A year after Thu Phan’s death, little has changed at Market Street intersection

Elana Kreydick‎ remembers her friend Thu Phan as a big personality: loud, friendly and hilarious.

“She was the type of person who would be on a train and would know people, or would make friends,” Kreydick recalled. “She was truly a bright light that touched everyone whose path she crossed. The world is better for having her in it.”

It’s been almost one year since Thu was killed while crossing Market, one of the city’s most dangerous streets, in her wheelchair. As the months have passed, and the headlines about her death have faded, she’s become a 2016 statistic, one of 16 pedestrians killed in traffic crashes last year, out of the nearly 30 people who lose their lives annually in San Francisco.

But for Thu’s family and community, her death left an enormous void. In the aftermath, the family has also been frustrated by the lack of information about the case, and whether the city worker who hit and killed Phan will face any consequences.

“There’s no way to know if the driver was charged,” Holly Michna, Thu’s sister, told Human Streets in a recent interview. “It’s been really frustrating not to get any updates.”

We did some digging: The driver who hit Thu, 67-year-old James Harris of Antioch, has been charged with misdemeanor involuntary vehicular manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty in May and is currently awaiting trial.

In honor of her memory, and adhering to our vision of challenging our city to do better, we’re revisiting the collision, following up on the case in the courts and analyzing what the city has done to improve this dangerous intersection.

The collision

Thu commuted on BART from her home in Berkeley to her job at the U.S. Department of Labor in San Francisco.

Shortly after 10 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2016, she was crossing Market Street at Seventh on the western side of the street when James Harris, driving north in a city-owned vehicle, made an illegal left onto Market Street and hit her.

Left turns were banned on Market the prior summer, to address the leading cause of crashes there. In fact, citywide, safe streets advocates say people walking are twice as likely to be hit by left-turning vehicles than by those turning right.

Thu was knocked out of her wheelchair and suffered a brain injury. She was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where she died of her injuries the next day. She was 38 years old.

Though turning left onto Market Street is illegal, city vehicles are exempt if they’re performing a certain function, such as street-sweeping, responding to an emergency, construction and maintenance, servicing a vehicle or street infrastructure, or parking/traffic enforcement. When James hit Thu, he was not performing any of those duties.

A disability and workers rights advocate

Thu was born with osteogenesis imperfecta (sometimes called brittle-bone disease). Due to her condition Thu weighed about 37 pounds, and drove a motorized wheelchair.

Thu’s family fled Vietnam by boat when she was two-years-old. After spending a year in Hong Kong, they moved to Stockton, where her parents still live today. She was one of six children.

Thu attended Delta College and then UC Berkeley, where she joined the Disabled Students’ Union. She graduated in 2008 with a BA in sociology. She was a vocal advocate for disabled and workers rights, speaking at rallies and conventions on her experiences.

Thu’s dream was to own a home and have a family, and work as an international ambassador for the disabled, traveling the world and educating people about the issues that affect the disabled community.

Coworkers told Holly they always remembered Thu because she’d zoom down the hallway when she got to work, saying hi to everyone.

“She had an amazing laugh,” Holly said. “We actually played a recording of her laugh at her memorial, because it was impossible to hear it and not join in.”

Thu was an avid and talented sweepstakes fan. As she worked part-time, and often had long waits for transportation, she had ample free time to devote to her hobby.

In 2003, she won an all-expenses-paid trip to London. Once, she took her mom to the Latin American Music Awards.

In the wake of Thu’s death, Holly connected with pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco. “They’ve been really great, and have been great advocates for my family,” she said.

Holly has also found support through the newly formed group San Francisco Bay Area Families For Safe Streets. She said it’s been “wonderful to connect with other families who’ve gone through the same thing.”

What has happened since Thu’s death?

The SFMTA made a couple of changes immediately after the crash. First, improved “no left turn” signs went in. However, the policy still allows many vehicles to make that left turn every day.

Taxis, buses, city vehicles performing official duties and commuter shuttles are all allowed to turn left off Seventh Street onto Market. And despite the signs, private vehicles can be spotted illegally making that left turn every few minutes, with little traffic enforcement. Google street view even captured one:

Immediately following Thu’s death, a coalition of organizations requested a number of changes to the intersection, including “leading pedestrian intervals” — a head start for pedestrians to enter the crosswalk before vehicles get a green light.

This tactic increases pedestrians’ visibility, but for an intersection as wide as Seventh and Market, three seconds isn’t much. For a disabled person — who may be moving slower — to become clearly visible to a left-turning car at Seventh and Market, it would take five seconds. But on this point, the SFMTA wouldn’t budge. According to Walk SF, three seconds was the maximum they’d allow, as they didn’t want to slow down transit.

In the wake of the collision several high-profile city workers stepped up to voice their concerns. One of the most vocal was Supervisor Norman Yee, who was hit and seriously injured by a driver years ago, resulting in a month-long stay in the hospital.

In response to Thu’s death, he campaigned for black boxes (more commonly known as GPS trackers or telematics) to be installed in city vehicles as safety measures. The boxes provide data on speed and behavior, helping to keep drivers of these vehicles responsible for following city traffic laws.

“I’ve been focusing on proven strategies that make a difference, like installing telematics in all city vehicles, which monitor safe driving behaviors of those using city vehicles,” Yee said in a Jan. 1 Vision Zero news release. “Telematics is one such proven strategy that has resulted in reduced speeding and other dangerous driving behaviors in other cities that have used the technology. In 2017, I also want us to push for other forms of technology like automated speed enforcement to slow down speeding vehicles and further reduce collisions.”

About 30 percent of the City’s 8,000 vehicles had telematics as of June, according to a KQED report. Jack Gallagher, an aide to the City Administrator, said about half a million dollars was spent installing the hardware in city vehicles in 2015 and 2016. The amount has since tripled to more than $1.6 million.

Telematics have now been installed in an additional 3,975 city vehicles, which means that “telematics have been installed in essentially all applicable vehicles — only 10 are pending installation,” Gallagher told Human Streets.

Few improvements at intersection

While some minor steps have been taken to improve safety at Seventh and Market streets, safe streets advocates say a lot of work remains.

Standing on the corner of the intersection earlier this week, we noticed a number of new hazards since Thu’s death last year. Two large construction projects on the northeast and southeast sides of the street are in full swing, and now have workers and trucks entering the road, causing congestion on Seventh Street. Pavement conditions, like much of Market Street, are terrible. And pedestrian traffic in the area has increased as new office buildings rise, such as the 16-story WeWork Mid-Market, which opened one block away last year.

But safety advocates are on the case, and continuing their efforts to make the Seventh and Market intersection — and Market Street as a whole — safer.

“Thu’s death took place at 7th and Market — an intersection that received improvements, but those improvements did not go far enough, allowing for too many compromises that resulted in this needless crash,” Jessica Lehman, Executive Director of Senior and Disability Action, said earlier this year.

The Better Market Street Project is in the works, and is taking a holistic view of the entire stretch of Market Street. Goals of the project are to improve Muni reliability, bicycle connectivity, and street safety.

But despite years of evidence showing why this project is necessary, it’s still only in the preliminary engineering phase. Construction isn’t planned to begin until 2020, and in the meantime, people are at risk every time they cross Seventh and Market.

Thu’s family feels her loss every day. On Sunday, Holly and her family will revisit the scene of the collision to leave flowers in Thu’s memory.

“It is a tragedy and really sad, but I really want something good to come out of it,” Holly said. “The day that she passed away I felt like she was just getting into a happy place. She was talking about moving in with her boyfriend, and figuring out her direction. She was just getting started, and she could have lived so much more.”