A new report evaluates if San Francisco's fire trucks are too large for The City's narrowing streets.
For pedestrians and bicyclists in San Francisco, smaller roads mean increased safety, but for fire trucks, narrow roads pose a challenge.
San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener expressed his support today to see San Francisco fire trucks be designed to bolster, not impede, pedestrian safety. The San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report requested by Wiener, which was released today, analyzes the relationship between fire truck design and pedestrian safety.
The report evaluates whether San Francisco’s fire trucks are too large for the city’s narrowing streets.
It recommends that the San Francisco Fire Department consider configuring its trucks to be better able to navigate the famously narrow, winding streets of The City without undermining efforts by pedestrian and bicycle advocates to improve street safety and end pedestrian fatalities.
In 2013, 21 pedestrians and four bicyclists were killed on the streets of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy group that is leading the city’s Vision Zero goal to eliminate all traffic-related deaths by 2024.
Wiener said the fire department has objected to numerous street safety projects, such as bulb-outs, out of concern that the changes would obstruct or slow down fire trucks as they rush to the scene of an emergency. But the report suggests that the fire department doesn’t have protocols to consider street design and pedestrian safety when it procures new vehicles.
That, Wiener says, must change:
“If the Fire Department is concerned that its trucks cannot effectively navigate San Francisco’s enormous number of narrow streets, the solution is for the department to consider more maneuverable vehicles, before insisting on street designs that are unsafe for our residents.”
The supervisor said The City’s wide streets, such as those that blanket the South of Market neighborhood, are the most dangerous for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers, as they directly result in increased speed. The city’s current fire code requires that streets accessed by fire trucks be at least 20 feet in width.
The report states that San Francisco already has streets that are less than 20 feet in width and it is important that the fire department purchase specialized vehicles that are able accommodate those areas.
The report describes the features of fire trucks that are more maneuverable and are already in use on smaller streets by fire departments across the country. Leah Shahum, the executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said today that the city report shows that:
“… there is room for greater flexibility to ensure that both traffic safety and fire safety are prioritized on San Francisco’s streets. It’s not an ‘either-or’ decision.”
Shahum is encouraging the fire department’s leadership to listen to the growing chorus of concerned citizens and city officials who support updated fire equipment and policies that would enhance traffic safety.
Wiener is proposing that the fire department adopt policies and procedures that would reduce the size of emergency vehicles to ensure that both emergency response and street safety needs are advanced.
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just watch a few Youtube Video’s of SFFD in action and you can see problems…Especially arrogant Drivers and Pedestrians who refuse to give way to an Emergency Vehicle like they should…
Supervisor Scott Wiener is the laughing stock of every fire fighter in San Francisco because he is willing to compromise public safety so that his developer friends can make money on various “street improvement” projects. These wasteful street “improvement” projects widen sidewalks and narrow streets down to single traffic lanes that prevent fire fire trucks from turning and passing as they were intended to.
A key reason why fire trucks are large is firefighter safety, especially the move to enclosed cabs in the mid-1990s. The safety features added more weight to the vehicles, which meant they needed heavier suspensions and better brakes, which added even more weight. New federal emission standards also led to bigger exhaust systems, which required longer wheel bases.
An average size ladder [truck] can be almost 12 feet tall and 40 to 45 feet long’’ and weigh more than 60,000 pounds. By comparison, a similar vehicle built in 1985 would be 11 feet high, 35 feet 4 inches long, and weigh about 38,000 pounds.
Fire truck have gotten bigger, because firefighters have to carry more equipment. Every fire truck has an extensive amount of first aid equipment, Jaws of Life equipment, exposure suits for water rescue, blocking for technical rescue work.
When the fire broke out in mission bay last year the city needed every truck in the city plus our backup water supply to put out the fire. Supervisor Wiener isn’t telling Google or Genentech to buy smaller buses for public safety. http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/08/05/stranded-tech-bus-blocking-j-church-muni-line-in-san-franciscos-noe-valley/
Narrow streets impose permanent, 24-hour delays to emergency response, unlike traffic
congestion which occurs periodically. Supervisor Wiener should be looking out the best interest of his constituents. Instead he is looking out for the best interest of
developers who are re-designing streets to impede emergency vehicles from function as they should.
We should also only elegantly use siren blasts at corners. Oregon does this in Portland to great success to reduce noise pollution.
It would be very smart to join the list of cities with more agile fire trucks, heck we could even use biodiesel or check out hybrids and cleaner/quieter trucks.
Not good in the long term,,,Diesel is still the way to go..Hybrid engines are two small and do not develop the Horsepower needed to power a 2000 gallon per minute pump through 4 Hoses of different sizes for up to 5 hours or more at a time or up to the top of a three story residential building…..The trucks meet current EPA standards…