Matthew Roth

As we reported last week, several city agencies have begun to look at ways to improve Market Street when it is repaved, including an inter-agency process spearheaded by DPW and the Planning Department.  Yet, we've still heard nothing from Mayor Gavin Newsom that suggests he'll make the transformation of San Francisco's most significant street an urgent priority. 

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At a well-attended community workshop in the Women's Center auditorium on Wednesday night, the Planning Department presented the Mission Streetscape Plan (MSP), a set of tools for transforming streets in the Mission (large PDF).  Some of the proposed concepts are tried and true traffic calming, like bollards, neckdowns, and speed tables, while some are far more innovative and reflective of work that many Mission neighbors have initiated on their own, such as the planted medians of the Greening Guerrero project and the permeable driveways and sidewalk gardens in Jane Martin's PlantSF projects. 

In a closed meeting of agency staff this morning, the DPW agreed to delay the construction of a median fence on Potrero Avenue between 25th Street and Cesar Chavez until they conduct further community outreach in conjunction with Supervisor David Campos' office. 

Mayor Newsom overcame a significant hurdle today for his Sunday Streets program as the first two proposed routes received unanimous approval at a meeting of the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT), a committee made up of MTA, DPW, SFPD, SFFD, and others with business on our city's streets.

As we reported a couple weeks ago, Walk Score was developing a new transit twist to their website, which is now in beta here.  The transit shed map seen above utilizes Google Transit Feed Specification schedule data from the MTA, Caltrain, and BART to produce the travel information (hint: zoom in to pinpoint your location if your results don't seem accurate).

Some community members in the Mission are upset that the MTA has proposed building a fence along a median on Potrero Avenue between Cesar Chavez and 25th Street to prevent jaywalking.  

How hard is it to fix the most important street in San Francisco, one that is vital to transit, that is the spine of the bicycle network, and that could be the crowning jewel of the city, a Champs d'Elysee or a newly pedestrianized Broadway?  Without Mayor Gavin Newsom spearheading the process, it doesn't bode well.