district, and other partners that are part of making this happen, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. good morning. i always want to start out now, when i'm with our sfmta director

-- two ed's are better than one. so we are coordinating more these days. that has been at the heart of this effort. i want to thank all the efforts that are going on between the school district and sand francisco government and our parents and our police department and our volunteer organizations like walk sf. all of the collaboration going on with supervisors like supervisor mar and others who are behind me -- we are working together to make sure that this whole topic about pedestrian safety gets the visibility that it needs because it still is a huge challenge for our very congested city, our city that does invite millions of people to our city every year, but

then, we are also a city of neighborhoods. neighborhood schools like peabody here, where we have to do even extra things to make sure that our kids are getting to school safely. just this morning, what i wanted to do to come out here immediately was to join bryan, who was out here this morning. he is a buy and hear from our fire department, happens to be a parent of kids who go to this school. spending the morning guiding the kids from the cars to the playground. and it is necessary for that because there's so much traffic going on here, but i got a firsthand from him that it is verified that the speed of the streets and routes around our schools are dangerous. that they need to be slowed down. it has been shown in study after study, and the last one we looked at was the study in london as well where if you slowed down even a fraction of the speed, you can get a high increase in the amount of safety and reduction in the

fatal -- fatalities that result from car collisions. for us in san francisco, today, we'd pick peabody to be the first school, the first of 200 in san francisco that by the end of this year and through next year and january will get at least three or four of these signs posted all around the routes contingent with the schools. it will buy our vehicle code reduce the speed from the normal 25 miles per hour or some of them 30, to 15 miles an hour all around these schools. that is going to increase the level of safety in a very dramatic way. this idea results from the very first meetings that we had when we pulled together a pedestrian safety advisory committee made up of all the different agencies and volunteer agencies

within san francisco that reflect at all of the agencies that we mentioned earlier today. they met already. they are going to continue meeting because it is not just about the sign, but this is the first physical indicator of slowing down traffic. our police chief is committed to making sure he works with the parents, educating the drivers, and ultimately, enforcement by citations that will have to be done when there is violations that occur, but we will start with the great effort of educating parents, educating drivers, including public drivers as well as private drivers and people who are coming down the streets. i think that you will probably observe that until these signs go up, you will see cars coming down and probably inappropriate speeds, and that is what we want to do, keep them slowdown. this will definitely be a verifiable thing to reduce pedestrian accidents that occur, especially for our kids, the

most vulnerable ones. you can see them. they are kind of half awake when they are coming in, and i saw that with a very real thing. they just want to get to the courtyard, to the playground, and they will not necessarily be aware of everything here, so the speed reduction is extremely important. i am here to announce this, the sign it -- the signage that will go up, and that the enforcement measures will be there along with the education. that is the way we do things and do them better. mayor newsom at the end of last year executed an executive director of that had the departments coming in informing the task force -- and forming a task force, which i am pleased to give me, to get the best ideas. it also announced that we have the goal to reduce pedestrian fatalities and accidents by 50% by the year 2000 -- i believe it is 2020. this will be the initial efforts

to start doing this. there will be more to come as we meet with supervisors and others. i know the other supervisors in our district have strongly expressed this to be one of their top concerns. i will be working closely with you to get the best ideas forward, working with even groups like our bicycle coalition, too, because they no traffic -- they know traffic. we announced this today to be a dedicated effort, and we will be paying strong attention as the year goes by and make sure all the signs go up and the education and enforcement start. thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. partnership within the elected family is important to make this work. you heard that eric mar is no stranger to peabody schools. you know he represents the

richmond district. what you may not know is that he along with the rest of the board of supervisors said also as the board of the san francisco county transportation authority. in mention that because they are providing the majority of the funding for this initiative. so i want to thank the board in their capacity as the transportation authority for their leadership and the funding support to enable this to happen and ask eric mar to come up and say a few words. >> thank you, everyone, for being here. i rode my bicycle from where i live, and i see that people are speeding by in the mornings even as parents are dropping their kids off. i know this simple policy change will actually save lives. i think these signs and community education that the mta and police department and all of the city family will be working on in the 200 different sites and schools will help save lives. i also wanted to say that as a parent, i know that as we get to work quickly, sometimes we do

not understand as drivers that we share the road with people who are pedestrians and also bicyclist as well. i think signs like this -- even reducing speed in of the sensitive spots, maybe senior centers and other places might be an additional change. when members of the bus a coalition came out to speak at hearings for the community operations committee that i sit on, that was a strong urge that we reduced speed limits, not just around schools but in other sensitive areas. i also wanted to add that mayor lee mentioned that a number of studies had been done in our department of public health. they have looked closely at how policies like this can help make community safer and save lives, so thank you for the efforts. the last thing i wanted to say was that it does not come without a cause. the transportation authority -- and i chaired the finance committee of the transportation authority. we just a lot of -- i think it

was $20,000, and the mta is contributing money as well, but it is well worth it when it helps save lives and keep our communities safer, so thank you very much, everyone. [applause] >> thank you, supervisor. there is another body that the voters have empowered to essentially manage and regulate traffic, and that is the sfmta board, and they took an action a couple of weeks ago to legislate the first batch of these zones to create, which has enabled under our recent 2007 state law, the creation of these school zones that allow us to create the 15 miles per hour safety zone in front of schools. on behalf of the sfmta board, i am happy to welcome up to the microphone, one of my bosses, director brinkman. [applause]

>> thank you. i am so glad to be here. there is a growing body of research that shows we can make the schools -- the streets safer, and one of the ways we can do that is reduced speeds. if all else fails and a collision results, this speed limit saves lives. i am pleased to be here and to continue to work with the rest of the city, the rest of the organizations, and to know that they have the support of the mta board in these very important initiatives. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, director. the mayor and supervisor mar mentioned that there's different city agencies working together to make this happen. i think they both mentioned the health department has been a very strong partner, and i want to work knowledge there great work. it is their research that i want to reiterate the exponential decline in the likelihood of

serious injury or fatality for every 5 miles that you lower the speed limit. it is a powerful tool to ensure safety in the streets if in the unfortunate event, despite all of our efforts, there's impact between a vehicle and a person. it is a very important effort. the department of public health is a great partner. another great partner in this effort is san francisco police department. very pleased to have the san francisco chief of police here. [applause] >> thank you. the message is clear -- slowdown. pay attention. keep the kids safe. those of you that were here this morning -- it is very hectic at drop-off times. the kids are very excited. i remember all too well when i was a little kid going to school in san francisco. you are excited to get back amongst your friends. a couple weeks ago, i was present when the young fan was hit by a car. nothing impacts a person more

than an injured child, especially as serious as that was, and it is so unnecessary. it is a very expensive citation, but it is one that if you are putting the kids in jeopardy will be well deserved, and it will be given. please, slow down our run schools. pay attention. no electronic devices. no texting. keep our kids safe. avoid the ticket. [applause] >> thanks, chief. our host here today and really the focus of our efforts is the san francisco unified school district. this initiative will reach all elementary schools in san francisco, but the majority of our kids are in our public schools. we are very pleased to have them as a partner. very pleased to have here representing the school district not only the principle of this school but the president of the board of education -- principal

of this school. [applause] >> thank you. i am so happy to be here as part of this partnership. i think this once again demonstrates the value of our partners. san francisco unified has gone through so many different challenges, and we have realized that we cannot do what we need to do for our students without the help and support of the city, and mayor lee has been an incredible force in lockstep with all the work we have been doing at san francisco unified. it has been great to have a parent who is in our schools who understands the challenges we are up against an really thinks about what we need to do for the safety of our students. if you look around, this is a very dense neighborhood. this is not only about our students but the community that supports our students. as families are coming out of the garages, the idea that the speed limit will come down is significant. we're also encouraging students

to back-to-school or walk to school. we have been really encouraging our families to do that, and this will give us yet one other leverage point to get them on the streets. we are telling them we are making it more safe for them to come to school biking and walking. i am so happy to be part of the city family to be able to do this. on behalf of carlos garcia who could not be here this morning and all of our schools, thank you so much for your hard work and helping to make our kids safe so that we can get them here. they will be here every single day so that we can get them to learn and get them on to college, so thanks again for all of the work around helping us to do that. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. finally, the voters and the board a dozen years or so ago made a very important policy statement, and that was declaring san francisco to be a

transit first policy city. that does not mean about transit only. the policy is about getting people out of their cars, providing better, safer, more convenient, safer ways for people to get around san francisco, which includes by bicycle and walking. if we want to get people on their bicycles and walking, they need to be safe, and that is what this initiative is about. carter realizing that policy takes a lot of work from folks not only within the mta and our partner agencies and the school district, but people outside the government. there are some very strong advocacy organizations and organizations that help educate, that helped inform policy, that help shape the public debate about this. i want to acknowledge the san francisco bicycle coalition, a great partner with us. to close out here, from walk sf , elizabeth. [applause] >> thank you. what walk san francisco has been

working on this campaign to get 15 mile an hour safer speed zones around schools for a long time. we are so excited it is coming to fruition. we are pleased to be here with the mayor, mta, the police department, the school district, and the department of public health as well, which works on safe routes to school. we are here today to establish these speed limits because the thing is -- speed kills. if you are hit by a car going 30 miles an hour, you are six times more likely to be killed than of that car is going just 10 miles an hour less -- 20 miles an hour. establishing these safe speed zones around our schools will make it safer not only for kids to walk to school, but for everybody who walks in our city, and that is everybody. everyone is a pedestrian, and this is really a step forward acalm traffic around all of our

schools and neighborhoods. we are very excited to be here. we have been working for a long time on this campaign, and it is great to see it happening this fall. one thing that has been mentioned is the need for funding to make this and other improvements have been around the city. there will be a bond on the november ballot, a st. bond that will help us make permanent investments in making the streets safer for pedestrians. all around the city, and that is something we really need, a smart investment in a world- class city. again, we are so excited to be here to announce these great new speed zones going into place. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you all for coming out, folks behind me, thank you all. especially for your leadership and support. we will be working hard to get the suns in as quickly as we can to work with the police department in particular on the

outreach, education, and enforcement, and we look forward most of all to seeing the results, the outcomes of most of this. we look forward to seeing a significant decrease in the amount -- or improvement in the safety of the area around the schools as a result of this initiative, so thank you all for coming out, and the safe today. [applause] -- be safe today. close >> anybody on the ladder, you have to make sure.