Car-Free Streets

Yes, it has been three years, and it is certainly something to celebrate

District 3 Supervisor Julie Christensen offered tentative support for the car-free Powell Street trial proposed for Union Square. The SFMTA hopes to have a pilot project in place in November, in time for the holiday shopping season, but it has met some resistance from the Union Square Business Improvement District because delivery vehicles would be banned during daytime hours.

The SFMTA has proposed making crowded, traffic-clogged Powell Street in Union Square a car-free street on a trial basis. Removing cars from the equation would make the street function better for pedestrians and cable cars on the blocks between Ellis and Geary Streets.

A plaza is bustling with life several months after its creation on a segment of the Stevenson Street alleyway at 10th Street, next to the Twitter offices.

A week after New York City's Central Park went mostly car-free, today marked the beginning of the permanent car-free zone on the west side of Prospect Park [PDF].

Cars will continue to fill the crooked block of Lombard Street until at least 2016. Although the trial car closures last summer were seen as a success, the gears of city bureaucracy appear to have slowed the momentum for going permanently car-free. It will take until December for the city to issue a report on the restrictions. No timeline has been laid out for implementation.

Polk, Valencia, Castro, Broadway -- when bar patrons crowd these streets at night, should they go car-free?

The Hearst Corporation has withdrawn its appeal against the Annie Alley street plaza [PDF] after talks with city planners and the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District.

The incredibly popular (but temporary) "Winter Walk" plaza will return to Stockton Street in Union Square for another holiday season in December, the local business improvement district announced.