Handing out tickets was all too easy for San Francisco police officers conducting a traffic enforcement operation on Ingleside's stretch of Ocean Avenue.
The Light watched six officers on motorcycles pull over as many drivers inside a five-minute period at the intersections of Granada and Miramar. The motorists were speeding past the 20 mph limit or driving through crosswalks occupied by pedestrians.
One officer asked this reporter to help the enforcement effort by crossing the street a couple of times to nab more people behaving badly.
"We're out here as part of a directive from Mayor Daniel Lurie," the officer said.
Lurie signed a Street Safety Initiative executive order on Dec. 10.
The Ocean Avenue crackdown was so effective one person took to NextDoor to warn motorists to avoid the avenue.
"Stay off of Ocean Avenue," the neighbor wrote. "It’s like a police traffic stop. They’re giving tickets out like crazy."
San Franciscans might have grown accustomed to lax traffic enforcement. The police department's staffing crisis has hit the traffic particularly hard.
The high-visibility traffic enforcement operation was just one across the city. Cyclists blowing stoplights and others on Market Street were also targeted, per Mission Local.
"These SFPD traffic enforcement operations are aligned with the Mayor's citywide street safety plan," a spokesperson for the police department said on April 8. "Nine officers from the Traffic Company were focused on enforcement in these traffic corridors that have been identified as part of the High Injury Network. This operation resulted in 39 contacts, 39 violations cited and 10 violations advised."
The operations were timed with the mayor's office release on Thursday of the new High Injury Network, a list of San Francisco streets identified as dangerous to pedestrians and bicyclists.
Ocean Avenue has long been on the list. Two elderly women were struck and killed by drivers last year.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency believes transit-only lanes that would reduce the number of private vehicles lanes from two to one in each direction are the best solution to improving street safety. The lanes, slated for installation along most of the K-Ingleside light-rail route on the avenue in January, are now on hold while a compromise is found.
Update: This article now includes information from the police department about the Wednesday operation.
