Over the holidays, we ran several national Streetsie award polls. Locally, we asked readers to vote on the Bay Area's most Bad-Ass Advocacy Group of 2016. And the winner is... Walk San Francisco!
From Nicole Ferrara, the groups Executive Director:
Our members, coalition partners, staff and board work tirelessly day-in and day-out to transform our streets into safe, enjoyable places for everyone, and I'm thrilled to share this honor with the Walk SF community! This award symbolizes the growth in walking advocacy organizations across the U.S., and we're proud to be part of that movement.
As we stated previously, Walk SF, in one way or another, is behind all sorts of improvements all over town. They keep the pressure on the mayor and the city to make things safer; they have been a major force in pushing Vision Zero.
What's next? In 2017, the fight for Automatic Speed Enforcement is going to be key. Streetsblog has had a few unofficial conversations with lawmakers, both in San Francisco and Sacramento, about a possible work-around for state prohibitions against their use (more on that in a future post). But it's already clear that Walk SF's advocacy work is key to getting these cameras in place. And as a Streetsblog commenter pointed out, Vision Zero will be impossible to achieve if we can't get cars to follow the speed limit.
Walk SF won by 39 percent of the votes. A wholehearted congratulations to Walk SF, Nicole Ferrra, Cathy DeLuca, Natalie Burdick, and the entire staff and board for your hard work.
It's worth noting that SFMTrA, the guerrilla safety group, came in a close second, with 33 percent. One of its leaders, who will remain anonymous, said previously in an interview with Streetsblog: "We've all done our civic duty and due diligence to make things better within the system and we all got frustrated...the next thing to do is take direct action."
Whatever the approach, congrats, again, to Walk SF and all the runners up. All of the contending groups are amazing and go above and beyond the call of duty. As Ferrara put it in an email to Streetsblog: "There are so many strong transportation advocacy groups in SF and the Bay Area, and I'm glad to be part of that network and know that we will continue to make a strong impact as we work together towards shared goals."
Streetsblog expects great things from all of the groups and is looking forward to working with them and covering their efforts in 2017.
