Letters and Comments from City Leaders

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SFFD Battalion Chief Edward L. Campbell

March 30, 2021

Dear SFMTA Board of Directors,

The SFMTA should not make Page St. a permanent “Slow Street”. My primary reason for opposing this designation is strictly from a public safety concern. I am putting forth my opinion based on my 28 1/2 year career as a San Francisco firefighter/EMT, including being a former Public Information Officer for the fire department, and as a resident of our city.

The impact of permanently making Page St. a Slow Street, from a public safety perspective, would be felt in the concern that receives considerable attention during an emergency…when did the emergency response arrive on the scene. When there are calls for medical, fire, or disaster emergencies in the City, responding and arriving on the scene as quickly and as safely as possible is one of the fire department’s first goals. It was one of the consistent messages I received during my career. Minutes and seconds could truly mean the difference between life or death…property preservation or loss. This is not hyperbole. If you or your loved one is having a medical emergency, would you accept a delay in fire department’s response or arrival based on having to navigate slow street barriers? If a resident of this district were to unfortunately suffer a fire to their residence, is an intersection blocked by traffic on Oak St. sufficient enough an explanation for why fire units were not there to initiate firefighting efforts in a timely manner? We should not compound unforeseen delays that responding units may encounter by making traffic decisions that muddle established response routes or significantly increase the potential for even greater delays.

I feel the City did well implementing Slow Streets on a temporary basis to aide in providing physical distancing opportunities during the pandemic. I also believe all of us (cyclists, drivers, walkers, emergency responders, skateboarders, and more) had to adjust to the street changes as best we could. The decision to permanently make Page St. a Slow Street however appears to ask the Oak St. residents to adapt permanently to living with increased traffic and noise to the Central Freeway. It asks all the residents in the area to adapt permanently to living with potential delays in response to the emergencies where they live. In my opinion, the decisions around permanently closing streets which will directly affect life safety issues in the city must be well-reasoned, thoroughly studied, and equitably implemented.

Sincerely Yours,

Edward L. Campbell, Battalion Chief, former PIO
San Francisco Fire Department, (Ret)

SFFD Chief Demmons

April 2, 2021

Dear San Francisco Fire Commission,

Why do fire stations have poles? To allow firefighters to arrive at their fire engines and trucks faster than by using the standard staircases, thereby responding to an emergency call faster. Firefighters keep their helmets and fire protective gear on the engines and trucks to save time when responding to emergency calls. These measures have been put in place in order to save time and to respond to emergency calls as quickly as possible. A one‐alarm fire can progress very quickly to a two, three, or greater alarm fire. With a medical call to a heart attack victim and many other medical conditions, seconds count. From my first day working in a fire station, I was told that a quick response is essential. Peoples lives can depend on how quickly we get to the scene.

San Francisco Slow Streets do just what the name implies. They slow or stop traffic on those streets. But, they can also slow responses to emergencies by police cruisers, ambulances, and fire apparatus. Delay can cost someone or their loved ones their lives. Currently, I have observed how declaring Page Street as a Slow Street has made traffic so slow, that emergency vehicles can’t get through at certain times of the day. In fact, at times even the intersections are blocked by cross traffic on Oak St. resulting in parking enforcement officers issuing many citations for blocking the intersections. Making streets like Page St. a permanent Slow Street poses a possible threat to public safety on Oak St. by making it impossible for emergency vehicles to respond quickly through that area. The traffic on Oak and Haight streets is always heavy.

As a former first responder who served in the San Francisco Fire Department for nearly thirty years, from firefighter to Chief of the Department, I ask that permanently making Page St. a Slow Street be reconsidered. I also suggest that before converting any street to a Slow Street, that the citizens on all of the neighboring streets be consulted. Finally, there should be a feasibility study done to find out how the conversion will impact emergency responders and response time. Life safety must always be a top priority.

Sincerely yours,

Robert L. Demmons,
Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department (Ret.)

SFFD Fire Marshal de Cossio

(Comments from Fire Commission Regular Meeting 4/14/2021)

Commissioner Nakajo asked Chief DeCossio how the Slow Streets affect the department in terms of response to an emergency. Chief DeCossio responded that Slow Streets were put forward as a temporary program. He added as follows: “what the Fire Marshal’s office received from MTA was we are running about 50 percent of traffic volume for the pre-COVID. So we take all of that into consideration when we review and give our input to these proposals that come forward, including Slow Streets. And specifically, the Slow Streets, we’ve approved — we’ve approved or given our recommendation to approve 32 of them so far. Twenty-seven have been deployed. Five more are coming. That’s for temporary. With regard to permanent, that’s a different story because to — to review a program as a permanent program, we have to have some kind of vision into the future, because permanent, obviously, is a long-term plan. We don’t know what kind of traffic volume we’re going to be facing when all the COVID restrictions are lifted. We’ve started tracking our response times internally, our Department, throughout the city. We’ve identified eight neighborhoods. And we’ve gone back five years up to the current time. And going back from 2016 to the current time, there’s been a slow creep of increase in response times. And that’s to be expected because, at that time, the city was really growing. The population was increasing, et cetera. One would expect when COVID hit a little over a year ago with the traffic volume going down that our response times would speed up. But they haven’t. They’ve continued to increase. The question is, it’s a judgment call. It’s a judgment call. What is a reasonable amount of increase for these programs? And just to give you a little insight, we’ve seen an increase anywhere from just a few seconds to 32 seconds in response time throughout the city. So moving forward, and if we’re running between 50 and 70 percent traffic volume now, what is that going to be when we’re at a hundred percent? And that’s the question we have to answer and look through the lens when we — when we evaluate something for a permanent — a permanent program. So it’s — the fire marshal’s position in our office is that we take a little more time to evaluate this data as the city opens up, as the volume increases, and how does that correlate or correspond to our response times? Does it stay pretty level or does that increase as well? So we — there’s a lot of unknowns. Getting to your point about how it impacts us, San Francisco is unique. And CD-2 can speak probably better to this from the operational end of things, but I look at it through the lens of the fire marshal and what — and — and what is unique to San Francisco is the density and the topography and the zero lot lines and the exposure concerns. You look at San Francisco and we are second only to New York City in density, population per square mile. And then you give all the — all those other considerations. So time is critical. Seconds matter in San Francisco. Also, if you look at buildings built before 1942, most of them are going to be balloon frame construction. So they’re not going to have fire blocking. So you have zero lot line setbacks, exposure issues, balloon frame, and so timing is critical so we have to have an aggressive fire attack and get to the scene of the fire quickly to limit the exposure and the spread of fire. So saying all of that, time is important to us. And — and right now, anywhere from 5 to 32 seconds, that’s delayed time. That puts our people more at risk. It puts the people we serve more at risk. The question is, is it a reasonable risk? And that’s a policy decision. So — so it delays our response a certain amount, and it’s a policy decision. What’s a — what’s a reasonable amount of delay with the tradeoff and the benefits of these programs? And — and — and not to go on too much, I’ll just say this, again, looking through the eyes of a permanent program, I think we need to track this for a greater period of time as we open up before we move into a permanent status of these programs.”