A Muni bus collided with a vehicle this morning in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, injuring the bus' driver.
The 38R-Geary Rapid bus was traveling on Geary Street, near Larkin Street, around 9 a.m. when it collided with the vehicle, a black four-door sedan.
It's unclear who was at fault in the incident, but SFPD spokesperson Joseph Tomlinson said the driver of the sedan attempted to flee the scene before being taken into custody.
Tomlinson said that the bus' driver sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. It's unclear if anyone else was injured.
Lower Haight resident Christa Hartsock, who was aboard the bus, did not visually witness the moment of the collision. But she felt the impact.
“The impact didn’t feel particularly hard ... It mainly felt as if [the driver] had slammed on their brakes," said Hartsock, who was traveling to a doctor's appointment at the time. "It was jarring. Everyone was thrown forward and kind of confused."
“The car was pretty f--ked up,” she said, but she and others around her on the bus were uninjured. She said that the collision mostly seemed to rattle pedestrians and onlookers near the scene.
"A guy was yelling fairly loudly," she said. "I saw him carrying a small person."
Regular service resumed about half an hour after the incident, according to SFMTA.
Hartsock said the incident got her thinking about District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents the Tenderloin.
Haney has been an outspoken advocate for reducing similar collisions, calling on Mayor London Breed to declare a state of emergency on traffic safety after four pedestrians were struck and killed by vehicles in the Tenderloin last year.
The Supervisors passed a unanimous resolution affirming the state of emergency last fall, but the legislation was largely ceremonial.
San Francisco has a Vision Zero program, which aims to eliminate all traffic deaths in the city by 2024, but deaths actually increased in 2019.