Remember the San Francisco poop map? This was a real thing that was created back in 2019. Using open source data the map plotted the location of every poop reported on the street creating what looked like a cloud of sewage blanketing the city. The poop map has been updated through 2023 and you can still view it here. Because of the amount of data involved, it takes a while to load.
Earlier this month the city released its annual Street & Sidewalk Maintenance Standards Annual Report which had some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the amount of litter found on the streets and sidewalks of the city is down slightly. The bad news, as you've probably guessed, is that the amount of feces found on the street is up.
Feces levels remained high between July 2023-June 2024; 30 percent of routes evaluated had feces present. Feces decreased from January-December 2022 to January-June 2023, but average observed instances increased sharply between July 2023-December 2023. Feces levels varied significantly between July 2023June 2024, but the citywide average over that period remained higher than in prior periods. This was true both for the percent of routes with at least one instance of feces and for average feces levels.
The city made this finding after a serious effort to review the streets.
In the city’s doo-doo discovery efforts, 2,662 streets were surveyed. A whopping 30% had animal or human feces on them; the last time the survey was carried out, between January and June 2023, the crap counter clocked in at 18.5%. The names of the streets that were surveyed were not released...
...a Controller’s Office spokesperson said their study was “relatively rigorous,” pointing to the more than 2,600 streets they examined, and that randomly selecting streets is the best way to study their condition.
There is a big caveat here which is that the findings don't differentiate between human poop and dog poop. Rachel Gordon, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works argued that the poop probably mostly came from dogs, though that's just a guess because they don't DNA test the poop.
In a city where dogs allegedly outnumber children, Gordon said she believed much of the droppings came from pet owners who haven’t learned they need to pick up after their furry companions.
“We don’t DNA test the poop,” she said, “but we do think a lot of it is dog waste. … We want to get dog owners to do what they should be doing by law — pick up after their dogs. And we’re seeing that a lot, people just aren’t doing that.”
The report shows that the poop isn't evenly distributed. The worst streets happen to be in SoMa and the Tenderloin, areas associated with rampant homelessness. But whether it's people or their dogs leaving the mess, local businesses say the result is revolting.
“It cooks into the cement,” said a barista at the Buoy, a cafe near Market and Gough. “The smell is so strong. You can’t see anything and it still smells so bad.”
San Francisco has spent millions installing a dozen or so public toilets in the past couple years and back in 2019 it was spending $72 million a year on street cleaning, but the situation seems to be getting worse. Maybe it's time to resurrect the poop patrol, San Francisco's unique version of first responders.
