Here are a few Streetsblog news nuggets to start your weekend.
Sunday Streets are back
In a few short weeks, San Francisco's biggest open-streets event will finally return. Livable City has announced its schedule for Sunday Streets 2022. From a Livable City release:
Sunday Streets SF 2022 event dates, routes, and highlights include:
- Sunday Streets Tenderloin - April 10th, 2022Thai New Year celebration hosted by The Tenderloin Merchants Association; Second Line Brass Band Procession hosted by The Tenderloin Museum; Tenderloin Flea Market hosted by TNDC & the Tenderloin People’s Congress
- Sunday Streets Bayview - May 22nd, 2022Live music with the Bayview Senior Center; Free fitness classes by the Bayview YMCA; Market Square featuring Bayview-based food and retail businesses
- Sunday Streets Excelsior - June 12th, 2022Live music and screen printing hosted by The Dark Horse Inn; Market Square featuring Excelsior and San Francisco-based flea market vendors
- Sunday Streets Mission/Valencia - July 10th, 2022Music and dance performances hosted by Carnaval San Francisco; Market Square featuring Latin American arts and crafts
- Sunday Streets SoMa - August 21st, 2022Live music and cultural performances hosted by UNDISCOVERED and Kultivate Labs; Outdoor games, art, and performance hosted by Yerba Buena CBD
- Sunday Streets Western Addition - September 18th, 2022Live music hosted by the Fillmore Jazz Ambassadors; Market Square featuring African American retail and food vendors
- Sunday Streets Phoenix Day - October 16th, 202210+ Sidewalk Sales; 11+ outdoor family fun hubs; 50+ neighbor-hosted block parties; dozens of community-led projects to improve San Francisco like mural installations, tree planting, and neighborhood clean-ups
Routes will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Streetsblog looks forward to seeing you all there.
Help Walk San Francisco document speeding
Everyone's heard it from their grumpy uncle or they've read it posted ad nauseam on social media: those darned cyclists don't follow the rules of the road! Actually, whenever someone has tried to quantify it, it turns out motorists break the rules just as often, but with far far FAR deadlier repercussions. Motorist speeding, in fact, is the leading factor in serious injuries and deaths on the streets. That's why Walk S.F. is looking for volunteers to help gather info on just how much speeding there is in the city. From a Walk San Francisco release:
Beyond knowing that speed is the #1 cause of severe and fatal crashes in San Francisco, there isn’t much information on what’s happening with dangerous speeds on our streets. We want to change that. As part of Walk SF’s Slow Our Streets campaign in 2022 and with your help, we’re collecting speed data across the city.
Last month they collected data on Oak Street (along the Panhandle) and Lincoln Avenue (in the Inner Sunset). This month they will target select streets in Cow Hollow. Volunteers are asked to help for an afternoon of aiming radar guns and collecting speed data on Saturday, March 26 from 10 a.m.– 1 p.m. Click here to sign up.
SFMTA promises protected bike lanes on Valencia by the end of the year
Perhaps reacting to pressure after recent "Just a Minute" protests, SFMTA issued a statement earlier this week that it has, at long last, "committed to installing protected bikeways on Valencia Street in 2022." More from Twitter:
Shared Spaces are here to stay–and we’re excited to relaunch our design process to establish Valencia Street as a safe, vibrant, multi-modal and multi-use corridor.
And:
We’re looking forward to sharing our plans to create a protected bikeway on Valencia that works with the Shared Spaces on the street.
The agency suggests people go to its "Valencia Bikeway Improvements" page to sign up for updates.
That's great, but Streetsblog will remain skeptical until there's concrete on the ground. That update page is the same page the agency has had up since 2019. SFMTA installed the first protected pilot on one block of Valencia in 2017 and presented plans for the entire street in February of 2020 (the above image is part of that design), with a promise to install them later that year. Yes, there was COVID. And there are now more parklets. But come on already! Just install the things. And not by the end of 2022 - how about by the end of the month?
