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09/10/09 - Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced that the City will be piloting several strategies to improve public transit, and the pedestrian experience along Market Street.
"The new and improved Market Street will rival main streets around the world," said Mayor Newsom. "With input from the community, and the leadership of the five key agencies, we will identify specific solutions that work best for our main corridor."
Beginning Tuesday, September 29th, private motorists travelling eastbound on Market Street will be encouraged to turn right on 10th Street before being diverted south at 8th Street. Motorists coming onto Market Street from Seventh Street will be diverted off at 6th Street. Traffic flowing north and south across Market Street will be unaffected, as will cars travelling west. Public transit, bicycle, emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles will continue to fully access Market Street.
The next 6 to 12 months will see other trial changes in addition to diverting traffic, including concerts and other events along the street, and miniplazas featuring outdoor seating, tables, food kiosks, landscaping, and public art displays in at least 10 storefronts. The previously announced Arts in Storefronts program will install the work of local artist on vacant storefronts in the Tenderloin.
These pilots will be regularly monitored and refined as needed. The project team will work with community partners to gather on-the-ground data that will inform the desired improvements for Market Street and other streets serving surrounding districts and neighborhoods.
The series of pilots is part of a larger effort by the City to make Market Street a world class corridor, and is led by the Department of Public Works, the Planning Department, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development, and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. The full implementation of the redesign will begin in 2013 following community input, engineering, and environmental review.
The series of pilots to improve Market Street was inspired by Swanston Street in Melbourne, for its multi-modal main street character for pedestrians and public transit, Las Ramblas, Barcelona and Unter ben Linden, Berlin for their public amenities, pedestrian comfort and use of streets as open space, and by Broadway Street in NYC for piloting ways to use streets as open space.
For more information about the project please go to: http://marketstreet.sfplanning.org.
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