This is true, if your destination is @ or after John St., you could cross there, provided the sidewalk were plowed.
The other issue: What about people walking on Bridge St. that just need to cross French?

Conor Baldwin assigned this issue to Eric Eby

Thank you for reporting. This issue has been assigned to the Traffic Engineer for attention.

The only pedestrian signal at this intersection is the one to cross Bridge Street closest to Kearney Square. The other two crosswalks do not have pedestrian signals and never did. These two crosswalks allow for concurrent pedestrian crossings. When traffic is turning left out of French Street, pedestrians have the right to use the Bridge Street crosswalk and motorists must yield to them. The green left arrow for motorists does not give them the right to cut off pedestrians. When traffic is flowing on Bridge Street, pedestrians have the right to use the crosswalk to cross French Street. Again, motorists turning from Bridge onto French must yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. This is basic rules of the road that, unfortunately, many motorists do not know or obey. There are signs that can be installed to inform motorists of this law, and I will work with our sign shop to install them at this location.

If signs is the best, then signs please. Is it possible to just turn off that left turn arrow? That would be the safest option for pedestrians. It's a busy pedestrian intersection.

Thank you for reporting. This issue has been assigned to the Transportation Engineer for follow-up.

The left green arrow cannot be turned off because it indicates to drivers that they can only turn left when the pedestrian crossing signal on the Kearney Square side is activated. The green arrow still requires motorists to yield to pedestrians when turning.

I agree that signs are better than nothing and I really do hope that the motorists will obey them, but I don't expect things to change. I have been nearly hit no less than 7 times in the 5 years I have lived here and I can attest that drivers just don't care. I just hope it doesn't take someone getting seriously injured or worse, killed, before the whole situation is re-evaluated.

Thank you for spending the time looking into this.

This is not the only intersection where the turn arrows cause dangerous situations for pedestrians. The intersection of Wood and Westford St and Central and Market Street are also quite dangerous for pedestrians. At least at Wood and Westford the pedestrian trying to cross can see the drivers coming on, but at Central and Market, the pedestrian has to turn his/her back to the turning traffic. I am aware that there is a walk signal there but using it causes more traffic tie-ups.