San Francisco’s Most Dangerous Streets: Vision Zero Data and Your Claim

San Francisco tracks every traffic death and serious injury on its streets through Vision Zero, a City policy adopted in 2014 with the goal of zero traffic deaths. That data does two things for someone who has been hurt. It shows where the risk is concentrated, and it becomes evidence when a crash happens on a street the City already knew was dangerous. This page summarizes what the official sources say and how our San Francisco car accident lawyers use it.

The numbers

The SFMTA’s Vision Zero page states that about 30 people lose their lives and more than 500 are severely injured on San Francisco streets each year. The most recent official year-end count, published by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in January 2026, reported 25 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 43 in 2024. Of the 25 people killed in 2025, 16 were walking, four were on motorcycles, three were driving, one was a passenger and one was cycling. The City described 2025 as the lowest fatality count since 2018.

Two things about how the City counts. The Vision Zero figures exclude deaths on the Caltrans freeways that run through the city, which are tracked separately; the Department of Public Health memo listed three freeway deaths in 2024. And a fatality is counted when a person dies within 30 days of the crash, classified by the collision date, the same standard the CHP uses statewide, with one difference: San Francisco includes light rail vehicle fatalities.

The High Injury Network

The Department of Public Health maintains a map called the High Injury Network. The 2022 version was built from five years of severe and fatal injury data (2017 to 2021) drawn from Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the SFPD, emergency medical services and the Medical Examiner. A street segment made the network if it recorded 10 or more people killed or severely injured per mile over those five years.

The result covers about 12 percent of the city’s street miles, 121.5 miles in total, but accounts for 68 percent of severe and fatal injuries. Freeways, the Presidio, Fort Mason and streets closed to vehicles are not included. In 2025, 18 of the 25 people killed, 72 percent, died on High Injury Network streets, and 75 percent of the pedestrians killed were on the network.

The City publishes the network as a map and a dataset, not as a list of street names. You can view the Vision Zero SF maps to check whether a specific block is on it. If your crash happened on a High Injury Network street, tell your lawyer; it matters for the reasons below.

Corridors the City has named

Geary Boulevard

The SFMTA’s Geary Boulevard Improvement Project page states that Geary between Stanyan Street and 34th Avenue is on the High Injury Network. From 2010 to 2021 that stretch recorded 437 injury collisions, with 578 people injured and five people killed; 145 of the injured were pedestrians, about one person walking hurt each month. The SFMTA reports injury collisions fell by a third after a 2023 quick-build project, with full completion of the corridor work predicted for early 2028.

Market Street

Market Street has been car-free since January 2020, eastbound from 10th Street to Main Street and westbound from Steuart Street to Van Ness Avenue. Buses, paratransit, taxis, commercial deliveries and emergency vehicles are allowed; ride-hail vehicles are not. When the SFMTA made the change it cited 123 injury collisions on Market between Octavia and Steuart in 2018 and an average of more than 100 per year since 2014, three quarters of them involving people walking or biking. Those figures are from 2020, before the change.

Van Ness Avenue

Van Ness carries the city’s first bus rapid transit corridor, from Lombard Street to Mission Street, which opened April 1, 2022. The SFMTA reports injury traffic collisions on the corridor are down by 50 percent since the project.

The freeways: 101, 280, 80 and the Bay Bridge

These are state highways under Caltrans, so they sit outside the Vision Zero counts, but they carry a large share of the serious crashes our office sees. Caltrans began a two-year rehabilitation of the US-101 Central Freeway and the I-80 Bayshore Viaduct in January 2026, describing the 71-year-old structures as carrying thousands of vehicles daily near the Bay Bridge corridor. The same program covers the US-101 Hospital Curve, with full northbound closures between Cesar Chavez and 17th Street scheduled in September 2026, and the repaving of 19th Avenue, which is State Route 1. The Bay Bridge, including its approaches, runs 8.4 miles from the MacArthur Maze to the 5th Street off-ramps, with about a mile of elevated roadway in San Francisco. Crashes on any of these are reported by the CHP, not the SFPD; see our guide to getting a San Francisco police accident report.

Why the location of your crash matters

Three reasons. First, notice. When the City has published data showing a street is dangerous and has planned or delayed a fix, that record is relevant to whether a dangerous condition of public property contributed to a crash. Claims against the City and County of San Francisco have a six-month deadline; our guide to claims against the City explains the process.

Second, evidence. High Injury Network corridors tend to have cameras, transit vehicles with onboard video and more witnesses. The sooner someone requests that footage, the more likely it still exists.

Third, pattern. Insurers argue that a pedestrian or cyclist “came out of nowhere.” A documented history of the same crash type at the same location answers that argument.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: SFMTA, Vision Zero SF page and January 8, 2026 press release; San Francisco Department of Public Health, 2025 Traffic Fatality Monthly Report (December) and 2022 Vision Zero High Injury Network Methodology; SF.gov traffic fatalities data story; SFMTA Geary Boulevard Improvement Project, Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit and car-free Market Street pages; Caltrans District 4 news, January and April 2026; MTC Bay Bridge Fast Facts. Accessed September 2, 2026.