Overview
- City leaders and SFMTA marked completion of the West Portal Station Safety and Community Space Improvements, introducing new traffic controls and public-space upgrades.
- Changes include making Lenox Way one-way, prohibiting cars from going straight through West Portal Avenue at Ulloa, and adding planters, murals, polka-dot pavement, hardened centerlines, and flashing pedestrian beacons.
- Some merchants and residents report reduced in-person business from diverted traffic and argue the measures would not have prevented the 2024 crash, with turn restrictions described as unevenly enforced.
- Driver Mary Fong Lau has been charged with four counts of felony vehicular manslaughter in the 2024 bus stop deaths and is due back in court on Oct. 28 after pleading not guilty.
- The unveiling comes days after the Oct. 4 hit-and-run death of Binod Budhathoki, for which Perla Rosario Henriquez Ulloa faces felony charges, as the city contends with a recent rise in pedestrian fatalities.