Why we oppose the Better Market Street changes
One year ago, we made history with Better Market Street’s approval. It took over ten years of people-powered advocacy and hard work to create a bold plan to transform our city’s most important street for people who bike, walk, and take transit.
Now, with the City facing deep budget cuts, all the things that made the Better Market Street project transformative are being removed. The City’s revised design takes away the sidewalk-level, separated bike lanes, and puts people on bikes back with vehicle traffic.
Now it’s time to turn out and speak up. Don’t let the City roll back on the progress we won.
In an effort to reduce project costs, the City is removing the dedicated, sidewalk-level bike lanes and maintaining much of what the street looks like now, where people biking share the outer curb lanes with taxis, paratransit and delivery trucks. The change also restricts all Muni vehicles to the two center red transit lanes.
The new rendering of Market Street adds more sharrows and puts people riding bikes back with vehicle traffic.
We understand that the project budget faces challenges, but we must find a design that is safe, sustainable, and transformative for future generations. Along with Walk San Francisco and SF Transit Riders, we believe this revised proposed design no longer meets the project’s safety goals, does not seem to optimize mobility or create the premier cultural, civic and economic center we all envisioned. What we are being shown seems rushed and short-sighted, especially when the revised project budget is still over $100 million. We wrote this letter to our City’s leadership to jointly express our concerns as our city’s largest bicycle, pedestrian and transit advocacy organizations.
Click to read the full letter.
That’s why we need you now. The City is hosting a two-week virtual open house period. RSVP here, and your San Francisco Bicycle Coalition will make sure that you get all the details of how to turn out and be heard.