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 |  In July 2008, Supervisor Chris Daly revived the much talked-about concept of a car-free Market Street (read the SF Chronicle story). While the SFBC did not work on Supervisor Daly's proposal, we strongly support this concept, and have spent years investigating this idea. A car-free Market street, also proposed a decade ago by Mayor Willie Brown, would improve Muni transit time and increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety — important at a time when MTA counts show that bicycle ridership on Market Street increased by a whopping 30% between 2007 and 2008.BackgroundIn 1998, the SFBC worked with a coalition of members from the Green Party, Sierra Club, Market Street Merchants, and the SF Chamber of Commerce to better Market Street through four goals:
This coalition successfully won a $275,000 grant to study how to best achieve these goals. The result of this study was the San Francisco County Transportation Authority's 2004 Market Street Study Action Plan. The report and supporting technical memoranda show that Market Street is only lightly traveled by private autos and most of those autos don't actually need to be there (there's no parking or direct access to parking on Market Street). The SFBC would support exemptions for emergency vehicles, delivery trucks during certain time periods, taxis and cars with disabled placards. download street diagrams for Market Street as it is today — start redesigning it yourself! The SFBC will be working hard to help win support for this idea whose time has finally come! Other U.S. cities like Denver, Minneapolis, Boston and Santa Monica are ahead of the mark in creating successful car-free streets. Hopefully, our leaders and our City's transit-first policy that prioritizes walking, bicycling and transit will lead to a better Market Street. How you can help? Write Mayor Newsom and members of the Board of Supervisors to express your support for the idea. 
Why Market Street?Market Street is the most important street for bicyclists in San Francisco, potentially carrying more daily bicycle traffic than any other street in a major city center in the United States, if not North America. While not important for cars in San Francisco, Market Street is a critical link, due to its generally flat topography and diagonal orientation to the street grids, for bicyclists heading to and from downtown as well as connecting to regional transit (e.g. BART, Caltrain, ferries). A generally wide (about 120') right-of-way for most of its length, Market Street has the potential to be a beautiful and functional multi-modal street, serving transit, bicyclists, pedestrians, taxis, and to lesser degree, autos. What's the problem?Four out of the top 15 pedestrian injury collision intersections (27%) are on Market east of Van Ness. Lower Market Street does not provide a dedicated bike lane for bicyclists, posing a safety problem and discouraging potential bike commuters, with 8% of reported bicycle collisions occurring on or near Market east of Van Ness. An estimated 150,000 Muni passengers — or 20% of Muni's ridership — take surface buses and streetcars on routes that use Market Street each day. Delays on Market Street can affect these entire routes. Between the Embarcadero and 8th Street, Market Street is noticeably narrower and more congested with all forms of traffic, transit, and pedestrians. Between Octavia and Castro Streets, bicycle lanes exist already, however in a spotty fashion as lanes disappear and reappear intermittently. A number of relatively simple striping fixes could make the lanes more robust and continuous. The proposals at hand are inexpensive as they involve only paint striping and a few signs, and while superior comprehensive solutions might involve expensive moving of curbs, those solutions could certainly replace these once funding is found several years from now. SFBC's current proposal:
What's Next?We're working very closely with the SF County Transportation Authority to implement the changes that were approved in the Market Street Study Action Plan and we continue to lead a coalition of community-based groups and governmental agencies working together to improve transportation, safety and access conditions on one of the city's most important but chronically malfunctioning streets — Market Street east of Van Ness Ave. Who Supports Our Efforts? Organizations involved include: Walk San Francisco, Senior Action Network, Market Street Association, SF Chamber of Commerce, City CarShare, Sierra Club (SF chapter), Tenderloin Safe Communities Coalition, Rescue Muni, San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association (SPUR), United Taxicab Workers, Market Street Railway, Yerba Buena Alliance, SF Green Party, Muni, SF Planning Department, SF Department of Parking & Traffic, SF Redevelopment Agency, SF Transportation Authority, and BART. ContactFor more information about Lower Market Planning, contact Leah Shahum at 415/431-BIKE x306. or Andy Thornley, SFBC Program Director, 431-BIKE x307 or andy@sfbike.org
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