Streetsblog San Francisco

A rendering of a possible future for Market Street. Image: Better Market Street

Note: The Better Market Street Project will hold two public workshops on July 17 and 21, where you can provide feedback on the proposed concepts.

The future of lower Market Street seems more likely than ever to be unencumbered by cars, freeing up space for effective transit and raised, protected bicycle lanes.

The latest update [PDF] on the Better Market Street Project includes three possible scenarios to lessen the impact of private automobiles on Market, Department of Public Works Project Manager Kris Opbroek told the SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors this week. The proposals range from banning cars east of Franklin Street to using more forced turns to reduce through traffic. The scenarios that do allow cars could include car-free zones on pedestrian heavy blocks like the one between Fourth and Fifth Streets, Opbroek said.

The plan is being developed by a team of city agencies and design consultants who are drawing inspiration from the world’s most celebrated streets. Among the design features under consideration, Opbroek said, are bike lanes separated from motor vehicles by a raised curb, which have been employed to great effect in the world’s most successful cycling cities. (SF’s first raised bike lanes are included in the plan for Masonic Avenue.)

The raised bike lanes were praised by board members, including Joél Ramos, who recently visited Copenhagen with SFMTA staff on a trip funded by the Bikes Belong Foundation. On Nørrebrogade, which Copenhagen claims as the busiest bicycling street in the Western world, Ramos said he saw how the lanes “work as a phenomenal placemaking opportunity” to help make the street “a thriving corridor.”

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Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

This weekend kicks off the first of four Sunday Streets events in the Mission every month through August, and organizers will be watching its success to evaluate the feasibility of making Valencia and 24th Streets car-free as frequently as once a month.

The Mission has become by far the most popular route for Sunday Streets, bringing out an estimated 25,000 people last May.

“San Francisco residents, merchants and visitors have enthusiastically embraced Sunday Streets and are consistently asking us for more of these kinds of programs,” said SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin in a statement. “We are proud to introduce a new element to Sunday Streets by testing a regular car-free route through one of San Francisco’s most populated and diverse neighborhoods. During this pilot, we will be looking closely at how we can help create open spaces in communities like the Mission where park space is limited and support the many small businesses along the way.”

Be sure to get out and enjoy a sunny day of music, art, live performances, and all-around car-free fun.

Organizers “plan to do additional outreach during this pilot period, and gather input from residents, business owners, local employees, religious institutions to gauge the impacts and support for the idea of having a regular Sunday Streets route in the Mission (or in another area of the city),” according to the Sunday Streets website.

Love the idea? Be sure to let the organizers know.

And don’t forget, July will have two Sunday Streets events: the Mission route will be held on July 1 and the Bayview/Dogpatch route on July 22.

Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

Head out to the Avenues for some car-free action this weekend at Sunday Streets in Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway. Don’t forget: the route through Golden Gate Park is slightly different this year. At Transverse Drive, the route switches over from John F. Kennedy Drive to Martin Luther King along the western section.

Activities in the park include the intriguingly named “Roller Soccer International,” Purusha Yoga, a YMCA program for kids, and of course, the regular swing classes and musical skating area on JFK Drive. At Lincoln Way and Great Highway, you’ll find free bike rentals and repairs, the SF Bike Coalition’s Freedom From Training Wheels classes, and booths representing other local organizations and businesses. Along the coast: more music, dance, and kids’ activities.

Here’s hoping the beautiful forecast holds out.

Check out a map and full list of activities after the break. See you out there!

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Sunday Streets will come to Valencia and 24th Streets in the Mission each month from May to August this year. Photo: geekstinkbreath/Flickr

Sunday Streets keeps on growing, with 10 car-free events coming to neighborhoods around the city this year.

This year’s schedule includes four consecutive months of the ever-popular Mission route, a new route in the Excelsior, and a modified route through Golden Gate Park. The Civic Center/Tenderloin route was also taken off the table this year due to logistical challenges, but it is expected to return.

Why so many events in the Mission? Sunday Streets organizer Susan King said planners are using the route to evaluate the potential for a recurring event, with the goal of establishing weekly events like those in Bogotá, Colombia, which originally inspired Sunday Streets.

“Sunday Streets is turning the corner,” said King. “We’ve gone from being a pilot project that turned out to be more successful than any of us really had an idea that it would evolved into a moving event. We’re trying to get a pattern.”

In April, the Great Highway/Golden Gate Park route will be partly moved off of John F. Kennedy Drive onto Middle Drive and Martin Luther King Drive to create a more intuitive route that requires fewer staff to direct traffic, said King. In past events, the middle stretch of JFK west of Transverse Drive has seen few people stopping, she said, and Middle Drive is already off limits to through car traffic. The change would also remove a sharp turn on the western end of the route, making it easier to follow (see the map below).

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Photos: Aaron Bialick

The demand for car-free streets in San Francisco is easy to see at the Sunday Streets events around the city. If there’s no Sunday Street in your neighborhood, though, not to worry: You can bring a car-free event right to your doorstep.

With a little outreach to your neighbors, a permit application, and a fee, it may be easier than you think.

My block in the Inner Sunset did it this Sunday for the tenth year in a row for its annual block party, bringing neighbors together for a potluck, games, and conversation.

Organizer Walter Van Riel said once he put the vehicle barriers in place, the street was transformed in an instant. “Not more than five minutes later, I heard the sound of kids playing in the street,” he said.

Going car-free relieves streets of the noise and danger normally present, which can prevent kids from playing outside and inhibit relationships between neighbors. Mary Deely, who has lived on the block since 1970, said without the block party, she wouldn’t know her neighbors as well. “I wave to people, but I don’t really talk to them until the block party,” she said.

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The 10/9/11 CicLAvia route. For a poster size version of the route, click on the picture.

By the early afternoon of April 10, it was clear that CicLAvia had outgrown its original seven-and-a-half mile route. In the urban core of Downtown Los Angeles, bikes were packed so thick on the road that entire groups wouldn’t make it through traffic signals and other road users were intimidated from using the street. Something had to change for the amazing car-free party to continue to attract new riders.

CicLAvia staff got to work and announced earlier today that the October 9th 2011 CicLAvia will have an expanded ten and a half mile route with more open streets in the Downtown snaking North and South for a much larger car-free party.

“We’re excited about the three new miles, and we’re looking forward to expanding more,” writes Joe Linton, one of the organizers of CicLAvia. “Bogota started in the 1970s with only 7 miles and now they do 80 miles – every Sunday!”

The CicLAvia Blog shares the details of the expanded routes:

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A rare sight in the Tenderloin: children playing ball in the streets. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

Mary San George was sitting outside her neighborhood flower store yesterday, facing the historic residential high-rise building on O’Farrell Street where she has lived for 27 years, and was marveling at something she very rarely gets to experience in her Tenderloin neighborhood: a street full of people instead of cars.

“People use this street like a raceway,” said the 75-year-old San George, who was anxious to point out the everyday dangers of a neighborhood where streets prioritize auto throughput. “We have signs in different areas that say this is a drug-free zone, but I think we should have a no-speed zone, and make it very expensive for drivers.”

For its 25th event, Sunday Streets, now a San Francisco institution, brought car-free zones filled with healthy activities to the Tenderloin, one of the densest neighborhoods on the West Coast, where most residents don’t own automobiles. Last year’s Tenderloin event was rained out, but this year, under beautiful blue skies, between 5,000 and 7,000 people turned out to play in the streets.

While the event didn’t attract the huge crowds that the Mission’s Sunday Streets draws — there was a little music festival competing — it was nevertheless an exciting day, and an important moment for the Tenderloin and the livable streets movement.

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SF Bike Coalition Policy Director Andy Thornley on the Great Highway. Photo: Bryan Goebel

Sunday Streets returns to Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway this Sunday, extending the park’s regular weekend street openings all the way to the beach and beyond. Thousands of San Franciscans of all ages are expected to pedal, play and relax along the car-free route running all the way from the Panhandle along John F. Kennedy Drive to the windmill and down the Great Highway along Ocean Beach with lots of fun activites along the way.

There will be free performances from some talented groups throughout the route, including the San Francisco Symphony and Circus Bella in the park as well as two shows from local musical child prodigies. Of course, there will also be lots of family-friendly activities to participate in like skate rentals and dancing, RollerSoccer demonstrations, a Climate Change Education Mobile Climate Science Lab, free bike rentals, and the SF Bike Coalition’s Freedom From Training Wheels program.

Get out and make the most of the beautiful weather forecast and a car-free Golden Gate Park!

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Thousands of people took to the car-free streets of the Bayview, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill yesterday for a sunny Sunday Streets.  Did you go? Please share your stories in the comments section, and see more photos below the break. The next Sunday Streets is July 12th on the Great Highway.

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Flickr photo: sfbike

Many a cycling tot will get another chance to graduate from training wheels this Sunday on safe, car-free streets by the Bay. Sunday Streets returns to Bayview with a tweaked route this year to include the Lower Potero Hill and Dogpatch neighborhoods in the plethora of family-friendly activities.

The list of activities this month is so long, in fact, that when organizer Susan King submitted it the San Francisco Examiner for publication, “the copy editors came back to me and said, ‘cut this down by a third’.”

“This is certainly one of the most robust program lists we’ve had,” said King.

The route will run along Third Street from Mendell Plaza to 22nd Street, where it will zig zag west by Espirit Park to the Jackson Playground at 17th and Wisconsin Streets. It was modified to accommodate vehicle traffic needs for a Giants game at the ballpark, but it will also bring the street opening to new doorsteps.

“It gives us a chance to really explore those two neighborhoods that we haven’t done before,” said King. “In Dogpatch, we’re going through the emerging merchant corridor on 22nd Street and tying it to Espirit park, which is a beautiful little park hidden behind the freeway.”

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