Chestine Mason, 79, has a hard time walking across busy Third Street in San Francisco’s Bayview before the light changes.

“I am a senior and much slower than these 19 years olds would be,” said Mason, a longtime Bayview resident and retired teacher.

On Wednesday morning, a group of seniors held a protest at the corner of Yosemite Street and Third Street, a block from a senior center, to demand more senior-friendly crossings. They toddled across the street, but by the time the light changed, they’d only made it to the median, a cement sliver in between two sets of Muni tracks where the T-Third train travels.

Watch as Jean Kemp tries to cross the street before the light changes: 

“They need to give more time for crossing the street – and slow the traffic down some,” said Mason. “Let the seniors be able to cross without having to fear for their lives.”

The protest comes three weeks after a national report found that seniors and minorities were the most likely to be hit and killed while walking on the streets. The study found that over the past decade there were nearly 7,000 pedestrian deaths in California, and nearly 700 in San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont.

The intersection that seniors protested Tuesday has not been the site of many pedestrian accidents. In fact, there was just one pedestrian accident at that Bayview intersection over the last five years, according to data complied by The Bay Citizen, and it did involve a senior citizen.

“It’s interesting that they chose that intersection because there hasn’t been a pedestrian incident in four years,” said Paul Rose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

Rose said that crosswalk times are set by federal guidelines based on the length of the crosswalk and the type of intersection. He said that the agency has no plans to change the signal time.

The crossing at Third Street has a signal that lasts 20 seconds to cross five lanes of traffic and two Muni tracks.

Pi Ra, an organizer with Senior Action Network, said that seniors are afraid of crossing the street – regardless of the number of accidents.

“A lot of seniors are not crossing because it’s dangerous,” Pi Ra. “And that’s the reason we’re doing this.”

Ra also said that in general the Third Street corridor is dangerous for pedestrians – and indeed three other intersections along the four-lane thoroughfare had more than ten accidents over the past decade.