The City's Jewel - Everyone's Backyard

Healthy Saturdays brings car-free play space!

Healthy Saturdays' car-free streets — click to zoom view

After years of grassroots organizing on behalf of more car-free space for all San Franciscans, we are proud that Healthy Saturdays in Golden Gate Park has become a permanent thing. Adding on the 40+ years of Car-free Sundays in GG Park, Saturday car-free space is now a reality every year from April thru September on JFK Drive between Tea Garden Dr. (near 8th Ave.) and Transverse Dr.

Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers from the SFBC and our allied organizations who made it happen. Special thanks to Supervisor McGoldrick (the champ on this legislation) and Supervisors Ammiano, Daly, Dufty, Maxwell, Mirkarimi, Peskin, and Sandoval who all voted "Yes" for more car-free space.

Viva Healthy Saturdays!

The First "Healthy Saturday"

(read the SF Chronicle story).

Download the beautiful new Healthy Saturdays poster (Acrobat PDF, 685 Kb)

Saturday May 26, 2007 was an historic first, as skaters, bicyclists, families, and people from throughout the City filled a foggy yet gloriously car-free section of the Park. We were joined by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who has been our #1 steadfast champion of safe, recreational space for years (check out the fun photos here by Mark Johnson).

So, come out and relax on JFK Drive on Healthy Saturdays in Golden Gate Park — bring your bikes, your skates, your kids, your picnic basket, your frisbees & enjoy the Park as it was intended to be enjoyed!

Healthy Saturdays Wins at the Board

Supporters of more safe, affordable, and accessible public space celebrated a victory for San Franciscans and visitors in April 2007, as a compromise proposal for Healthy Saturdays in Golden Gate Park passed the Board of Supervisors and was signed by the Mayor.

Hooray for Healthy Saturdays

The agreement establishes new car-free space in the Park on Saturdays on JFK Drive between Tea Garden Dr. (near 8th Ave.) and Transverse Dr. for six months each year, April through September.

This victory results from years of organizing by community members and environmental, park, and neighborhood groups who championed an original proposal to make Saturdays just like the popular Sunday space, which offers a longer car-free area between Kezar Drive and Transverse Dr. in the Park. For more info, download our press release.

The study is out — Car-Free Sundays are good for everyone!

The way it is now: cars use the park on Saturday - people use it on Sunday
photos by sfpix.com

A much-anticipated, comprehensive City study (2.6 MB PDF), commissioned by Mayor Newsom and Supervisor McGoldrick last spring and conducted by the SF County Transportation Authority, was finally released on February 14 — the report shows that car-free space in Golden Gate Park more than doubles visitors' usage of the Park, as well as increasing attendance at the de Young Museum and at local businesses, while causing no significant negative impacts on parking or traffic in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Healthy Saturdays Coalition press release

SF Bay Guardian: Study bodes well for Saturday road closure in Golden Gate Park

SF Bay Guardian: Newsom ordered a study of Golden Gate Park road closures — but now appears to be ignoring the results

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick has reintroduced Healthy Saturdays legislation at the Board of Supervisors (2/27/07 Board meeting)

Herb Caen on Car-Free Sundays

"And then to the rarest treasure, Golden Gate Park on a car-free Sunday morning, the air wet and clean, the meadows green with the promise of spring. Not a single automobile: The silence is deafening, you can actually hear the branches dripping moisture, squirrels scrambling through the underbrush -- and the birds! Hundreds of redbreasted robins bobbing across the lawns, now that there are no cars to frighten them. On Stanyan, the families are renting bikes and heading into the winding trails.

"Slowly it dawns on them that they can use the main drive and the roads. For once the world does not belong to the automobile. The bicycle is king again and the rider may go where fancy dictates without looking nervously over his shoulder. You are even allowed, for a few unrealistic minutes, to reflect on how pleasant life would be if the car were banned from San Francisco."

Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/28/73

Other SFBC Successes

Golden Gate Park Bike Plan

Beginning in 2002, the SFBC led a major planning effort to improve bicycling in Golden Gate Park - working with the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority, the Recreation and Parks Department, the Department of Parking and Traffic, and the public at large to create a Golden Gate Park Bicycle Plan that will guide bicycle improvements in the Park for many years. The planning process included bike tours, many meetings with stakeholders, and several public meetings (minutes are available from the August 27 and October 17, 2002 meetings)

You can read the Golden Gate Park Bicycle Plan here in pdf.

Conservatory Dr. East Contra Flow Bike Lane - Striped!

This new bike lane connects Arguello to JFK, so cyclists have a more direct route between the Richmond District and the Haight. The project was spearheared by the Department of Parking and Traffic, with support from the SFBC. The contra flow lane creates a two way street for bikes on this one way street (for cars) and is San Francisco's second contra flow bike lane (the first one was in the Presidio).

Arguello Uphill Bike Lane - Striped!

Arguello Dr. was widened slightly to accomodate an uphill bike lane between Fulton and Conservatory Dr. In addition, the downhill lane features bike stencils to convey the message to motorists and cyclists that the proper place for bikes is in the middle of the lane.

Resources

Press

Partial List of Supporters