Carfree promise of Market Street Urban Design
Bikes, buses take over on Day One of transit plan
“This is a magnificent Market Street. Magnificent for transit, for pedestrians, for cyclists, for equity ... for visitors, for businesses.”
Malcolm Heinicke, chairman of San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Don’t be surprised if banning cars from the downtown stretch of Market Street doesn’t have the transformative effect that boosters predict.
Instead, the prohibition on private automobiles launched Wednesday simply should be seen as a welcome move in the right direction. It won’t cure the worst of Market Street’s ills. But it will make San Francisco’s most symbolic artery a bit calmer and, with luck, clear the way for other changes.
The new order was evident during the morning commute, when bicyclists turned out to celebrate the new reality that private automobiles are no longer allowed from 10th Street almost to the Embarcadero.
I counted as many as 40 twowheeled vehicles cross some intersections during a traffic light cycle, mostly bicycles but also scooters and even a nonelectric skateboard or three. While the numbers dwindled as the morning went on — no surprise — there always were cyclists on every block.
The biggest single cluster headed west around noon, after an 11 a.m. rally
where public officials gathered at the Embarcadero to accept the cheers of cyclists and transit advocates. Many in the crowd had been working toward a carfree Market Street since 2008 — or before. Others had started as skeptics but migrated to the nocar camp.
“This has been really a long time coming,” Mayor London Breed said. “I know this will be challenging for many people, but the city is changing.”
She was the lone speaker to acknowledge that there’s plenty of grumbling from regular drivers who are frustrated by what they see as a proliferation of greenpainted bike lanes in a city where getting from point A to point B by car can seem like an existential task.
Other officials grandly predicted that Market Street will suddenly blossom now that private cars aren’t allowed between the final mile’s wide brick sidewalks.
In this camp: Malcolm Heinicke, who chairs the board of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and jokingly questioned why the longterm plan for the street — it was approved last year and will include repaving and redesigning everything east of Octavia Boulevard — is called Better Market Street. “That’s not enough. This is a
magnificent Market Street,” Heinicke proclaimed. “Magnificent for transit, for pedestrians, for cyclists, for equity ... for visitors, for businesses.”
Here is where a few reality checks won’t hurt.
Even without private vehicles, the broad artery is still a mess. Taxis still are allowed, as are vehicles making deliveries. Muni buses back up behind the historic streetcars that rumble back and forth on metal tracks.
And cars still cross Market Street at more than a dozen intersections — more than a few of which were gridlocked on Wednesday, overeager drivers marooned while blocking the buses and streetcars filled with transit riders.
Getting rid of cars, meanwhile, isn’t likely to revive the MidMarket blocks where purveyors of illegal drugs and stolen goods are an alltoo common sight. Cars from the west already have been shuttled toward Mission Street for nearly a decade. This just makes things official.
Heinicke’s rhetoric echoes past visions of Market Street when big fixes fizzled out.
The wide brick sidewalks, for instance, date to a 1970s remake that was going to turn Market into San Francisco’s Champs-Élysées. Moving Twitter and other tech firms to MidMarket, we were assured, would make a squalid stretch shine.
But if you tone down expectations, the new reality looks pretty good.
As many speakers emphasized, taking private autos out of the mix should have a beneficial effect in terms of personal safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, and making buses flow a bit more smoothly. Besides, it’s not as if this has been a major thoroughfare for drivers behind the wheel.
“I’ve lived here all my life, and I never drove down Market Street,” said Jim Haas, who entered public life as an aide to thenSupervisor Dianne Feinstein and stopped by for the morning ceremony. “I figured it was only for tourists. Otherwise you got bottlenecked at every intersection.”
Among the cyclists biding their time while speakers figuratively patted each other on the back was Juli Uota.
Uota is a member of the board of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an advocacy group that has touted the virtues of a carfree Market Street for more than 20 years. She pedaled in for the event from her home in the Outer Sunset, pulling a cart that held her Formosan mountain dog, Dascha.
“Just by removing the cars, you change things” in terms of safety, Uota said. “The drivers who drive Market all the time understand we’re part of the picture. It’s the occasional ones who aren’t familiar with everything that’s going on . ... Riding in today, I felt more at ease.”
A small victory, perhaps. In the long run, though, Market Street is better served by a procession of small victories than by making grand promises that inevitably fall short.