‘Mayors’ help keep Slow Streets going

On a recent sunny weekday morning in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, Andrew Casteel mounted a planter encased in a royal blue plastic pot on his cargo bike, along with a screwdriver and some small paintings, and cycled down Sanchez Street.

He biked down the residential street, one of 17 socalled “Slow Streets” that San Francisco began implementing in 2020 as a way to give people more space to recreate while social distancing. Cars are allowed on these corridors at reduced speeds, and they must share the road with pedestrians and cyclists.

On his ride, Casteel met with neighbors and retightened the screws on one of the Slow Streets signs at a crosswalk. He scouted for spots to place the paintings, looked for public trash cans that needed emptying, and replaced one of the damaged planters that adorn Slow Sanchez Street with the new one.

Such are the responsibilities of being a Slow Street “mayor” in San Francisco.

Last month the city’s transportation board decided to make more than a dozen Slow Streets permanent — including Sanchez Street between 23rd and 30th streets — and will consider a plan to significantly expand the network of pedestrian-friendly residential streets this spring.

But underpinning the success behind some of San Francisco’s most popular Slow Streets have been the group of residents who make up the informal system of self-appointed mayors — or caretakers — for their neighborhood Slow Streets.

Unlike an actual elected mayor, being a Slow Street mayor is neither paid nor glamorous work.

These mayors organize community events, clean up trash, maintain plants and signage, act as intermediaries with city agencies and play an influential role in coordinating the advocacy that spurred the Municipal Transportation Agency board’s unanimous decision in December to make Slow Streets permanent.

All but two of the city’s 17 Slow Streets have mayors to care for them, according to community organizer Luke Bornheimer. A few Slow Streets have a single mayor. Many have multiple.

In a sign of the role’s grassroots nature, Casteel is unsure of when, exactly, he took up the mantle of comayor of Slow Sanchez Street along with neighbor Yuko Shah. He’s not sure who, exactly, coined the term of “mayor.”

But he immediately jumped at the opportunity to get more involved in April 2021 when a group of neighbors met on a Zoom call to brainstorm a campaign to keep Sanchez “slow.”

Casteel and his now 6year-old son installed the first planter on Sanchez Street at an intersection in 2020 as in-person preschool classes were limited. He also met neighbors through Slow Sanchez Street whom he hadn’t seen in the 16 years he and his family lived in Noe Valley.

“We just do what we can to make sure that the street is safe, that people want to visit, that it’s fun and it’s beautiful because it’s the people getting out there and using the Slow Street that keeps … that stronger sense of community alive,” Casteel said. “If the street falls into disuse, I think some of the community would go away.”

Two miles north of Slow Sanchez Street, co-mayors Molly Hayden and Jessica Jenkins help care for the city’s most popular Slow Street — Slow Page Street — that spans from Stanyan to Gough streets.

Both, however, are hesitant to embrace that title, seeing themselves more as stewards.

“It’s not just us leading the charge,” Hayden said. “Anybody can get involved, anybody can help improve (Slow Page Street) or spearhead an idea.”

Like Casteel, the two Lower Haight neighbors first met on Slow Page in spring 2020 while installing planters east of Divisadero Street on a Saturday afternoon. Since then the two have become common sights on Page Street, sometimes volunteering 20 hours a week organizing block parties and fundraising donations from neighbors to maintain the street’s signage and public art.

For nearly two years, Jenkins has been working to get approval for what’s believed to be San Francisco’s first “community parklet” at the intersection of Page and Fillmore streets, leading its design and the “vexing” bureaucratic permitting process. Expected to be completed by summer, the parklet will have seating, a fairy garden and a little free library, adding to the sense of community on Page Street, Jenkins said.

“Hopefully we’re blazing a trail so it’ll be easier, both on Slow Streets and elsewhere, for community groups to have a public, open parklet,” Jenkins said.

Not all Slow Streets have been as widely embraced as the ones on Page and Sanchez streets. Fourteen of the city’s 31 pandemic Slow Streets didn’t make the final cut, partly because of their low use, according to SFMTA.

And though it has an active group of supportive residents, Slow Lake Street in the Richmond District illustrated the highly contentious debate some Slow Streets have attracted.

In December, hundreds of residents on or near Lake Street voiced their passionate support or opposition to it becoming a permanent Slow Street, with many residents touting it as a safe recreational and community space for pedestrians and cyclists. Others who opposed that Slow Street said it made it harder to navigate the neighborhood by car and led to some pro-Slow Street neighbors aggressively policing people’s driving and parking habits.

Similar hyperlocal debates could arise as the SFMTA board considers expanding Slow Streets throughout the city into a “fully connected” network “without breaks.”

Slow Streets have evolved since their 2020 debut.

Whereas the first iteration of Slow Streets were meant as tools for social distancing, the current version of Slow Streets “are safe, comfortable low-vehicletraffic routes that prioritize active transportation and community-building,” according to SFMTA’s definition. All cars are allowed on Slow Streets at slow speeds, though street designs such as turn restrictions, signage and narrowing roadways are meant to reduce car volumes on them.

Some Slow Streets are highly utilized by cyclists to get around the city. Some remain popular spots for recreation and community gatherings. But the volunteer mayors have been a key reason why San Francisco has embraced Slow Streets permanently, SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin said.

“Every single one of our most successful Slow Streets had mayors or stewards that spontaneously emerged,” Tumlin said.

Photos by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle As “mayor” of Slow Sanchez Street, Andrew Casteel monitors goings-on from his bicycle. His stewardship includes beautification, cleanup and minor repairs.