San Franciscans are good at many things. Just ask us.

Voting, it seems, is at the top of the list. An eye-popping 74.4 percent of registered San Francisco voters cast a ballot in the midterm elections, the highest percentage for a midterm election here in modern history. Nationwide, 49.3 percent of registered voters turned out for the midterms, the highest percentage since 1914. A solid showing, but still, we trounced it. (Of course, the San Francisco Department of Elections actually encourages voting rather than attempting to quash it, so that might have something to do with it.)

Our 74.4 percent figure is far higher than the usual San Francisco turnout for midterm elections. Back in 2014, those pleasant, low-pressure days when Donald Trump’s most significant decision was whom to fire from “The Apprentice,” our voter turnout was a blase 53 percent.

(I just refreshed my memory by looking at what was on the ballot that year and nearly fell asleep in the process. Bonus points if you remember the name of the Republican Gov. Jerry Brown beat for a second term. It was Neel Kashkari, and if you came up with that off the top of your head, you should appear on “Jeopardy!” Unless, of course, your name is Neel Kashkari.)

Anyway, that 74.4 percent figure rivals our turnout in presidential elections. When Trump went from reality show host to leader of the free world, 80.7 percent turned out to vote. That was just shy of the 81.25 percent turnout in 2008, when the nation elected Barack Obama president, and San Franciscans literally danced in the streets. My, how times have changed.

Of course, San Francisco isn’t monolithic, despite what Trump believes, and turnout within the city varied significantly. Leah Dorazio, a math teacher at University High School, made some nifty maps breaking down turnout neighborhood by neighborhood and even precinct by precinct.

The Castro had the best showing at 85.1 percent, followed by Noe Valley (84.9 percent) and Diamond Heights (82.8 percent.) Visitacion Valley had the lowest turnout at 55.2 percent, and Bayview-Hunters Point was second from the bottom at 57.3 percent.

Dorazio said she has made data visualizations for the math textbook she co-wrote, “Advanced High School Statistics,” as well as for other projects related to her work, but had never mapped voter turnout before. Once she learned the Department of Elections makes all its data public, she gave it a shot.

She said she was most struck by how voters from the the city’s wealthier, whiter neighborhoods turned out in much bigger numbers than voters from poorer neighborhoods with more people of color.

“I am reminded how important it is to spread the get-out-the-vote message so that people can have their voices heard and their interests represented,” she said.

I noticed that in Chinatown, one of the poorest, least-white neighborhoods in the city, 70.6 percent of voters cast ballots. The get-out-the-vote effort was strong there, particularly for Proposition C, which would tax big businesses to raise money for homeless services, and it seems to have paid off.

In any case, San Franciscans were so motivated by this month’s midterms, 602 out of 604 precincts saw a higher percentage of voters go to the polls than in the 2014 midterm elections. The two holdouts were the precinct on the Embarcadero immediately south of the Bay Bridge and one in Chinatown.

The biggest change from 2014 to 2018 came in the precinct that includes San Francisco State University, where just 11.3 percent of voters bothered to cast ballots four years ago, but 60.1 percent voted this time around. Good job, Gators!

Drug traffic gridlock: I told you last month about drug dealers swarming the Tenderloin and South of Market to prey on homeless addicts because they know there’s little consequence for their actions. Included in the column were complaints from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic at 472 Turk St., which said formerly homeless people needing to get to its offices to make rent payments were reluctant because of the dealers swarming outside.

In a perfect world, media attention on such an obvious problem would solve it. San Francisco is not a perfect world.

That little swath of Turk Street was supposed to get markedly better with construction on the city-owned 440 Turk St. next door. Formerly the headquarters for the San Francisco Housing Authority, it is being remodeled to serve as the main office for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

The city pledged that a security guard would be stationed outside during construction to keep sidewalks clear and safe. But Tenderloin Housing Clinic staff members say they’ve seen no security guard. Emails traded among Tenderloin Housing Clinic staff and shared with me describe some scary sights.

“We now have people literally blocking the doorway into the building to sell and/or use drugs,” read one email. “The drug traffic in front of our building has increased significantly, and the violence that comes with these behaviors has also increased.”

In the past month, the staff has had to close and secure the doors four times because of fighting in front of the door or bodies slamming into the front windows.

Randy Quezada, spokesman for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said a security guard is on-site from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

“We want to be good neighbors,” he said. “Everyone knows how to get in touch with us.”

Quezada said construction should be done by June, and the staff will move in over the summer.

“This is a challenging block, and certainly we want to contribute to any and all of the safety efforts there,” he said.

The city has promised the department a permanent office space for 2½ years — it will be a total of three years or more by the time it’s a reality.

San Francisco, the city that can’t rid its streets of drug dealers or complete a construction project in a reasonable amount of time. No wonder its residents are motivated to vote.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf