Banning cars on San Francisco's Market Street may have once been a radical idea. But on Tuesday, the Municipal Transportation Agency board voted unanimously to do it, with undiluted support from just about everyone: bicycle activists, politicians, city bureaucrats, parents, health care workers, business owners, ride-hail companies and Mayor London Breed.
One message rang out loudly during a rally on City Hall steps and an hour-long hearing before the vote: start building "Better Market Street" immediately, and then replicate it elsewhere.
The plan that kicked off nearly a decade ago will start construction in January, with a ban on private cars east of 10th street on the city's downtown spine. It will restrict commercial loading on the street to certain hours, extend the Muni-only lane from Third to Main Street, widen sidewalks, replace the ancient bricks with concrete pavers and add a sidewalk-level bike path with a protective curb. Crews will also build a streetcar loop east of United Nations Plaza, allowing the F line to shuttle from Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf.
The first phase of this $604 million upgrade would extend from Fifth to Eighth streets, turning a strip of boarded-up storefronts into the locus of an urban renaissance. Ultimately, this collaboration between the city's planning, public works and transportation departments will reconstruct the entire thoroughfare from Octavia Boulevard to SteuartStreet, near the waterfront.
"It's almost astonishing how well supported this is," SFMTA board chair Malcolm Heinicke said before the vote. "Not just because it's going to be beautiful and there will be trees. It's supported because it will save people's lives."
Heinicke has touted Better Market for eight years, and on Tuesday he urged SFMTA to direct any available funds toward the project, so that it can beat its expected completion date of 2025. Market Street is among San Francisco's busiest arteries, with 500,000 people walking along the strip daily and 650 riding bikes every hour during the peak commute. Its intersections are known for a high number of crashes that injure pedestrians and cyclists.
"When we have a city that's grown this much, the streets are being pushed to the brink," said Marta Lindsey, spokeswoman for the pedestrian safety group Walk San Francisco. "It gets to the point where everyone sees this is not working. We can't have all these vehicles and humans co-exist, anymore."
Besides transforming the landscape aesthetically, this new infrastructure would bring dramatic social changes to the street. Bicyclists would no longer be unceremoniously dumped into traffic east of Eighth Street, and Muni buses would no longer get stuck behind a person being chauffeured to work in an Uber.
💀🚗💀
