Sunday Streets San Francisco
Street Closed for Cars, Open for People! Photo: Bill Ward
This past Sunday was the first of nine Sunday Streets in the City of San Francisco. The northbound lanes of the Embarcadero were opened for people, rather than cars, from 10am to 3pm. Thousands of folks turned out to walk, bike and just hang along the over 2 miles of road from Fisherman’s Warf down to Mission Bay. Mother Nature felt obliged to cooperate as well with clear skies and highs in the mid to upper 60s it was a great for Sunday for everyone in the Bay Area.
A course for young riders to learn the ropes. Photo: Bill Ward
Sunday Streets on The Embarcadero. Photo: Sirgious (flickr)
Climbing Wall. Photo: Matthew Roth
The next Sunday Streets is planned for April 11th along the Great Highway south of Golden Gate Park.
Great post. I like to see that cities around the country are starting to implement street closures for select days. I think it does a good job promoting alternative modes of travel. When large cities like San Francisco and New York (when they closed parts of Times Square to cars) implement ideas like this, they get a lot of exposure.
-TW
TW, agree!
What kind of traffic results of this? Or does this actually promote use of alternative modes of travel?
I see people AND bikes. Great that they can navigate together. And all of the bicyclists remain clothed. (Miss Fremont — the real Fremont yet?) J
TW- Exactly. A big part of this is definitely getting people to try something new. Bike rentals were setup at two locations making it easy for someone who hasn’t been on a bike in a while, or just learning, to get comfortable without the pressure of 2 tons of steel wizzing by.
Wesley- only the northbound lanes of the embarcadero were closed and from what I saw, traffic on the southbound lanes appeared lighter than most Sundays. While Sundays are much easier to implement a closure like this, I think the next transition is to implement a semi-regular Saturday or weekday closure, not just for a special weekend. Major arterials may not be the best for that type of application, but no doubt there are roadways in every major city that are underutilized in terms of vehicle capacity and could be much better utilized as public space, rather than empty roadway (see Bell street project in Seattle). Not sure when/where that would/will happen, but I imagine it would have to be more of a grassroots/community effort instead of a top down suggestion.
Jacutanz- Bay 2 Breakers is just around the corner so there is no lack of public nudity down here. That said, nothing can beat the full body paint/lack of costumes of the summer solstice parade bikers.