The 67-year-old woman, whose name was not released, was struck by the trolley at the corner of McAllister and Polk streets about 11:30 a.m., according to police.
She was “conscious and talking after the incident,” Lee said. Lee said an ambulance arrived within three minutes to take her to the hospital, where she died of her injuries.
She was was struck in the crosswalk, which is one of the crossings due for improvements under a key city program to promote safe streets, called Vision Zero.
In an eerie coincidence, the mayor had been meeting with the National Association of Transportation Planners earlier in the morning and had been talking about San Francisco’s efforts to promote pedestrian safety.
According to Walk First, a strategy for pedestrian improvements in The City within the Planning Department, the intersection where the victim was struck is a high-injury area.
In fact, plans to install a traffic light at that intersection were signed off on about a month ago, but the light is not yet installed.
“It didn’t happen fast enough,” Lee said.
The goal of Vision Zero is to cut pedestrian deaths to zero by installing bulb-outs at intersections and other measures to encourage traffic calming.
Much of Polk Street in front of City Hall has been redesigned, with an additional bike lane and widened pedestrian bulb-outs at Polk and Grove Streets.
Lee lamented that improvements had not yet been made. “This is going to be something we talk about for a long, long time,” he said.