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!

Photo: sirgious/Flickr

The fifth and biggest year of Sunday Streets launches at the Embarcadero this weekend, opening up the street for everyone to enjoy a car-free waterfront from Fisherman’s Wharf to Mission Bay.

Just look at all the stuff that can happen once the traffic is gone: roller disco and a rock climbing wall return at the wharf along with free bike rentals and tune-ups and bike lessons for kids from the SF Bicycle Coalition. There will also be live music and performances by the Sardine Family Circus, zumba lessons, YMCA kid’s programs, a bouncy basketball toss, an inflatable obstacle course, kite lessons, and more.

The date for Sunday Streets’ return to Chinatown and North Beach has been also announced for August 26, when Grant Avenue will be turned into a pedestrian paradise once again.

The fun starts at 11 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. — see you out there.

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).

The route could also happen more regularly in coming years, as King noted that plans are in the works to close the Great Highway south of Sloat Boulevard due to continuing erosion along the beach. The highway is already regularly closed to car traffic because of sand blockages.

In the Outer Mission/Excelsior neighborhoods, where King says merchants and residents have “not let up” in asking the city to bring Sunday Streets, a new route is being planned to finish off the season in October.

King also noted that the Civic Center/Tenderloin route — which was marred by rain one year and by the Outside Lands festival the next — won’t happen this year. Planners hope to create a more attractive route in future years that is less disruptive to Muni and requires fewer staff to direct traffic. “It was, for a variety of reasons, our least well-attended route, and also double the cost of some of our other routes,” said King.

San Franciscans can also look forward to returning events on the Embarcadero, Bayview, Chinatown, and Western Addition/NoPa.

Here’s the Sunday Streets 2012 schedule (subject to change):

• March 11: Embarcadero – season kick off
• April 15: Great Highway/Golden Gate park — new route through the park
• May 6: Mission
• June 3: Mission
• July 1: Mission
• July 22: Bayview
• August 5: Mission
• August TBA: Chinatown
• September 9: Western Addition/NoPa/Alamo Square
• October 21: Outer Mission/Excelsior

The new Golden Gate Park route (in yellow) compared with the old one (in red).

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

The 2011 slate of Sunday Streets wraps up this weekend in the Mission District, bringing car-free space back to the ever-popular Valencia and 24th Street route. This spring, an estimated 25,000 people came out for the year’s first installment of Sunday Streets in the Mission.

The event marks the end of a highly successful season for Sunday Streets as organizers continue to develop it into a permanent institution and expand it into new areas.

“Sunday Streets represents one of the more significant and tangible ways that San Francisco is rethinking and transforming how we think of and use our public rights-of-way – using them for people to enjoy on bike and on foot, not just to pass through in a car,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin. “Since the program began in 2008, Sunday Streets has evolved and improved with each event and grown each season to reach more neighborhoods across the city.”

The event will feature a host of activities. Here’s the list from the SFMTA:

• “Food Day”-themed programming to highlight the first annual Food Day celebration, with information about local, sustainable, healthy food at numerous program activity areas
• Live music and activities starting at Friends School on Valencia at 14^th streets to Brava Theater on 24^th and York streets, including local bands Rin Tin Tiger, Dogpatch, Amalgamtion, Organsm and Con Brio
• Free bike rentals by Bike & Roll, Tune ups from Sports Basement’s Lube Fairies and the SF Bicycle Coalition’s popular “Freedom from Training Wheels” course (Valencia and 15^th streets)
• Programs for pets presented by Happy Hounds Massage (Valencia and 19^th streets)
• Yoga by Laughing Lotus (Valencia Street near 16^th Street)
• ABADA Capoera performing from 2 to 3 p.m. (Valencia and 21^st streets)
• Buena Vista Horace Mann Elementary School presents Kermes Festival at the newly merged school campus (Valencia and 23^rdstreets)
• SF Public Library’s Tricycle Music Festival (24^th and Bartlett streets)
• Mission Culture Center, SF Carnival, Maikazi Diako Tiako Drummers perform (24th Street BART Plaza)
• Black Rock Roller Disco and Roller Soccer International roller soccer demos (24^th and Treat streets)
• Kid’s activities by Mission Girls, Head Start and Mission YMCA, free youth health and dental screenings by UCSF and hip-hop dance lessons by B-Boys Dance Crew (24^th and Harrison streets)
• Rock the Bike’s pedal-powered stage and live music (24^th and Florida streets)
• BRAVA and the Community Music Center present a full day of performances and music inside and in front of the Brava Theater (24^th and York streets)

See you out there!

Thousands of people enjoyed a car-free Grant Avenue through Chinatown, North Beach and Telegraph Hill yesterday. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

San Francisco’s Grant Avenue, the city’s oldest street, was opened to pedestrians only yesterday in a milestone Sunday Streets event that drew thousands of people to the historic neighborhoods of Chinatown and North Beach on a sunny, 74-degree day. The city’s first walking Sunday Streets on a thoroughfare that seems like one of the most ideal streets to pedestrianize was clearly a hit.

“It’s a fantastic event. The weather is gorgeous and it’s nice to have Chinatown and North Beach connected in this way,” said Tom Radulovich of the non-profit Livable City, which sponsors Sunday Streets.

Unlike fairs in Chinatown and North Beach that typically line the street with outside vendors, the car-free event that spanned more than 20 blocks was organized to give neighborhood residents, locals and merchants a taste of what Grant Avenue can look and feel like without cars on a typical Sunday.

“I like having no cars,” said Lisa Mai, a North Beach resident who took a break from jump roping with other teens from the YMCA, a Chinatown fixture since 1911. “When you’re in a car it’s like you’re really rushing, but when you’re walking, when you walk along Grant, you see all these people coming out to enjoy it.”

From the Chinatown Gateway to Coit Tower, people filled the narrow street on foot, and shopped, sipped tea, snapped photos, hula-hooped, painted, enjoyed live music and other activities without the anxiety of automobiles.

The few people on bicycles were mostly children whose parents walked alongside. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition set up its Freedom from Training Wheels workshop on Grant near Vallejo Street.

“In Chinatown, there’s a lot of elderly people, and the street is so narrow. We just didn’t really feel like it was going to be safe to have bicyclists and walkers. So, it’s a walking street,” said Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King of Livable City. “It’s a first for Sunday Streets, and it’s fun to do something new.”

Many of the children spotted playing in the street live in North Beach, and Chinatown, the city’s densest neighborhood, where a majority of residents do not own cars, but are forced to contend with some of the city’s worst traffic. Along the route, there were plenty of children from other San Francisco and Bay Area neighborhoods, along with families of tourists.

And now, it’s time to overwhelm you with some adorable moments.

Chinatown merchants seemed very pleased, said Vivian Chang, a senior planner for the Chinatown Community Development Center, which helped organize the event and do outreach. CCDC plans to conduct an official survey of merchants to get feedback.

“They were basically saying this kind of event, especially during business hours on a Sunday, is pretty good,” Chang told Streetsblog. “They liked it, even though the original perception among merchants is cars equal more business.”

While Chang feels it’s probably too early for most merchants to get behind a permanent pedestrianization of Grant Avenue, yesterday’s Sunday Streets helped them realize the possibilities.

“I definitely noticed businesses getting more foot traffic, due to the lack of street vendors,” said Chang. “I think if they put it on a couple more times, people’s perceptions will start changing.”

Shell Thomas, the president of the North Beach Merchants Association, is also planning to survey merchants, but those he spoke to were happy. The fact that it was a walking Sunday Streets helped boost business on a skinny street lined with shops and restaurants.

“People on bikes cruise by. People who are walking stop, they linger, they see what’s going on in the stores, so hopefully it was a great experience (for merchants),” he said. “The first year is the toughest. Next year, I’d like to see five times as many activities and five times as many people.”

Ultimately, he continued, “it’s not about the turnout, or merchants. We shut down Grant Avenue for about 25 blocks. That’s a big deal. It’s really to get a feel to see what we can do, to experiment with a pedestrian street, which they do in Colombia, and other places in South America. We don’t do that here. We think we’re really forward, but we’re actually not that forward.”

Radulovich said there’s not necessarily opposition to a permanent pedestrianization of Grant Avenue, “it’s just really inertia. There’s the question of where do you do it and how, and that’s why I’m excited about this. Just getting over that hump of doing a car-free day on Grant Avenue has been momentous, but it’s done, and hopefully we’ll do it more regularly.”

PCOs with stop signs halted traffic for the large crowds walking across Columbus and Broadway, two arterial streets that divide Grant Avenue.

Enjoying a stroll on car-free, music filled Grant Avenue in North Beach.

"A Fair to Remember" in Kerouac Alley.

This gathering of musicians, under the "A Better Chinatown Tomorrow" tent, plays regularly at the corner of Columbus/Broadway/Grant, and captured a big audience for Sunday Streets.

A band performs outside Carmel Blue on Grant between Green and Union.

Some downhill fun on Grant between Filbert and Greenwich.

On Grant looking south from Gerke Street near Greenwich.

Walking up Grant at Filbert.

Some jugglers take to the street on Grant near Filbert.

And we leave you with this shot. So cute.

Also, check out these great photos from geekstinkbreath’s Flickr page.

The scene at Pierce and Fulton, with City Hall in the background. Photos by Bryan Goebel.

An estimated 10,000 people turned out to celebrate Sunday Streets in the Western Addition, NOPA, Fillmore and Alamo Square neighborhoods yesterday. By all indications, the event was a success, and the weather, well, perfect. And we’re in for another treat this week.

For the second time in Sunday Streets history, San Franciscans will get to experience two events back to back, as Sunday Streets brings the car-free fun to Chinatown and North Beach, along Grant Street, this weekend.

What was your favorite moment at Sunday Streets yesterday? See more photos below the break.

Grove Street was packed with people. The SFBC set up its Freedom from Training Wheels tent and workshop, just a few blocks from the Grove Street Farmer's Market.

The kid in the blue, and the gentleman in black, were totally busting the moves, jamming to the tunes of Andre Thierry Zydeco Magic

The Little Bits perform on Fillmore Street.

There was a wealth of activities for children and families. This was the scene on Baker Street.

Fulton Street along Alamo Square.

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Sunday Streets will grace the streets of Western Addition again this weekend, and bring lots of car-free activities to the Fillmore, NOPA and Alama Square neighborhoods. The event will coincide with International Artists Week, and promises to be great fun!

Download the official press release from the SFMTA here [pdf]. See the official activities sheet here [pdf]. And don’t forget to either Tweet us your photos, or add them to our Flickr pool.

See you in the streets Sunday!

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.

Mom and daughter enjoy a bike ride on a car-free Golden Gate Avenue.

“It feels good. It’s great,” said Joel, a nearly 30-year Tenderloin resident who was sitting next to San George, listening to the Hyde Street Band belt out “Whole Lotta Love.” “At 4:30 it turns into a highway, and there are people literally flying through here.”

“What is this?” a sprightly man in a shiny suit and fedora asked me, as I was pedaling slowly down Jones Street, which was free of cars and buzzing with people activity.

“Sunday Streets,” I responded. “They close the streets to cars and open them up to people.”

“Really? How cool!”

I got that question many times as I explored the route in the early part of the day. The event seemed to grow on the neighborhood because more residents spilled into the streets as the day wore on. It was the first time in many years (and some I spoke to couldn’t remember it ever happening), that Tenderloin residents got a taste of what it’s like to have calm, quiet streets instead of high-capacity one-way arterials that are typically noisy, congested and threatening to the health and safety of the people who live there.

Rapping in the streets, in front of the YMCA, which was handing out fruit-kebabs and fresh watermelon.

A dancer shows the crowd how it's done during B-Boys Break Dance Lessons in Civic Center Plaza.

More than a dozen blocks of O’Farrell, Jones and Ellis Streets were closed to cars, along with a stretch of Golden Gate Avenue and two blocks of Polk Street. The car-free zone looped through the heart of the Tenderloin and Civic Center area, offering live music, kid zones, Tai Chi, break dance lessons, roller disco and many more activities.

On any given weekday, many of these streets see large volumes of traffic that carry drivers to the Bay Bridge and Financial District. Sadly, the Tenderloin has one of the city’s highest rates of pedestrian fatalities and injuries. Giving the neighborhood a one-day dose of car-free streets helped residents imagine what it could look and sound like without roaring automobile traffic.

“Between 70 percent and 90 percent of the people who live in the Civic Center and Tenderloin neighborhoods do not own cars, yet this neighborhood is the one that’s the most heavily impacted by personal vehicles,” said Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King of the non-profit Livable City. “We have large volumes of traffic moving through on wide streets without that neighborhood getting any of the benefit of those visitors, they’re just passing through as quickly as possible.”

The utopia that Mona Caron envisioned in her now-famous “Windows into the Tenderloin” mural on the corner of Golden Gate and Jones might seem years away, but it’s part of a community discussion that has been going on for a while now. Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the neighborhood, has made pedestrian safety her top priority.

Taking a stroll on Ellis Street east of Hyde Photo: geekstinkbreath

The Tenderloin has had a difficult time shaking off its bad rep, but what many drivers who pass through may not realize from behind their windshields is that the neighborhood’s population is one of the city’s most diverse, and includes many seniors and working-class families and children, some of whom could be seen playing ball in the streets yesterday.

“We have to understand who lives in the community, who is building the community and who really wants to contribute back to the community. That’s the only way to really get involved in changing or rearranging what’s part of the system right now,” said Joenell Molina of the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, which set up a table for Sunday Streets next to the YMCA on Golden Gate Avenue.

“It’s a fascinating neighborhood,” said King. “This is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods for families. Children live here, families live here.”

Similar to how Sunday Streets evolved in the Mission, King said it will probably take a few Sunday Streets before the Tenderloin events realize their full potential, but she called yesterday’s event a success, and looks forward to bringing it back next year.

“We know where we need to tighten up and improve,” said King. “It’s a priority that we will get back to these neighborhoods next year.”

For more photos of Sunday Streets, check our Flickr pool, and more offerings from geekstinkbreath.

What a great day to be in drag on a bike.

Cruising down Ellis Street on his electric bike.

Learning how to ride a bike on Golden Gate Avenue in front of the Federal Building.

“I think folks are really excited to introduce the Tenderloin neighborhood to people around the city because even though it’s in the center of the city, I think it’s a misunderstood neighborhood,” said District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim. “People don’t recognize that it’s also a tight-knit community – a lot of families, a lot of seniors, a lot of immigrants, and a lot of great, unique, small businesses.”

“The community benefit districts are very enthusiastically embracing it,” said Sunday Streets organizer Susan King. “Even the people whose access is being somewhat impeded are supportive and willing to deal with the temporary inconvenience.”

The route will be packed with music and activities. The Tricycle Music Fest West will bring live family-friendly rock music to the steps of the San Francisco Main Library alongside the Green Bookmobile, Tree Frog Treks, Friends of the Library, and the Roller Disco. The SF Bike Coalition’s Freedom From Training Wheels will get tots rolling along with environmental organizations at the “Green Zone” on Grove Street.

At 215 Leavenworth, the Beautiful Rebels will have a Bike Wash and Cumbia dancing at Young Workers United. Boeddeker Park at Jones and Eddy Streets will feature Tai Chi, live jazz, kids’ activities, free bike rentals and a bike repair station. The Hyde Street Band will be playing some swinging rock to groove to on O’Farrell, and don’t forget to check out Tenderloin National Forest on Ellis between Leavenworth and Hyde.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has also announced that Chinatown and North Beach will get its first Sunday Streets on September 18 in addition to the September 11 event in the Western Addition and NoPa.

Editor’s note: We’ll have coverage of Sunday Streets on Monday. Please share your photos and stories with us! Send to tips@sf.streetsblog.org, add your photos to our Flickr pool or send us a tweet.

The intersection of the Great Highway and Lincoln Way during yesterday's Sunday Streets. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

The ever-popular Great Highway and Golden Gate Park route for Sunday Streets drew thousands of San Franciscans of all ages yesterday with more activities than ever before. For next year, organizer Susan King said that the SFMTA is looking to hold a different, more frequent route.

“The route will use some of the quieter streets that are already off limits to cars or are less used,” said King. “That includes Overlook and Middle Drive [in the park] and negotiating a different pathway along Martin Luther King Drive to get out to the Great Highway.”

She explained that the changes would allow the number of Sunday Streets events on the route to increase from the current two per year up to as many as one per month. It would also be “less intense” for city staff who work the event and allow the Recreation and Parks Department to continue reserving revenue-generating picnic spaces, she said.

“This route is so popular and there’s so much opportunity presented with the Great Highway because it is frequently closed for sand anyway, and because there are no major cross streets once you get through that bottleneck at the Lincoln and Great Highway intersection,” said King. “So we’re looking at doing this route on a regular basis in the coming years.”

The section of the Great Highway along the park between Lincoln Way and Fulton Street may be opened to cars to provide another route for drivers, she said. Vehicles would turn off of Great Highway at Lincoln Way, and the activity center that currently exists at the intersection during events would be more focused in the park.

“Given that there aren’t a lot of ways of getting across the park north and south when you take the Great Highway out of the options for vehicle drivers, it creates a bottleneck on both Crossover Drive and Chain of Lakes, which gets really backed up,” said King.

JFK Drive east of Transverse Drive would still be closed to cars as it has been every Sunday since the 1970s, she said, and organizers are looking to keep it connected to the rest of the Sunday Streets route.

“We are looking at creating a sustainable road opening that requires less resources than we currently expend and maintains access for park users, neighbors, and Sunday Streets partcipants,” said King. “That’s the balancing act.”

Flickr photo: jojofoto

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.

22nd Street. Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Photo: Bryan Goebel

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

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.”

“There’s a new bike path on 17th Street from Mission, so people will have a safe passage to the start of the route,” she added.

The event is being organized by Livable City in coordination with local organizations like The Third Street Corridor Project, the Bayview Merchant Association and the Renaissance Entrepreneur Center.

It will be held in conjunction with the fourth annual Family Health and Wellness Fair hosted by the Bayview Opera House, which will include free health screenings from medical professionals. The Bayview Music Festival will also fill the streets with live outdoor music along with venues all the way from Woods Yard Park to Thee Parkside and Bottom of the Hill.

San Franciscans can get healthy with activities like Zumba dance lessons and a Yoga-thon at the Opera House. As always, the SF Bike Coalition will hold its Freedom from Training Wheels program along with Blazing Saddles’ free bike rentals and the Funky Town Roller Disco. The SF Arts Commission’s Free Wall interactive mural will also make its final appearance.

In light of Sunday Streets’ success, King said officials from the U.S. Center for Disease Control will be assessing this month’s event as a potentially effective obesity intervention program. “They’re looking for programs that will be recommended on a national scale, which is very exciting,” she said.

Visit sundaystreetssf.com for the route map and full list of programs.

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

An estimated 25,000 people turned out for a beautiful albeit windy Sunday Streets in the Mission yesterday, tying the attendance record for the city’s “official block party.” For many a participant, experiencing car-free Valencia and 24th Streets didn’t just continue to beg the question “why not every week?” but rather, “why not all the time?”

“This is freedom. This is liberation,” Mayor Ed Lee told Streetsblog as he strolled down a car-free Valencia Street. “Everyone’s having a great time, and I’m out here seeing how people feel and maybe generating some ideas of how we can keep more of this going.”

Parents, kids, and the young at heart filled streets lined with music, dance, food, and neighbors relaxed in lawn chairs in places that would be dominated by cars on any other day. Merchants ventured out from their indoor retreats to mix with the outdoor street life as patrons filled their shops and restaurants.

Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King said some participants complained the liberated space was too little for the amount of people flocking to the event from all over the city.

“The pressure on the street and the space is a result of pent up need for more space,” said King. “It was a human-powered traffic jam, but everybody was stopping because there was so much to see and do.”

The huge demand points to a much-needed reassessment of how the city uses its most valuable commercial corridors, which are mostly dominated by private automobiles. As pedestrianized areas, Valencia and 24th Streets could be experienced in a completely different way.

“This public space and our ability to use it is of value,” said King. “So many people got out yesterday that wouldn’t have got out there or taken their kids for a bike ride unless there was a place like Sunday Streets for them to go.”

Judging by the huge demand from merchants and residents, Sunday Streets seems to be succeeding in its goals to get more and more people re-envisioning public space.

“Not only do we have very little opposition, but we have huge enthusiasm and huge support,” said King. “Merchant associations are saying, ‘More, more, more! What can we do? This is so great. We’re so excited’.”

The Mayor said in August he hopes to head-up the first Sunday Streets for Chinatown and North Beach, two dense neighborhoods also ripe for car-free streets.

"Beat Feet Orchestra (a.k.a. One Woman Band) heads east on 24th St." Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Flickr photo: jdeeringdavis

Flickr photo: geekstinkbreath

Mayor Ed Lee visits the Walk SF booth. Flickr photo: bubbletea1

Flickr Photo: Matthew Roth

A sunny weather forecast promises an ideal Mother’s Day for the thousands of San Franciscans planning to enjoy Sunday Streets in the Mission District. An extended route this year will be filled with live music and activities, and some of the biggest crowds yet are expected to fill Valencia and 24th Streets, one of the event’s most popular locations.

“This route is packed from end to end,” said Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King.  “We actually ran out of programming room to accommodate all the people who wanted to come out and perform and play, which is a great problem to have.”

Families will have the chance to celebrate Mother’s Day dancing, riding bikes, skating, doing Yoga, painting, and watching performances on streets filled with live music at “nearly every other storefront,” said King.

Around 20,000 people are expected to relax and play along 15 car-free blocks of Valencia Street from 24th Street all the way to Duboce, a welcome extension this year to some of the corridor’s liveliest blocks.

The event’s popularity with residents and businesses continues to grow, and this year will have more programming tuned to the neighborhood’s character. Performances from BRAVA Theatre on York Street as well as the Mission Cultural Center’s dance and music performances at the 24th Street BART Plazas will provide a local vibe. Hip-hop dance performances and lessons, cultural performances with Mission Girls and Head Start, cartooning and creative arts at 826 Valencia, and many other activities will also bring the community out to the streets.

Artist Television Access will also host a live KUSF broadcast and screen segments from the Streetfilms series Moving Beyond the Automobile.

“The Mission District, like Chinatown and North Beach, is a very populated part of the city without a lot of open space for people to bike, exercise, play and socialize – this is why Sunday Streets is so important to these communities,” Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement.

For now, we can only hope the city’s growing hunger for car-free streets is quelled by this weekend’s nearly two-mile stretch.

“We’re hoping to eventually push out and have the entire Valencia corridor from Market to Cesar Chavez,” said King. “Clearly, that’s very challenging, because Duboce Street is a major cross street, and we just didn’t have manpower or the budget this year to make it happen.”

Enjoying car-free streets at Redding's first-ever ciclovía-style event, Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Redding, California, with a population of 90,000, is probably best known for its sunshine, breathtaking landscapes and conservative politics. Located 200 miles north of Sacramento in Shasta County, the lush region surrounded by the Trinity and Cascade mountains offers an abundance of recreation, including a growing number of paved multi-use trails that draw large crowds of bicyclists and pedestrians.

The seven-year-old Sundial Bridge, a 700-foot long steel marvel on the Sacramento River designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, has become Redding’s living room.

“It is where everyone hangs out in town, especially when the weather is nice. In a normal community, whatever normal is, you would see that sort of energy in a downtown square, or park, or even a downtown third place, but it happens to be out at the Sundial Bridge,” said Paul Shigley, the senior editor of the California Planning and Development Report (CP&DR), who lives six miles west of Redding near Whiskeytown Lake.

Downtown Redding does not draw a similar convergence of people enjoying public space because like many California cities it was designed for the automobile, and is not a particularly welcoming place for pedestrians and bicyclists.  The city ranks 40th among 103 cities in California “for the number of pedestrian collisions by population,” according to a recent report [pdf]. Just last week, a 16-year-old boy was struck and killed by a driver while walking across a bridge that lacked a sidewalk.

“The town is set up to conduct motorists fast and to allow them to drive up to 50, 60 miles an hour right through the middle of town,” said Scott Mobley, a reporter for the Record Searchlight, the city’s daily newspaper.

“It’s dangerous,” said Anne Wallach Thomas, a former San Francisco resident and bicyclist who helped found the Shasta Cascade Bicycle Coalition. “Some people are lucky and they can go around some little side streets, and if you’re not lucky like me, I can’t ride my bicycle to my sister’s house, I can’t ride to the grocery store.”

In the late 1970s, the city made a poor planning decision to build a mall in the center of town and designed a network of one-way arterial streets. The mall failed not long after it opened, becoming what CP&DR described as “a glum collection of offices, struggling shops and vacant space.”

“Downtown has been pretty much a dead zone for decades. There are areas that have signs of life but the big problem is very few people live downtown,” said Shigley, who a few years ago in CP&DR named Redding one of California’s most disappointing mid-sized cities. But “check back in 10 years,” the report added.

The Sundial Bridge was designed for pedestrians and bicyclists. Photo: Jeff Worthington

The Demand

Judging from the crowds of bicyclists and walkers who show up to enjoy the region’s vast network of scenic trails, there is an increasing demand for bicycle facilities and better conditions for pedestrians. Like the Sundial Bridge, Shigley said weekend crowds pack the one-mile Dana to Downtown bikeway and walking path recently constructed by Caltrans as part of a Highway 44 bridge improvement and widening project.

“It goes from the Dana Drive big box area over to the convention center area, and it’s proven wildly popular that you can get to those two parts of town on foot and on bike,” said Shigley.

“The reason people live up here primarily is because it’s really beautiful. We have access to amazing recreation opportunities. So lots of people have multiple $1500 bikes in their garages. They put them on the car and drive some miles to get on a trail,” said Wallach Thomas.

Driving to one of the region’s popular riverfront trails might be an easy venture, but try walking and bicycling there and the conditions can be treacherous. The region’s bike network lacks good connectivity to major destinations. That doesn’t mean, however, that bicyclists are staying off the streets. Bicycle traffic counts taken last September by Redding’s Bicycle Advisory Committee and Healthy Shasta showed a dramatic 80 percent increase in riders at major intersections.

“I have no trouble being a cyclist here. I’ve been doing it for 10 years,” said Mobley, the newspaper reporter, who is an everyday bicyclist. He thinks many drivers are beginning to adjust to having more bicyclists on the streets.

“It’s been years since someone’s called me an idiot or flipped me off or gunned their engine as they go by just to intimate me. I mean, that’s happened to me but not in a long time,” said Mobley.

Although he finds it easier to bike, Mobley pointed out that a friend, who is also a regular cyclist, got run off the road last year by a driver who “literally came right up behind him and made damn sure he was in a ditch. He hurt himself. Ripped open his knee and was quite debilitated after that.”

Many cyclists are forced onto the shoulders of roads, if there are any, or the sidewalk, where it is legal to ride in Redding.

“On many days while attending Shasta High School I rode my bike several miles a day to and from school. Redding has always offered so many ways to enjoy the outdoors and now has great bike facilities along the river and so much potential for more,” said Jim Brown of the California Bicycle Coalition.

Bicyclists and other vulnerable users are lucky to get a shoulder. Photo: Jefferson Thomas

Changing Hearts and Minds

Advocates say the popularity of Redding’s biking and walking trails, along with a desire to get healthy are indeed causing more people to second guess their traditional mode of transportation. According to the Shasta Coalition for Activity and Nutrition, 66 percent of adults in Shasta County are overweight, along with 27 percent of teens.

“You start off maybe riding your bike for entertainment on the river trail and then you think, ‘wow, maybe I could ride my bike to work,’ ‘maybe I could ride to the store, ‘maybe I could ride my kids to school everyday,’” said Francie Sullivan, a member of the Redding City Council who is a recreational cyclist.

The five-member council recently began working on a Complete Streets policy and decided to make completing it “our number one priority,” said Sullivan, adding that Redding, like other California cities, is grappling with budget woes and 17 percent unemployment. “But the good news about the economy is that more people are walking and riding bikes out of necessity.”

Sullivan, a Democrat who has served in public office for more than 20 years, said Shasta County is a “conservative community” but the issue transcends party lines.

“If you go to the river trail I would venture a guess that a majority of the people who cross you on roller blades and their bikes and who are walking and running are conservative Republicans. Everybody wants to be fit and everybody gets the same mood elevation from being outside,” said Sullivan.

Father and son enjoy Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Challenges

For the first time, Redding has hired a full-time bicycle and pedestrian coordinator who is working on improving the city’s bikeway plan, which until recently had not been updated since 1998. Realizing the increasing demand for bicycle facilities, the Bikeway Action Plan [pdf] envisions increasing the current bikeway network from 124 miles to 162 miles to “improve the connections for cyclists to prime destinations.”

Changing the culture of old-school traffic engineers who are primarily concerned with moving automobile traffic and adhering to Level of Service (LOS) standards remains a difficult challenge in Redding, like a lot of California cities. Road and highway widenings are popular, while road diets are practically unheard of.

“You feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle every time,” said Zachary Bonnin, the city’s new bike/ped coordinator. “It’s a challenge to implement bike stuff.”

Bonnin, who grew up in Phoenix and got an environmental science degree at Northwestern Arizona University, also manages the city’s transportation system, the Redding Area Bus Authority (RABA), which sees anywhere from 2,000 to 2,400 daily passengers.

“They put me on board to challenge the engineers and to look at every project and to say ‘why are we doing it this way’ or ‘why can’t we do it this way’ or ‘what about bike and ped’ access and ‘where’s our bike lane’ and ‘why can’t we add a sidewalk here?’” he said.

The one-way arterials in downtown Redding are like freeways. Photo: City of Redding

The drafting of the city’s Complete Streets policy is also making some of Bonnin’s old-school transportation colleagues rethink the way they’ve designed the streets. The National Association of City Transportation Officials’ recent update of its bikeway design standards is also helping.

“They see these things and say ‘well, it would cost us more money not to do that now, then to have to deal with it later,’” said Bonnin.

The city is also hoping to incorporate improvements to the pedestrian realm in its Complete Streets policy, including strengthening its Safe Routes to Schools program, developing a pedestrian safety program and Pedestrian Master Plan to implement capital and maintenance projects. A pedestrian safety assessment prepared by transportation consultants Fehr & Peers and Oakland-based Dowling Associates recommends road diets on some downtown streets, along with bulbouts and median refuge islands.

The city’s efforts are also being bolstered by a burgeoning group of living streets advocates with ties to San Francisco’s bicycle and transit advocacy community who are working to help transform Redding into a more bikeable, walkable community.

Wallach Thomas and some longtime members of the Norcal Bicycle Partnership, Shasta Wheelmen, the Redding Mountain Biking club and some other bicyclists recently formed the Shasta Cascade Bicycle Coalition to lobby for better conditions and help educate city planners and the public. The group meets once a month.

“The safe and inviting part is important,” Wallach Thomas told the Record Searchlight. “We have world-class facilities for mountain bikes and incredible park trails. What we can’t do is leave the house and safely get anywhere.”

The reaction to Shasta Living Streets was overwhelmingly positive and even skeptics praised it. "One mother said to me, 'Anne, I want to thank you. My kids are in heaven. They're having so much fun,'" said Wallach Thomas. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Shasta Living Streets

Last weekend, after months of planning, discussion and wading through city bureaucracy, Redding held its first ciclovía-style event, Shasta Living Streets, converting a two-mile stretch of Park Marina Drive near the Sacramento River into car-free space for people. It was the first open streets event in Northern California outside of the Bay Area.

“It was a success,” said Wallach Thomas, who was the main organizer. While some city bureaucrats had doubts that anyone would show up, Wallach said well over 500 people turned out on a rainy day. It helped that the event was timed with the popular Whole Earth Festival.

“I think it’s really going to make a big difference up here changing hearts and minds,” said Wallach Thomas. “It has implications and leverage far beyond the five hours of the actual event.”

Wallach Thomas got advice from her friend Cheryl Brinkman, a member of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors who has been involved with San Francisco’s Sunday Streets since its inception. Brinkman and her husband Rich Coffin took a trip to Redding to speak to a group of advocates interested in launching Shasta Living Streets.

“Gil Peñalosa, the father of ciclovías, always said that it’s not a competition among cities or towns.  Every city or town which starts a car-free streets program helps the next city or town start their program.  I’m thrilled that Redding had its first car-free event,” said Brinkman.

The organizers of the event actually received an email from Peñalosa offering his congratulations, and encouraging them to carry on their work.

“I hope this event will be a means to many great initiatives,” Peñalosa wrote. “Living Streets will show residents that streets can be used for more than just moving cars; streets are our largest and most valuable assets, the space the belongs to all, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, social or economic background.”

“As other programs inspired you, now you are inspiring others.”

Group exercise was part of the program for Shasta Living Streets. Photo: Jeff Worthington

"This is so cool," was the reaction of many kids to Shasta Living Streets, said Wallach Thomas. Photo: Jeff Worthington

Photos: Bryan Goebel

An estimated 10,000 people celebrated Sunday Streets on the Great Highway and Golden Gate Park yesterday, enjoying six miles of car-free space from Stanyan Street to Sloat Boulevard. Sunny skies and calmer winds blessed the crowds of bicyclists, skaters and walkers, some of whom discovered Sunday Streets for the first time.

“Overall, it was a spectacular day,” said Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King. “It’s a great long route.”

One of the highlights included a few Guiness World Records attempts by a group of skaters led by the one and only “Godfather of Skate” David Miles. The Richmond District Blog has a recap and video.

Sunday Streets returns May 8th for a day of fun along the popular Mission District route on Valencia and 24th Streets. More info at Sunday Streets, and more photos below the break.

You couldn't have asked for a better day.

"The HiWatters" perform on the Great Highway, with the center median as the stage.

"This reminds me of the way San Francisco used to be," said Manual, 70, of Pacifica, riding up front in the red, white and blue jacket. He was recalling his early life in SF in the 1940s when the streets weren't as clogged with cars.

Different vehicles shape a different streetscape in Peru.

Our daily urban lives shape our imaginations in so many ways. Few things box us in like our everyday transit options, and the patterns of traffic that shape our sense of public space. These patterns themselves are historical of course. A quick look back at the famous Market Street film shot a few days before the 1906 earthquake shows how chaotic and unpredictable the flow of traffic was when San Francisco’s main artery hadn’t yet been paved and standardized. Similarly, leaving the U.S. and visiting other countries provides a fantastic opportunity to experience other assumptions and possibilities for urban space, and surprisingly perhaps, a different range of vehicles.

In Peru for a couple of weeks I first had to adjust to a major cultural difference–unlike California, pedestrians don’t have any legal rights, let alone cultural preference. When you start to cross the street at a corner in a Peruvian city, you better be ready to run. Because the cars are not going to wait for you, in fact they tend to speed up when they see someone trying to use the road space ahead of them. I noticed the same thing on highways too, a consistent refusal to yield to entering traffic, a universal assumption of individual ownership of the right of way. Here’s a video below the break we shot standing on a traffic island in Peru’s second largest city while waiting for the traffic to clear so we could cross the street.

We entered Peru on a bus from Ecuador, crossing the Macará river.

Crossing the river, that's our bus.

We rode from Cuenca, Ecuador to Chiclayo, Peru, which took about 22 hours.

Bus travel was a big part of our journey in Peru, though we took a plane from Chiclayo on the north coast all the way to Cusco in the southern Andes. The beginning of our time in the country finished our descent from the Ecuadorian Andes to the stark desert of northern Peru. Our international bus arrived in the Peruvian city of Piura, which I hadn’t heard of before, but it’s a good-sized city of a half million or so, sitting amidst a heavily irrigated desert of citrus farms and more. The most surprising discovery as we rode in on the dusty streets was to see countless moto-taxis and freight tricycles. They outnumbered autos, filling the streets with the canopied three-wheelers.

This was our first view of vehicular traffic in Piura, Peru.

Motorcycles dominated, both individually and as motors for rickshaws.

We changed to another four-hour bus ride from Piura to Chiclayo where we grabbed a plane after a few hours of sleep in a hotel, having been on buses for about 22 hours. Once we made it to Cuzco we delighted in the ancient capital of the Incas. The incredible stone-masonry of the Inca culture is incomparable, and what a fun surprise to find one of the original streets of their capital still functioning. It’s called Antisuyo and the massive granite blocks, so perfectly fit to each other, have survived centuries of earthquakes that crumbled lesser structures. The narrow, pedestrian friendly streets on the slopes of Cuzco are a walker’s paradise.

Here I am standing on Cuzco's Antisuyo, an original street from the time of the Inca Empire. The anti-seismic granite construction is visible in the amazing stonework here and in many places throughout former Inca territories.

From Cuzco we went on one of the world’s famous “walks” on the Inca Trail. Four days, three mountain passes (the highest being 14,000 feet!), and a great deal of it on the thousands of original steps that make up the well-trodden Inca Trail. We learned a bit about the Inca Empire along our journey, and knew that their road system equalled the Romans in terms of engineering, management of water and drainage, and perhaps even sheer extent. Inca Trails extended from the capital in Cuzco all the way to Colombia in the north, Chile in the south, and encompassed a population of millions.

Here I am slowly making my way to a 14,000 foot pass.

It's hard to describe the historic resonance of hiking a road built centuries earlier and used heavily during an entirely different culture and time in history.

After an amazing four days that got us to Machu Picchu we caught a bus from Cuzco to Arequipa, but our “bed bus” was a broken down second-tier bus rather than the luxury ride we thought we were buying. The views of snow-capped mountains and endless green valleys in the Altiplano were stunning, and after about 8 hours we arrived in the high plains town of Juliaca. This town depended even more on pedicabs and freight bikes than we’d seen in the north.

The altiplano as seen from our bus out of Cuzco on the way southwest to Juliaca.

The relatively comfortable bus terminal in Juliaca, Peru.

Street scene in Juliaca, Peru.

There's something so charming about pedicabs!

Great to look out the bus window and see more pedicabs and freight trikes than cars and trucks.

We had a dramatic late dusk ride along the sides of a huge lake called Lagunillas, as rain and thunder engulfed us on the way to Arequipa. The city’s night lights sprawled before us as we descended to it from the mountains. When we woke the next morning we realized we were still quite high (over a mile high) and in a surprisingly arid environment. Walking into downtown we found ourselves on Calle Bolivar, a pleasant pedestrian-centered avenue, which was a hint of something a little different in Peru’s second largest city.

Calle Bolivar-Sucre in Arequipa, Peru, a street recently reclaimed for pedestrians.

Here in the historic center of Arequipa (two huge volcanoes are obscured behind the cathedral by dense clouds) the traffic chokes the surrounding streets.

The historic city center’s streets were jammed with taxis and combis, which we soon realized was normal in Peru’s cities. Crossing the street was a continuous challenge but we started to get a handle on moving through the city (that video above captures the drama). We also found another street, Calle Mercaderos, which was closed to traffic and functioned like a long linear mall. In streets like this we see a different use of public space than we get normally in the U.S. Like the best European city centers, Peru too has taken important streets and dedicated them to pedestrians and public sauntering (and shopping of course).

Calle Mercaderes in Arequipa, a classic pedestrian zone mostly dedicated to shopping and people watching.

Finally we made our way to Lima, the country’s capital. Traffic is insane in Lima, but the city won us over for lots of reasons. For one thing we stayed just off Avenida Arequipa, which happens to have a lovely center median that has a bike way or “ciclovia” running down the middle. We were staying with a friend and had fun learning to navigate Lima by way of the ubiquitous “combis,” which come in all shapes and sizes and colors. The sing-song announcements of destination that the combi fare-takers used to help passengers decide which one to take was one of the pleasures of the ride. But the congested traffic, the bizarre competition between different combis to race ahead to get passengers at the next stop, and the generally aggressive driving by all vehicles presented an streetscape that was unmistakeably hostile to pedestrians.

This is the ciclovia on Avenida Arequipa in Lima, Peru, just outside the apartment we stayed in.

This is a pretty average scene of multiple competing combi lines jammed into traffic, each trying to get to the curb to get more passengers into its seats.

We found the combis pretty comfortable, always clean, and easy to navigate once you figured out where you were going. They only cost about 30 cents a ride too!

Lima is modernizing of course. They’ve put in a freeway that is locally known as “the Ditch,” but down the middle of it is one of several Bus Rapid Transit lines called the Metropolitana. Here’s a couple of shots of another Metropolitana line along one of the regular broad avenues in Lima.

The Metropolitana in Lima looks a lot like the Macrobus in Guadalajara, or BRTs in almost any city.

This is a shot back towards the arriving Metropolitana (at far right), while we sit in gridlock.

We were hapy to connect with local cycling activists, who hosted me giving a Talk on cycling and Critical Mass history. Cicloaxion got a boost from the World Naked Bike Ride a few years back, and now there are several different cycling advocacy groups in town.

Octavio, Edu, and Manu took us on a great ride around the historic center, teaching us how to navigate the insanity of Lima's traffic, and treating us to a great meal in Lima's Chinatown.

And ciclovias exist on a number of streets, along with barely used bicycle parking facilities.

Here's an underutilized Ciclovia in downtown Lima, used here as a parking spot for a couple of freight bikers.

Never did see any bikes parked here... Why do bike racks so often get put in places where they aren't used?

There are a lot of freight bikes rolling around Lima too.

There were lots of these guys rolling around downtown Lima.

Less than a month ago, Lima joined the growing world movement towards Sunday Streets with what they have dubbed “Ciclodia.” Thousands of Lima cyclists and joggers get out on Sunday morning to enjoy a six-kilometer stretch closed to all traffic on Avenida Arequipa. It was great to wake up on Sunday morning to the silence, after having been wakened each of our previous days by the roar of combis and their horns jockeying for position on the same street. So Lima, and Peru more generally, present a panoply of street uses, and a veritable menagerie of vehicles! Nothing jogs or imaginations or our fantasies like immersion in other cultures and other possibilities.

The crowds are emerging for Ciclodia in Lima, Peru, Sunday, March 20, 2011.

Street closed for Cycling Day, Lima Peru.

Lima is evolving and it was exciting to see the burgeoning cycling culture there too.

Chris Carlsson will be giving one of his four-hour bicycle history tours on local transit history, this Sunday, April 3, from 12-4 pm. Meet at CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission at 9th at noon, bring water and snacks. (A $15-50 sliding scale donation is requested to benefit Shaping San Francisco.)

Photo: geekstinkbreath

Despite the prevailing threat of rain, the clouds scattered for yesterday’s first Sunday Streets of 2011 from Fisherman’s Wharf to China Basin, allowing intermittent sunshine to grace the San Francisco waterfront. The event attracted thousands of people, including Mayor Ed Lee, who were able to tuck away their umbrellas and enjoy the car-free streets.

The new 11am-4pm schedule worked very well for the day, allowing people to play on the Embarcadero even later into the afternoon, said Sunday Streets coordinator Susan King of the non-profit Livable City, which organizes the healthy, community-oriented events.

“Thank goodness for the extra hour because as the day wore on it became clearer, literally and figuratively, that it was going to be a nice afternoon and it was,” said King. “There was enough sunshine that I was sunburned.”

King said the attendance was lighter than usual but she felt vindicated by the Sunday Streets rain policy, which calls for volunteers and organizers to set up regardless of the wet stuff, and decide by noon whether to keep it going. Yesterday the skies dropped the last bit of rain during the noon hour, and it was dry for the rest of the day.

"Clouds loom over Cupid's Span." Photo: geekstinkbreath

“A lot of people stayed away and a lot of our programs canceled and I got some rueful emails from some of our program partners yesterday who said, ‘dang we should have come out!” said King. “It’s much easier to set up and break down than it is to decide not to set up and then try to change that.”

King said she also doesn’t want to promote the image that car-free space is fair-weathered. The Sunday Streets website had encouraged people to bring their umbrellas and get out and enjoy the car-free streets regardless of the weather.

“A portion of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park is off limits to cars every Sunday, rain or shine, and I think that, you know what, a car-free space is still a car-free space,” said King.

Kudos to everyone who made the first event of the year happen, including the nearly 100 volunteers organized this year by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. It takes a lot of work! Props also to the SFMTA and its crews who were out on the streets.

My colleague Damien Newton of Streetsblog Los Angeles also got to experience Sunday Streets yesterday, and he ran into one of the organizers of LA’s CicLAvia. Check out his post here.

The next Sunday Streets is the “Penguins to Penguins” route through Golden Gate Park and along the Great Highway on April 10, rain or shine!

Mayor Ed Lee, center, takes time to pose for a photo at Sunday Streets. Photo: Mayor's Office