Taraval Traffic Enforcement

By Paul Chignell

Having a state highway running through a police district is an immense challenge for local law enforcement.

Nineteenth Avenue carries hundreds of thousands of vehicles every week and a lot of those drivers are in a hurry to go north, south and everywhere in between.

Over the past several years there have been a number of studies about the impact of this traffic on pedestrians, other vehicles and, most importantly, the residents of adjoining neighborhoods.

Recent efforts to study have paid off with action. The speed limit has been reduced and enforcement efforts by the police department's Traffic Bureau and Taraval Station officers have been dramatically stepped up. Also, changes are in process to make pedestrian travel across 19th Avenue safer.

Despite all of this effort, one can readily see the specter of red light runners every few minutes at each intersection along 19th Avenue. So, the issue of safety continues to be paramount.

A rookie police officer knows the trio of concepts for traffic safety: enforcement, engineering and education. We will continue with aggressive traffic enforcement - Taraval leads the various city police stations with moving traffic citations for the first six months of this year. We will continue to work with Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Ross Mirkarimi and Gerardo Sandoval to enhance engineering changes and we will continue our work with residents, particularly the elderly and children, to educate them on how to stay out of harm's way.

Your safety is our priority.

Capt. Paul Chignell is the commanding officer at the Taraval Police Station.