Pedestrian safety has been a long-standing concern for the Burlingame City Council and its commissions, Vice Chair of the Traffic, Safety and Parking Commission John Martos said. While many areas of Burlingame are considered safe, accidents — including some fatal — still occur, such as one two months ago where a woman was struck and killed while crossing an intersection.

“Places where [accidents] occur are usually on the more [high traffic] roadways in Burlingame. So the main arteries such as El Camino, California Drive … we also worry about our downtown areas where there’s a lot more foot traffic, so Broadway and Burlingame Avenue,” Traffic Division Sergeant Jason Roberts said.

In the past, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety subcommittee designed the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan to increase walkability and safety for pedestrians and cyclists throughout the community. This extensive plan offered a wide range of improvements, including additional speed bumps, lower speed limits around schools, and lights to increase visibility. 

“A lot of the walking areas that we have studied and heard concerns about are in the downtown areas… we’ve improved visibility at crosswalks so when people are crossing the streets there’s flashy beacons and other things that alert drivers,” Martos said. 

Despite these efforts, Lesley Beatty, co-founder of Walk and Bike Burlingame — a local volunteer group focused on street safety — says several areas of Burlingame remain unsafe for pedestrians.“There are major corridors and segments that are [not safe] … there’s just a lot more traffic through Burlingame and our street design really hasn’t kept up to try and accommodate for that,” Beatty said. 

Beatty cites recent accidents as a reason for fewer pedestrians walking in Burlingame.

“Bad collisions and pedestrian injuries happen here and people stop walking. I know a ton of people who won’t let their kids walk to school because they’re afraid that their kid can’t cross El Camino Real,” Beatty said. 

Senior Lucas Keeley noted that while Burlingame is generally safe, factors like a high concentration of young drivers and irresponsible pedestrians could contribute to accidents.

“There are a lot of new drivers — young drivers in high school — and that creates additional risk,” senior Lucas Keeley said. “Pedestrians generally just feel more entitled to have the right of way, [so] if a car hits a pedestrian, it’s just always going to be the car’s fault.” 

In response to the rising car accidents and pedestrian safety concerns, the city plans to implement a preventative program called Vision Zero, to limit the number of serious collisions.

“We know that a lot of [accidents] often occur with pedestrians or bicyclists. It’s really putting together a plan to ensure that the number of injuries and fatalities can decrease,” city council candidate Desiree Thayer said.

Vision Zero isn’t a new idea; it was first introduced in Sweden 27 years ago and adopted by San Francisco and New York in 2014, making them the first American cities to implement the program. 

The goal of Vision Zero is to acquire and study data, allowing Burlingame to analyze the success of their efforts to improve pedestrian safety and find areas for potential improvement.

“Through Vision Zero, we will study that and actually take data and see if the city has gotten safer … and then from that baseline, we will look at areas where we can make the city even more safe,” Martos said. 

Burlingame plans to implement Vision Zero over the upcoming year and will take advantage of other cities’ prior experience with the program. 

“Vision Zero [will] start next year. We’ll have consultants that have implemented programs like this in other cities to guide us, and there’ll be a couple of people from [the] city council,” Martos said. 

The goal of Vision Zero is ambitious, and cities that have implemented the program have seen mixed results. Despite San Francisco’s adoption of Vision Zero a decade ago, the number of fatalities remains comparable to when the program was first launched, according to the City and County of San Francisco. 

Nevertheless, other cities such as Hoboken, New Jersey, have gone seven years without a traffic-related death. Likewise to Hoboken, Fremont has also experienced a large drop in fatalities since implementing the program in 2015.

Roberts believes that although Burlingame can take actions to reduce the likelihood of accidents, the safety of pedestrians will ultimately be up to the person and their judgment. 

“I can’t stress enough that everybody, whether they’re a driver, pedestrian, bicyclist, scooter, any mode of transportation when you’re out there, just be aware of your surroundings and slow down. Unfortunately, the times that you’re most in a hurry are the times when bad things will happen,” Roberts said.