Car-Free Streets

Rarely does the opportunity to create a new street present itself in a densely built-out city like San Francisco. But neighbors and planners at the developing Mission Bay campus of the University of California, SF decided to make the best of such a chance by designing an extension of Fourth Street as a car-free plaza.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 marveling at something she very rarely gets to experience in her Tenderloin neighborhood: a street full of people instead of cars.

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.