Market Street

After experimenting with one configuration for soft-hit posts for a few weeks along Market Street approaching 10th Street, the MTA has changed the configuration to give cyclists more room in approaching the intersection. The new soft hit posts extend from just before the intersection at 11th Street and Market up to 10th Street in the eastbound direction and the lane has a larger painted buffer.

With six months of hindsight since San Francisco began trial traffic diversions and art in shuttered storefronts on Market Street, city leaders are taking stock of what has been successful and what has been less so. Within weeks, they expect to complete a scoping document and put out bids for a three-year design and transportation plan that will remake the most iconic street in San Francisco.

Cyclists traveling inbound on Market Street are being squeezed into an unnecessarily narrow bike lane as a result of safe-hit posts installed to enforce the new required right turn at 10th Street. The posts, put in place by the MTA to the left of the existing bike and right-turn-only lanes, have shaved what was already a skinny passage for cyclists.

Remember the beautiful new Calm the Safety Zone trial that we raved about in late November, with a liberal application of "frappuccino" colored paint to the pavement on Market Street? Yeah, well, now not so much.

Drivers heading east on Market Street will soon be directed to turn off at 10th Street instead of 8th Street, a refinement intended to improve conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists on Market. Mayor Newsom and the MTA announced the change today, two and a half months after the launch of the traffic diversion pilot program on Market, which has required eastbound private automobiles to turn right off of Market at 6th and 8th Streets.

The driver of a 9-San Bruno Muni bus struck a male bicyclist from behind on Market at Front Street at 10:40 this morning. The bicyclist was removed from the intersection in an ambulance with "moderate injuries," according to an officer at the scene. The Fire Department confirmed that the injuries were not life-threatening. Fortunately, both the bus and the bicycle were reportedly moving at low speeds at the time of the crash.

Though we're taking the rest of the week off for the holiday, we thought you'd be excited to see these photos, which represent the first pavement treatments for the new Calm the Safety Zone projects on Market Street, meant to improve pedestrian safety by re-enforcing the separations between motorists and pedestrians. As we reported two weeks ago, this treatment is the next phase after the stop bars were moved back from the crosswalks and fits into the larger rubric of the Better Market Street Initiative.  Thanks to Dennis Lee at the Great Streets Project, who snapped these photos at 4th Street and Market.

Since the MTA began diverting private automobiles off Market Street in late September, Muni riders and bicyclists have been experiencing the benefits first hand. Now, the MTA has confirmed what many Market Street users already suspected: Muni is running faster, and bicyclists now make up even more of the street's traffic.