Details are still emerging, but the fatalities underscore a question that San Francisco and surrounding cities have been slow to answer: who's responsible for maintaining the thousands of trees that line our parks and streets, and are they actually doing it?

This isn't a new problem. As one SF resident recalled, "A woman was killed a few years ago in Golden Gate Park due to a falling branch." Others shared their own near-misses. Another local described watching a massive limb crash down in the park: "It was really loud, luckily, so I think everyone got out of the way in time." One runner recounted stopping mid-jog on JFK Drive only to watch a giant branch slam into the ground 50 feet ahead — exactly where they would have been.

These aren't freak accidents. They're a pattern. And patterns demand a policy response.

San Francisco's urban forestry program has been chronically underfunded for years. The city took back responsibility for street tree maintenance in 2021 after decades of pushing it onto property owners, but the backlog is enormous. Inspections are slow. Pruning schedules are behind. And when windstorms roll through — as they inevitably do — the consequences fall, quite literally, on residents.

Nobody's saying we should clearcut Golden Gate Park. But there's a difference between loving trees and being negligent about maintaining them. A well-funded, proactive tree inspection and pruning program isn't some luxury budget item — it's basic public safety infrastructure.

One life lost to a falling branch is a tragedy. A recurring pattern of falling branches with no meaningful policy change? That's a failure of governance. The city needs to accelerate its inspection timelines, prioritize high-traffic areas in parks and along pedestrian corridors, and be transparent about the current state of its tree maintenance backlog.

Because right now, walking through a park on a windy day shouldn't feel like a gamble.