Photo by geekstinkbreath
For the past few years, the Sunday Streets events for the northwest end of San Francisco have been held out on the Great Highway and along JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park. The Great Highway is closed down from Fulton to Sloat streets, welcoming walkers, bikers and other modes of non-car transit to enjoy the beachside road. The next Great Highway Sunday Streets will be held on July 7.
But unlike other Sunday Streets events which take place right in the neighborhoods of the city like the Mission, Embarcadero, etc., ours has always been relegated out by the beach and away from homes and businesses. Merchants and organizations set up tables out on the Great Highway but it’s just not the same feel as having a Sunday Streets that is a living, breathing part of the neighborhood.
But that could change. At a recent Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Eric Mar announced that this year’s event, planned for late October (final date TBD), will take place within the neighborhood itself, as well as in Golden Gate Park.
The route has not been finalized yet but the intention is for it to incorporate the early blocks of Clement Street and a major section of Balboa Street, running all the way out to the Great Highway.
JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park will also be incorporated, but that is already car-free every Sunday.
We’re looking forward to a route that incorporates more of the neighborhood, but do hope that it’s a continuous route not broken up by cross streets. It should be interesting as the proposed route would likely include many more residential blocks than commercial (it’s a LONG way out to the beach!), which is atypical for a Sunday Streets route.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to this change in our Sunday Streets event? Leave a comment to let us know.
And mark your calendars for the next Sunday Streets on the Great Highway, scheduled for July 7.
Sarah B.
[via Streetsblog]
Sarah – thanks for sharing – I would have thought our supervisor would have sent this info to you to share instead of just launching at a supervisors meeting! You are the voice of our ‘hood!
This would be nice – expecially the part on Clement. October is a busy month in SF… HSB the first weekend, Fleet week the second weekend, and I guess I’d be curious as to why it would “move” over to Balboa from Clement?
I did encounter a major traffic snafu last year during the Chinatown version that zig-zagged and didn’t have any sort of plan for accomodating regular cross town traffic, so my worry would really be how they would zig & zag from Clement, across to Balboa, and also across Park Presidio!
Definitely a great idea to bring it into the heart of the ‘hood. I do hope like you said they come up with a sane and reasonable route.
Better to use Cabrillo and not disrupt service on the 31.
Hi all,
First, thank you all for your interest in Sunday Streets new Richmond event and for your input on the route and potential impacts on traffic and transit. As noted in the article, Sunday Streets Logistics Team is still working out details for this route, we hope to have details finalized by April. Livable City staff work closely with the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (the ‘parent’ organization and lead City agency for Sunday Streets) develop an integrated, logical route that connects to merchant corridors and other notable local features such as parks, landmarks, local cultural institutions, etc., while addressing neighborhood interests and concerns to mitigate impacts such as disrupting Muni lines. This can be challenging and we appreciate input about the route, which streets might be good to use or best to avoid, etc. Please share your thoughts via comments or directly to our Sunday Streets staff: susan@livablecity.org, beth@livablecity.org, liza@livablecity.org.
peace,
susan
Shutting down a “major section of Balboa” would be a MAJOR problem for the neighborhood. The 31 Muni Bus has to travel on the street. A DPT employee would need to be at every intersection to keep vehicles off the street, and of course parking would need to be banned for safety concerns. This idea needs way more thought. Would residents be able to exit and enter their garages during the shutdown? Sounds like Bay to Breakers hassles multiplied many times over. As one Richmond resident I say that I am totally opposed to Eric Mar’s latest lunacy.
Love the idea. I used to live in Potrero and miss the feeling of connectedness. These kind of events help. Best weather too. As for the naysayers, it’s one day people. Better for something we can enjoy than a random marathon! I live on California St near Seacliff and I would love to see something like this out our way!
Glad to see most people are into the idea! And the route would be a continuous one. Our hope is to have a final route connect many of the great open spaces in the Richmond and exposing people to our rich merchant corridors, too!
Re: crossing Sunday Streets. Great questions! A major thoroughfare like Park Presidio would most certainly be open the entire time, and there would be several crossing points that drivers can easily be directed to.
Re: closing part of Balboa and rerouting the bus. Other Sunday Streets have had far more expansive rerouting (like the a long part of the 22 Filmore) and they have gone on just fine.
If anyone has ideas or wants to comment at depth, you can (as always) reach me directly at Peter.Lauterborn@sfgov.org.
I am excited to have a city-wide event come through our neighborhood!
It will be a great way to get us out and about in our neck of the woods. Events like these, as disruptive and inconvenient as they can be to some people, are an important part of building community. I’m looking forward to meeting neighbors and showing visitors how wonderful the Richmond is.
Love the idea! Right now I have to drive to Sunday Streets in JFK or Great Highway, that defeats the purpose!!
I am okay with this idea on one condition: that GGP is bike and pedestrian-free at the same time, so that cars can finally drive without being molested. If this is not okay with you, then how about the bikes and pedestrians stick to GGP and the cars stick to the roads. This idea is such a ridiculously callous disregard for the rights of residents and the interests of businesses, and for what possible purpose?
Fix the potholes and muni, do whatever you want. One can dream…
Hi guys, I’m a long-time Richmond resident and Sunday Streets volunteer, and I’m hoping I can clear up some of the confusion about the event. We do this event first and foremost for the enjoyment of the people that live in the neighborhood. That said, we take every precaution possible to avoid disrupting life during the event. We work closely with the MTA to keep buses moving, and we have volunteers and Parking Control Officers directing traffic at intersections where cars are allowed to cross. If you happen to live on the route and have private off-street parking (like a garage) and need to take your car on or off the route you absolutely can, we have volunteers to help escort you safely to an exit. We try really hard to make this an event people enjoy having in their neighborhood, and I’m really excited to see it finally coming to the neighborhood I call home. The idea of Sunday Streets is to connect our neighborhood and highlight what makes it great, and allow our neighbors a few hours of car-free fun. I rather resent the comparison to Bay2Breakers. Bay2Breakers is a mess of an event where many people flock to San Francisco to drink and trash the place. Sunday Streets could not be farther from this, this isn’t a rowdy street party, it’s a chance for families and neighbors to get out and be active, we strive to celebrate neighborhoods and give neighbors a special day to enjoy where they live in a new way. And if you don’t believe me I invite you to come to one of our other events this summer before our Richmond route to really see what Sunday Streets is all about.
It could be OK, but I am not sure. On one hand I think that the loss of street life the way it used be to back in the day when kids played together after school and people all knew each other is a bad thing. But I think that school bussing had contributed more to the destruction of neighborhoods than cars. The way these events are positioned and described feels more about anti-car activism than community initiative: “Sunday Streets are events that encourage recreation, community activities and fun in San Francisco. Sunday Streets closes stretches of city streets to automobile traffic, and opens them to people for several hours on a various Sundays throughout the year, so participants can enjoy a large, temporary, public space where they can bike, walk, run, dance, do yoga, or do any other physical activity.”
I really do not see how biking or running through the neighborhood is any more community building that driving through it or taking the bus. A biker is still a passer through not a participant. A runners with earbuds in, is listening to whatever, and too are oblivious to the life around them; they are not there to connect with other people or participate in the community life, they are alone on their own track on a public street. And why would anyone want to do yoga on a street? We have are parks in every direction.
Just look at the photo in the Sunday Street page. Do you see community? No, you see bike critical mass. Some love to bring European cities as an example of the well integrated bike use; but in Europe bikes are not on the roads in large cities, they are on the side walks; they are not in your face exercise equipment, they are a part of normal life and a mode of short distance transportation. And if they do get on the roads they abbey the rules, and they make way to faster vehicles. And btw, people do not walk there for exercise, they walk to get from place to place it is a way of life. So if our Sups want to promote community maybe they should think weekly street fairs and farmers markets, local schools for local kids; neighborhood watch, and street cleaning, and trees and plants on the streets, and outdoor cafes; and dancing and street /park events on weekends like they have on Museum Island in Berlin for instance, or main square in Ravenna – which do not interfere with traffic that much.
I think the other mistake people are making is thinking this will happen every Sunday. it’s once a year people. Lighten up
If you have ever gone to a Sunday Streets event, you see that people don’t just ride through: they pull over for music, stroll, go inyo new shops, and generally hang out. If one hasn’t attended before, I can understand how it can be hard to envision.
Also, this is just one community event Supervisor Mar is working on. We are getting closer to a farmer’s market, we helped launch ClemenTime last december, aided reaidents with a couple of block parties, and more.
@wee1. I think you are jumping to a conclusion that people here are incapable of reading. We know it is once a year. Everything is just a once something: Outside Landis is only 3 days once a year . HSBG is only one weekend once a year. Bay2B is only day, and on and on and on. The issue is not frequency of the event, but its value to the community; and what our Sups are spending their time on – at our expense.
@ Peter – about Farmers Market that is good news! Thanks!
Hi all,
Thanks again for the online dialogue, it really helps us know what folks in the host community want/don’t want as we develop the routes. We try to avoid residential streets with lots of driveways, and consider impacts on Muni and include merchant corridors (which almost always have a Muni lines on them).
Please keep the feedback coming: what streets do you recommend be on the route? Which ones should we avoid?
peace,
susan
ALY, With you 1000% (yes, one thousand percent) on this. One of my favorite childhood memories in this neighborhood was the Saturday visits by the Mounted Patrol. All the kids on the block would gather around and a few lucky ones would get to ride with the officer for a few houses. Those of us who had misbehaved would be allowed out of the house only to say hello and to give the horse a lump of sugar. And, when we were in the doghouse, it did give us a few moments with the neighbor kids before being grounded again.
I recently read something about kids and teens dropping litter. They attributed their lack of concern to the place being trashed as “not my house”. Not neighborhood, not caring.
As to Farmers Markets, if neighborhood schools can sell parking for weekend events in GG Park, perhaps they could be encouraged to look into using their blacktop for additional functions.
@ALY please attend one of the Sunday Streets events this summer leading up to the Richmond event and see it for yourself. This is not a critical mass event. Some people choose to ride their bikes because biking on a car free street is fun, but many also choose to walk or roller skate. This a recreational event, for whatever recreation means to you. It is a way to explore our neighborhood, a chance to treat our streets as true public space. Why not give it a chance? You just might have some fun 😉
@4thGenRichmond: You’re spot on. We have talked with schools about using their sites in non-school hours, including open school yards as recreation sites and as farmer’s markets. Stay tuned!
Sunday Streets on Clement is a great idea. I’ll definitely be there.
Sunday Streets on Balboa or Cabrillo on the other hand… why would I go there? What’s the point? To look at the empty street and pretend we live in a world without cars? I’ll pass.
The Mission District Sunday Streets event has always been my favorite, precisely because it’s on two busy, active streets, so there is always a lot going on. Despite the huge number of people, it’s relaxed and uncrowded. Sunday Streets on the Great Highway is pleasant enough for a walk, but there’s not much ‘there’ there. Ever since Sunday Streets started, I’ve wanted to see it on Clement Street, and it looks like I’m finally getting my wish!
I’m on the fence about Sunday Streets on Clement, mostly because Clement is always bustling and full of people on Sundays already. That said, if Sunday Streets means no cars on Clement at all for the better portion of a day, and people patronizing our shops and restaurants, then sure!
Does anyone have any statistic on how much shops get to benefit from no-cars day? How much shopping grocery and otherwise is done by the rollers and bikers and yogas and all others? Cafes probably get influx of customers, but I am assuming it is not only locals who come to these events, many need to get there somehow from other districts. By bus? Bike? Car share?
This will be a great way to show off our wonderful neighborhood. Also studies have shown that people on bikes and foot spend more money at retail businesses than people driving through in cars. Let’s support our Richmond District stores.
I would imagine a number of people get to the event (like many events in the city where cars are not allowed or parking is a pain) via Muni or bike.
I live between Anza and Balboa, so I welcome Sunday Streets on Balboa. Although I imagine it will be more in the upper aves since that is the commercial area. However, is all of the water works construction going to be done by October? Balboa is a mess right now. If it is done by then, I truly hope they actually repave the entire road. Right now the road so uneven with patches in areas in which the work is “finished.”
Awesome! I love bikes, I love walking, I love The Richmond, I love my neighbors, I can’t wait!
^^ I agree with Sean, Ryan, Cynthia, Wee1, William and all the other optimistic neighbors of our district. It’s going to be so much fun and great exposure for our neighborhood and local businesses. The Richmond is my home and my favorite neighborhood in San Francisco. I can’t wait for everyone to come out as a community and support local merchants, meet new people, participate in neighborhood activities, discover new things about the Richmond and just become more open to safe open-spaces for the public on foot, skates and bicycles.
I know that the Outer Mission/Excelsior had their first Sunday Streets last year in October. They had great positive reviews from the majority of the neighborhood residents. A neighborhood with strong community ties enjoyed the event very much. Sunday Streets is returning to the Outer Mission/Excelsior in September this year. I’d also like to add that Mission St was the main closure and several buses run on or cross through that street in the area and the MTA and traffic reroutes were no more inconvenient than other street event.
PS. Can we all agree that we need a parklet somewhere in the Richmond? I vote for Simple Pleasures in the Outer Balboa. I heard the owner had an awesome draft of the potential parklet but it never moved further than that. Wouldn’t mind one in the Inner Richmond too…
#hella: Regarding the parklet, our office has been following up on a number of parklet proposals in the Richmond. The one you are mentioning, on Clement at 3rd Ave., has gone through a couple of design changes and is still moving forward.
Contrary to what some thing, the City doesn’t come in and plop them down–they are paid for by the merchants surrounding the location. But our office is in full agreement that such a project would provide an excellent expansion of public space in the neighborhood.
Peter Lauterborn
Legislative Aide
Supervisor Eric Mar, District 1
Peter.Lauterborn@sfgov.org
#11, they won’t fix the potholes – PG&E or Comcast would come by the following week and dig up the road. And MUNI is a lost cause that no one in local government has the guts to tackle.