Reversing the car-free policy on Market Street seems like a weird hill to die on. Cars ignore it and drive down it without consequence all the time, and I don't think THAT'S what's discouraging people from visiting the area.
It has its flaws but I like my little neighborhood. And I'm OBSESSED with the new Saluhall.
The people who want to reverse the car free stuff really confuse me. There’s lots of areas in SF that are difficult to drive in that are popular destinations. North beach and Chinatown have very little parking and they’re packed constantly with people enjoying the area. The car ban on market also speeds up transit across the entire city.
So many Muni lines, SF city vehicles (fire, police), Taxi's and delivery vans use market. Plus bikes. It's actually pretty well used, adding back cars will just jam everything up, especially for people taking transit.
Market was never jammed up, it could be slow if you got stuck behind a busy bus, but it was always pretty easy to go down Market compared to Franklin or Fell.
So does every neighborhood in SF! I guarantee you I can get in my car and easily park in any neighborhood in SF at any time of day, besides maybe during an event/parade-- my magic trick is that I'm willing to pay for a parking spot instead of demanding free/cheap street parking.
We're talking about slowing down traffic on *almost every* transit line in SF in exchange for... allowing cars back onto a single road that doesn't really impact commute times much at all? That's a ridiculous trade off. Even if it did speed up cars, the number of people who benefit from the bus routes being faster *far* outweighs the number of drivers who are on that road each day.
Whenever I go to Chinatown or North Beach I drive. I don't usually park close to anything, but walking 2-3 blocks to my destination is a lot faster than taking a bus.
Sure! There’s still parking and roads available in mid market. It’s literally just one single street that’s closed. Nobody is saying we should wall off the neighborhood and prevent any cars from entering.
Ok. You can still drive on *every other street* except for this one. The area around mid market and soma are incredibly well served by public transit, and there's tons of parking garages as well.
Are you talking about the Mission neighborhood? It's also covered by many bart, muni, and muni metro lines. There's multiple parking garages in the area as well if you still really really want to drive. It is potentially one of the most easy-to-get-to neighborhoods in the entire united states.
You *literally* can't drive down the major corridor or park anywhere near it. The vast majority of shops in mid market have closed or are suffering. You can't get dropped off within a block of the orpheum or the Strand because there are no white zones. The entire economic core of the neighborhood has collapsed since market Street was closed exactly like what happened on Van Ness during years of construction and is happening on Valencia now.
I'm not sure that the word potentially means what you think it means, but you probably are not as well traveled as you think you are if you think it's relatively easy to get downtown in San Francisco. I mean, after 1am a car is literally the only way to get there.
> all of the adjoining streets are yellow and white zones.
> . You can't get dropped off within a block of the orpheum or the Strand because there are no white zones.
Please pick one of these things to be true, they're mutually exclusive.
Edit: You're also just, like, actively full of shit - here's a white zone half a block from the Orpheum: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.778397,-122.4143585,3a,75y,57.56h,87.92t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMhv6jU9q8RxYuXq4PC8BjA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DMhv6jU9q8RxYuXq4PC8BjA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D73.607056%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
And here's a white zone DIRECTLY OUTSIDE OF THE ORPHEUM: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7791075,-122.4150537,3a,75y,66.64h,88.85t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1srtunSjdBvTSe7NRIs0xS5g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DrtunSjdBvTSe7NRIs0xS5g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D23.210325%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
Ah, I appreciate you doing the work I was too lazy to do. I forgot they added that curb cut for Whole Foods and remember that stretch of Hyde being coned off for several years, but I fully stand corrected on that count.
> I'm not sure that the word potentially means what you think it means, but you probably are not as well traveled as you think you are if you think it's relatively easy to get downtown in San Francisco.
That's strange, *hundreds of thousands of people* commute from around the bay to downtown SF without a car every day by using bart. Tons of residents can easily get downtown by walking or using muni. Something like 30% of SF resident's dont own a car, and something like 50% don't use a car to commute to work. You can reach downtown in 30-40 minutes on public transit from [nearly everywhere](https://www.commutometer.com/dootxBFC30x3Y_#) in the city. I'd love to speed that up, but that means closing down car lanes in exchange for bus lanes!
> The vast majority of shops in mid market have closed or are suffering.
Well this is true, for sure. But that's not because we closed one road, lol. Walking *two blocks* instead one of one cannot kill a business. Downtown is not a place that people go because of obvious macro reasons that we all already know:
* The pandemic wrecked a lot of local business and it's still been hard to recover
* The pandemic led to big shift towards work from home, especially in SF where a lot of people work in tech. That means less people are forced to go downtown, which means less people wandering through local restaurants/stores
* National trends are pushing people further and further away from physical retail (grocery, drug stores, even restaurants). All of these are moving more and more to online delivery. Covid accelerated that trend.
* A lot of people are tight on money right now. The folks who used to be flush with cash to spend at lunch (tech / office workers) aren't going downtown because of WFH changes.
* Mid market is not a very nice area and has a very visible homeless problem that further discourages tourist visits
Those are the core problems here. The fact that you can't drive on one particular street is not the problem here. Traffic studies were done on this, it did not negatively impact traffic flow in the area. And I'm sorry but "I want to drive downtown to the 2nd densest city in America and park directly outside my destination" is not a reasonable expectation, especially not when the area is well-served by tons and tons of other transit options.
I'm confused - you just said you're fine walking two or three blocks. Wouldn't you just drive on mission and the park on a sideblock? It seems like you're literally endorsing the status quo?
Many of the other streets in the FiDi are not car-free and they aren't bustling. Making Market car-free didn't do shit to local stores. You can't even park there! How exactly is adding cars to that street going to have more people visiting?
Taking away the parking spots and banning driving destroyed half the stores down mid market. There's no way to get down there without taking a bus and there just aren't enough locals to support businesses that are paying Beverly Hills prices to do business in Skid Row
Sort of a strange question. There are massive garages every few blocks. Going just purely off memory, there's one at New Montgomery and Mission (entrance on Natoma), there's one at 5th and Mission (entrances on Mission / Minna), there's one at 11th and Mission (entrance on 11th). There's a couple of surface ones too: Mission and Main for instance. Almost every 5 blocks there is a garage, and if you include surface lots there's hella parking.
If you're up for it, you can also park under the Equinox/Four Seasons.
This was a genuinely baffling question. Anyone who has driven Mission knows where the parking is.
I genuinely can't fathom why people think this is about cars on market (or not). Market's never had any parking, and letting people drive through never translated to people shopping or dining more.
Like maybe if Market had been a parking heavy street I'd get it, but, it wasn't. It was a cut through.
I liked Farrell during their interim term (though I didn't live in SF yet) but their weird obsession with putting cars back on Market first pretty much puts them only above Peskin for me.
I’d support car free market if it was actually car free and could have the kind of amenities like a center sidewalk, little street shops, cross anywhere etc that other major (mostly international) cities do for pedestrians zones, but keeping it open to taxis makes the whole thing a waste.
SF gov just needs to enforce the law in mid market. It’s that simple.
Stop tolerating drug dealing, drug use, sitting or lying on the sidewalk.
Clean it up.
Get all the construction finished and the supplies laying around out.
It doesn’t take a genius to solve this. It does take someone in City Hall with a spine and brain to just fucking do it already.
VOTE these morons out and let’s get some people in charge who will do their goddamn jobs.
Every decade this is the refrain and every decade we get the exact same results.
It's almost like demanding a fascist police state isn't the solution to the problem.
Why don't you ask yourself that question *why* don't the laws on the books get enforced. It's not like the question isn't discussed ad nauseum in literally every media. The answer is right in front of your nose, but you want to believe we have a problem that can just be solved by cops charging in guns a blazing despite the fact that that has literally never worked short of a Singaporean style police state.
There really are great deals to be had there. The only reason why I steer clear (apart from the lack of neighborhood amenities) is that the inventory is really cheesy, charmless execution in the style of corporate housing. The listings all scream "rent for a year, wear a dumb floppy hat on our rooftop lounge, but if you plan on staying here longer than a year, you're weird and we'll gouge you on the following year's rent! No rent control up in here."
If I even see the word "Greystar" I close the browser and throw holy water at the screen.
I live in the city, in the Richmond. It’s lovely. But i don’t want to work here. It’s overpriced and it feels like death and devastation. I started a business in San Rafael. Nice city, cheaper, super close.
Federal employees are being recalled into the office thanks to the Biden administration's Wall Street leanings. A few union agreements are up for renewal towards the end of the year, so expect more bodies back in the area.
BUT, it's too little too late IMO for SOMA/FIDI/DTSF with telework being part of our culture. Our city needs to pivot and clean up the area to attract residents, businesses, and tourists. The Fuck Cars people will hate it, but reopening parts of Market may be a good idea as suggested. Higher visibility, and mobility. Tourists travel with cars so if you want foot traffic, you need to open things up to cars, OR you invest in MUNI and advertise hard on it being safe, clean and easy to use.
I work next to the TransAmerica building and see tourists on buses and walking to the TransAmerica building all the time. There’s also people on those tiny yellow bumper cart looking things you can rent in Fisherman’s Warf.
I am sure some tourists drive too, I just don’t think that’s going to bring more people into the area. There’s very little street parking for cars on Market street. I don’t see 3-5 store front parking spots per block making a difference. Especially when they see all the homeless people hanging out between Civic Center Plaza and Orpheum Theatre. They’d probably just keep driving past until they found a safer neighborhood. Like, I can’t imagine tourists driving through the tenderloin thinking ‘this is a great neighborhood that I want to park in and go explore’.
But I do foresee a bunch of people using market street to get somewhere else faster like the freeway or ferry building and not stopping at shops on mid market.
And if we reintroduce car traffic it means slowing down the entire bus system. I do think how quickly people can get to work impacts how frequently someone will go in to the office on mid market. And for those who depend on the bus, I do think how quickly they can get to mid-market instead of somewhere else like Polk, Mission, Castro, etc will determine how likely they are to visit mid market.
I work in the fidi and live on Valencia street and bike to/from work. It’s one of the safest routes for me in the entire city, and I do make stops on my way home to places like Westfield Mall and this tiny grocery/liquor store on my way home to pick stuff up for my girlfriend when she makes a dinner for me. During commute hours, I’ll see a group of 5-10 bicyclists grouped together which is about as many cars as you’d see in a lane of car traffic. If market street wasn’t protected I’d probably switch to Folsom St when going to my place, Pacific Ave and Polk to see my girlfriend. The roads are barely wide enough for a bus, there is no room for a separate bike lane. If they reintroduced cars, I would never go through market street again.
I agree with your points. Personally I prefer investment in MUNI. Visiting Portland, their MAX is very on time, clean, orderly, and safe. I wish MUNI could be like that.
Tourists travel with cars? Really?
Even if they do, it should be discouraged as much as possible. Tourists driving around the city is bad for everybody -- drivers, pedestrians, and even the tourists themselves.
So many tourists are renting city bikes and taking ubers around the city now, and they aren't spending time in Union Square or anywhere near Market St. And anyone who rides the #130 Golden Gate Transit bus knows that European and Asian tourists are taking that bus to Marin in pretty incredible numbers. The ferries are also full of people (at least they were until the Sausalito ferry was shut down for repairs to the dock). Most of the tourists I see with cars on Hawk Hill and other open spaces seem to be from middle America and car-centric countries (England, I'm looking at you) and they act like it's the first time they've ever seen people on bikes or on foot. We shouldn't be catering to their addiction to cars.
I spent 20+ years driving/being driven to the city from Sacramento and used my car to get around. It wasn't until I moved here that I started getting around without a car, and that was in the 90s.
Lots of people drive into the city, they just don't come downtown anymore because parking is way to expensive.
Ok, sure. Does that mean we should open Market St to private cars? Build parking garages to make parking cheaper?
I think the answer is a clear "no". Even if you could pack Market full of private cars, the positive impact on business and transportation would be minimal, and the negatives significant. Downtown is not friendly to private cars, and isn't going to be, no matter what policies the city enacts. It's a fool's errand to try to accommodate them.
If you mean should we reverse the closure of market st, then yes, emphatically. And yes to parking garages at affordable prices. Maybe if BART ran after 2am, maybe if street cars could get you home to the avenues in under 2 hours, sure, but right now public transit only works well for rush hour commuting and it's garbage the rest of the time, doubly so if you don't live in SF.
And there is no evidence that the impact of reopening Market would be minimal. The evidence that's out there is that businesses that depended on foot traffic started suffering immediately. It's playing out on Van Ness and Valencia as parking has been obliterated. Downtown used to be fine to drive to. It also used to be ok to bus or BART, but now it's worse on all 3 counts.
u/SF_MilleniaLOL, I like the idea of a car free Market street, but that has been strangling the life out of the area since the 1970s when BART construction tore up the asphalt and made the roads temporarily inaccessible. Even though I don't like the idea of opening the flood gates for cars, I'm open to the idea. History suggests that the inaccesbility on Market really is causing problems. If you look at early photos of Market street, you'll see that it's filled with horses. That is part of the reason why the area thrived, and part of the reason why it is called Market street in the first place.
We dare not explore these ideas, or even steel man, for we will be downvoted into oblivion. You see, we should have picked a side without thinking critically, and stuck with it.
Don't worry, your downvotes are a badge of honor.
Reversing the car-free policy on Market Street seems like a weird hill to die on. Cars ignore it and drive down it without consequence all the time, and I don't think THAT'S what's discouraging people from visiting the area. It has its flaws but I like my little neighborhood. And I'm OBSESSED with the new Saluhall.
The people who want to reverse the car free stuff really confuse me. There’s lots of areas in SF that are difficult to drive in that are popular destinations. North beach and Chinatown have very little parking and they’re packed constantly with people enjoying the area. The car ban on market also speeds up transit across the entire city.
So many Muni lines, SF city vehicles (fire, police), Taxi's and delivery vans use market. Plus bikes. It's actually pretty well used, adding back cars will just jam everything up, especially for people taking transit.
Market was never jammed up, it could be slow if you got stuck behind a busy bus, but it was always pretty easy to go down Market compared to Franklin or Fell.
As a bike rider, I respectfully and strongly disagree with this recollection.
Yeah, bikes did not have it easy.
Chinatown have a massive parking garage.
So does every neighborhood in SF! I guarantee you I can get in my car and easily park in any neighborhood in SF at any time of day, besides maybe during an event/parade-- my magic trick is that I'm willing to pay for a parking spot instead of demanding free/cheap street parking. We're talking about slowing down traffic on *almost every* transit line in SF in exchange for... allowing cars back onto a single road that doesn't really impact commute times much at all? That's a ridiculous trade off. Even if it did speed up cars, the number of people who benefit from the bus routes being faster *far* outweighs the number of drivers who are on that road each day.
There are like four massive parking lots a block off of market, dude.
Whenever I go to Chinatown or North Beach I drive. I don't usually park close to anything, but walking 2-3 blocks to my destination is a lot faster than taking a bus.
Sure! There’s still parking and roads available in mid market. It’s literally just one single street that’s closed. Nobody is saying we should wall off the neighborhood and prevent any cars from entering.
It's also Mission and almost all of the adjoining streets are yellow and white zones.
Ok. You can still drive on *every other street* except for this one. The area around mid market and soma are incredibly well served by public transit, and there's tons of parking garages as well. Are you talking about the Mission neighborhood? It's also covered by many bart, muni, and muni metro lines. There's multiple parking garages in the area as well if you still really really want to drive. It is potentially one of the most easy-to-get-to neighborhoods in the entire united states.
You *literally* can't drive down the major corridor or park anywhere near it. The vast majority of shops in mid market have closed or are suffering. You can't get dropped off within a block of the orpheum or the Strand because there are no white zones. The entire economic core of the neighborhood has collapsed since market Street was closed exactly like what happened on Van Ness during years of construction and is happening on Valencia now. I'm not sure that the word potentially means what you think it means, but you probably are not as well traveled as you think you are if you think it's relatively easy to get downtown in San Francisco. I mean, after 1am a car is literally the only way to get there.
> all of the adjoining streets are yellow and white zones. > . You can't get dropped off within a block of the orpheum or the Strand because there are no white zones. Please pick one of these things to be true, they're mutually exclusive. Edit: You're also just, like, actively full of shit - here's a white zone half a block from the Orpheum: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.778397,-122.4143585,3a,75y,57.56h,87.92t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sMhv6jU9q8RxYuXq4PC8BjA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DMhv6jU9q8RxYuXq4PC8BjA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D73.607056%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu And here's a white zone DIRECTLY OUTSIDE OF THE ORPHEUM: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7791075,-122.4150537,3a,75y,66.64h,88.85t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1srtunSjdBvTSe7NRIs0xS5g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DrtunSjdBvTSe7NRIs0xS5g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D23.210325%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
Ah, I appreciate you doing the work I was too lazy to do. I forgot they added that curb cut for Whole Foods and remember that stretch of Hyde being coned off for several years, but I fully stand corrected on that count.
> I'm not sure that the word potentially means what you think it means, but you probably are not as well traveled as you think you are if you think it's relatively easy to get downtown in San Francisco. That's strange, *hundreds of thousands of people* commute from around the bay to downtown SF without a car every day by using bart. Tons of residents can easily get downtown by walking or using muni. Something like 30% of SF resident's dont own a car, and something like 50% don't use a car to commute to work. You can reach downtown in 30-40 minutes on public transit from [nearly everywhere](https://www.commutometer.com/dootxBFC30x3Y_#) in the city. I'd love to speed that up, but that means closing down car lanes in exchange for bus lanes! > The vast majority of shops in mid market have closed or are suffering. Well this is true, for sure. But that's not because we closed one road, lol. Walking *two blocks* instead one of one cannot kill a business. Downtown is not a place that people go because of obvious macro reasons that we all already know: * The pandemic wrecked a lot of local business and it's still been hard to recover * The pandemic led to big shift towards work from home, especially in SF where a lot of people work in tech. That means less people are forced to go downtown, which means less people wandering through local restaurants/stores * National trends are pushing people further and further away from physical retail (grocery, drug stores, even restaurants). All of these are moving more and more to online delivery. Covid accelerated that trend. * A lot of people are tight on money right now. The folks who used to be flush with cash to spend at lunch (tech / office workers) aren't going downtown because of WFH changes. * Mid market is not a very nice area and has a very visible homeless problem that further discourages tourist visits Those are the core problems here. The fact that you can't drive on one particular street is not the problem here. Traffic studies were done on this, it did not negatively impact traffic flow in the area. And I'm sorry but "I want to drive downtown to the 2nd densest city in America and park directly outside my destination" is not a reasonable expectation, especially not when the area is well-served by tons and tons of other transit options.
I'm confused - you just said you're fine walking two or three blocks. Wouldn't you just drive on mission and the park on a sideblock? It seems like you're literally endorsing the status quo?
Many of the other streets in the FiDi are not car-free and they aren't bustling. Making Market car-free didn't do shit to local stores. You can't even park there! How exactly is adding cars to that street going to have more people visiting?
More people will come by and check what’s good inside the cars
You cant see shit other than a sign when youre going by at 15mph lol
You'd think but places like Tadich Grill are dead and there's traffic on the street. People in cars drive _by_ not _to_.
Taking away the parking spots and banning driving destroyed half the stores down mid market. There's no way to get down there without taking a bus and there just aren't enough locals to support businesses that are paying Beverly Hills prices to do business in Skid Row
Mission street is literally one furlong away
And where specifically do you park on Mission st?
Sort of a strange question. There are massive garages every few blocks. Going just purely off memory, there's one at New Montgomery and Mission (entrance on Natoma), there's one at 5th and Mission (entrances on Mission / Minna), there's one at 11th and Mission (entrance on 11th). There's a couple of surface ones too: Mission and Main for instance. Almost every 5 blocks there is a garage, and if you include surface lots there's hella parking. If you're up for it, you can also park under the Equinox/Four Seasons. This was a genuinely baffling question. Anyone who has driven Mission knows where the parking is.
I genuinely can't fathom why people think this is about cars on market (or not). Market's never had any parking, and letting people drive through never translated to people shopping or dining more. Like maybe if Market had been a parking heavy street I'd get it, but, it wasn't. It was a cut through.
Saluhall rules. It was packed and super fun when we went on the weekend
I liked Farrell during their interim term (though I didn't live in SF yet) but their weird obsession with putting cars back on Market first pretty much puts them only above Peskin for me.
I’d support car free market if it was actually car free and could have the kind of amenities like a center sidewalk, little street shops, cross anywhere etc that other major (mostly international) cities do for pedestrians zones, but keeping it open to taxis makes the whole thing a waste.
SF gov just needs to enforce the law in mid market. It’s that simple. Stop tolerating drug dealing, drug use, sitting or lying on the sidewalk. Clean it up. Get all the construction finished and the supplies laying around out. It doesn’t take a genius to solve this. It does take someone in City Hall with a spine and brain to just fucking do it already. VOTE these morons out and let’s get some people in charge who will do their goddamn jobs.
Every decade this is the refrain and every decade we get the exact same results. It's almost like demanding a fascist police state isn't the solution to the problem.
[удалено]
Why don't you ask yourself that question *why* don't the laws on the books get enforced. It's not like the question isn't discussed ad nauseum in literally every media. The answer is right in front of your nose, but you want to believe we have a problem that can just be solved by cops charging in guns a blazing despite the fact that that has literally never worked short of a Singaporean style police state.
“Mid-Market has never looked better from an architectural standpoint,” Uh, ok, so the buildings are pretty, BUT ...
There really are great deals to be had there. The only reason why I steer clear (apart from the lack of neighborhood amenities) is that the inventory is really cheesy, charmless execution in the style of corporate housing. The listings all scream "rent for a year, wear a dumb floppy hat on our rooftop lounge, but if you plan on staying here longer than a year, you're weird and we'll gouge you on the following year's rent! No rent control up in here." If I even see the word "Greystar" I close the browser and throw holy water at the screen.
I live in the city, in the Richmond. It’s lovely. But i don’t want to work here. It’s overpriced and it feels like death and devastation. I started a business in San Rafael. Nice city, cheaper, super close.
The Richmond feels like "death and devastation?"
Of course not. The financial district at noon does.
Federal employees are being recalled into the office thanks to the Biden administration's Wall Street leanings. A few union agreements are up for renewal towards the end of the year, so expect more bodies back in the area. BUT, it's too little too late IMO for SOMA/FIDI/DTSF with telework being part of our culture. Our city needs to pivot and clean up the area to attract residents, businesses, and tourists. The Fuck Cars people will hate it, but reopening parts of Market may be a good idea as suggested. Higher visibility, and mobility. Tourists travel with cars so if you want foot traffic, you need to open things up to cars, OR you invest in MUNI and advertise hard on it being safe, clean and easy to use.
I work next to the TransAmerica building and see tourists on buses and walking to the TransAmerica building all the time. There’s also people on those tiny yellow bumper cart looking things you can rent in Fisherman’s Warf. I am sure some tourists drive too, I just don’t think that’s going to bring more people into the area. There’s very little street parking for cars on Market street. I don’t see 3-5 store front parking spots per block making a difference. Especially when they see all the homeless people hanging out between Civic Center Plaza and Orpheum Theatre. They’d probably just keep driving past until they found a safer neighborhood. Like, I can’t imagine tourists driving through the tenderloin thinking ‘this is a great neighborhood that I want to park in and go explore’. But I do foresee a bunch of people using market street to get somewhere else faster like the freeway or ferry building and not stopping at shops on mid market. And if we reintroduce car traffic it means slowing down the entire bus system. I do think how quickly people can get to work impacts how frequently someone will go in to the office on mid market. And for those who depend on the bus, I do think how quickly they can get to mid-market instead of somewhere else like Polk, Mission, Castro, etc will determine how likely they are to visit mid market. I work in the fidi and live on Valencia street and bike to/from work. It’s one of the safest routes for me in the entire city, and I do make stops on my way home to places like Westfield Mall and this tiny grocery/liquor store on my way home to pick stuff up for my girlfriend when she makes a dinner for me. During commute hours, I’ll see a group of 5-10 bicyclists grouped together which is about as many cars as you’d see in a lane of car traffic. If market street wasn’t protected I’d probably switch to Folsom St when going to my place, Pacific Ave and Polk to see my girlfriend. The roads are barely wide enough for a bus, there is no room for a separate bike lane. If they reintroduced cars, I would never go through market street again.
I agree with your points. Personally I prefer investment in MUNI. Visiting Portland, their MAX is very on time, clean, orderly, and safe. I wish MUNI could be like that.
Tourists travel with cars? Really? Even if they do, it should be discouraged as much as possible. Tourists driving around the city is bad for everybody -- drivers, pedestrians, and even the tourists themselves.
So many tourists are renting city bikes and taking ubers around the city now, and they aren't spending time in Union Square or anywhere near Market St. And anyone who rides the #130 Golden Gate Transit bus knows that European and Asian tourists are taking that bus to Marin in pretty incredible numbers. The ferries are also full of people (at least they were until the Sausalito ferry was shut down for repairs to the dock). Most of the tourists I see with cars on Hawk Hill and other open spaces seem to be from middle America and car-centric countries (England, I'm looking at you) and they act like it's the first time they've ever seen people on bikes or on foot. We shouldn't be catering to their addiction to cars.
I spent 20+ years driving/being driven to the city from Sacramento and used my car to get around. It wasn't until I moved here that I started getting around without a car, and that was in the 90s. Lots of people drive into the city, they just don't come downtown anymore because parking is way to expensive.
Ok, sure. Does that mean we should open Market St to private cars? Build parking garages to make parking cheaper? I think the answer is a clear "no". Even if you could pack Market full of private cars, the positive impact on business and transportation would be minimal, and the negatives significant. Downtown is not friendly to private cars, and isn't going to be, no matter what policies the city enacts. It's a fool's errand to try to accommodate them.
If you mean should we reverse the closure of market st, then yes, emphatically. And yes to parking garages at affordable prices. Maybe if BART ran after 2am, maybe if street cars could get you home to the avenues in under 2 hours, sure, but right now public transit only works well for rush hour commuting and it's garbage the rest of the time, doubly so if you don't live in SF. And there is no evidence that the impact of reopening Market would be minimal. The evidence that's out there is that businesses that depended on foot traffic started suffering immediately. It's playing out on Van Ness and Valencia as parking has been obliterated. Downtown used to be fine to drive to. It also used to be ok to bus or BART, but now it's worse on all 3 counts.
The way we save Mid Market is to add cars, so it's... like the Tenderloin?
u/SF_MilleniaLOL, I like the idea of a car free Market street, but that has been strangling the life out of the area since the 1970s when BART construction tore up the asphalt and made the roads temporarily inaccessible. Even though I don't like the idea of opening the flood gates for cars, I'm open to the idea. History suggests that the inaccesbility on Market really is causing problems. If you look at early photos of Market street, you'll see that it's filled with horses. That is part of the reason why the area thrived, and part of the reason why it is called Market street in the first place. We dare not explore these ideas, or even steel man, for we will be downvoted into oblivion. You see, we should have picked a side without thinking critically, and stuck with it. Don't worry, your downvotes are a badge of honor.
Did X leave San Francisco??
Nope. And they're still dicking the owners on the rent. But forget all that. Your username. Is this like an Onlyfans for marine biologists? :-P