Streets. They connect us to work, home, school, food and fun. They’re the first thing to greet us when we step into the public sphere. They are tragically too often the last place of life for loved ones due to traffic and street violence. And yet, they continue to hold the splendid diversity of life — first bike rides and playdates, romantic strolls, commutes to work and work itself, art, and celebrations that affirm our identity and belonging.
On 25% More Joy, we’ll hear about why and how communities around the world — and our own neighbors in San Francisco — are taking to their streets to reclaim spaces and time for joy.
25% More Joy | A curious exploration of our streets Episode 3: Manny Yekutiel of Welcome to Manny’s and on the SFMTA board, we chat about the impact of the Valencia corridor Shared Spaces, and shaping a future after the 2020 Shelter-In-Place.
Streets. They connect us to work, home, school, food and fun. They’re the first thing to greet us when we step into the public sphere. They are tragically too often the last place of life for loved ones due to traffic and street violence. And yet, they continue to hold the splendid diversity of life — first bike rides and playdates, romantic strolls, commutes to work and work itself, art, and celebrations that affirm our identity and belonging.
On 25% More Joy, we’ll hear about why and how communities around the world — and our own neighbors in San Francisco — are taking to their streets to reclaim spaces and time for joy.
25% More Joy | A curious exploration of our streets Episode 2: Eva Lee of the Chinatown Merchants Association, Eva is the organizer and leader of Walkway Weekends, which has been running on Grant Avenue (b/t California and Washington) since the summer of 2020.
The car-free block of Natoma Street, next to the Transbay Transit Center between First and Second streets.
This week the Board of Supervisors will consider a plan to replace the car-free block of Natoma Street, between First and Second streets, with a roadway and garage entry. This block of Natoma is currently the longest pedestrianized block in SoMa, and the only pedestrianized block fronting on the Salesforce Transit Center.
The pandemic has underlined the importance of streets as public spaces, particularly car-free streets. Livable City has worked with communities across the City to establish temporary car-free spaces to foster community, support small business, and enjoy fresh air, sociability, and exercise. Cities around the world are doing the same, in response to the pandemic and to make progress towards even greater challenges like traffic safety, climate and the ecological crisis, and creating more equitable and inclusive cities.
If the proposed Parcel F development proceeds as planned, it will irreparably destroy this car-free space. The developer’s current plan proposes extending a roadway through the car-free space to a large new private garage with nearly 200 parking spaces, eliminating most of the block’s car-free space and bringing hundreds of daily car trips to the area.
The transit center, which re-opened in 2019, is a spectacular public building. The region spent billions of dollars to build it, and plans to spend billions more to bring Caltrain and high-speed rail service to the transit Center, making it the most important transit hub in Northern California. The transit center is also the public centerpiece of the city’s densest and most transit-rich neighborhood. Our regional transit center and Transbay neighborhood should be complemented by walkable and bikeable streets and people-oriented public spaces. Unfortunately it isn’t; the adjacent streets are bleak, dominated by automobile traffic and parking and loading entries.
Natoma plaza is both the longest block fronting on the transit center, and currently the only block not dominated by traffic, parking, and loading. There is only one garage entry on the entire block, located at its far western end. Most of the block is a pedestrian plaza, with food trucks lining unbuilt Parcel F. Ground-floor retail spaces in the terminal face the north side of Natoma, and once occupied they will further enhance it as a public space. It’s a rare public pedestrian oasis in an increasingly crowded and automobile-dominated City. We should preserve and enhance it, not destroy it.
Destroying this pedestrian enclave is totally unnecessary. The Parcel F can be developed as a car-free building, and help move the Transbay district and our City towards a more sustainable, less automobile-dominated, and more people oriented future. Parcel F’s location couldn’t be more transit-rich, and couldn’t be a more suitable place for car-free residents to live and car-free hotel guests to stay.
Passenger and freight loading can be accommodated on Howard Street, with a protected bikeway preserving bike access. Any residents or hotel guests who insist on using private cars can park in various nearby buildings, which are over-supplied with parking for such a dense and transit-oriented neighborhood. As the neighborhood continues to get denser and the transit center gets busier, car-free Natoma Street will become an increasingly valuable neighborhood amenity.
In 2019 San Francisco took the long overdue step of removing private cars from Market Street between the Embarcadero and Van Ness, prioritizing transit, walking, cycling, and public space. SFMTA’s board chair Malcolm Henicke called for creating more car-free streets around San Francisco. District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents the Transbay District as well as SoMa and the Tenderloin, has called for more car-free streets in the district to expand public space and reduce traffic danger and pollution for residents and visitors.
We applaud and support San Francisco’s ambition to join cities around the world in expanding urban car-free spaces. Cities large and small, like Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Mexico City, and Amsterdam, are expanding networks of car-free streets – including car-free spaces at central transit stations. Moves to create more car-free and people-oriented public spaces have accelerated during the pandemic. It would be a sad and bitter irony if the longest car-free street in District 6 was destroyed by the Parcel F project, through legislation sponsored by Supervisor Haney.
We are asking Supervisor Haney and his colleagues to:
Modify the Parcel F project to keep Natoma Street car-free, and activate the south side of Natoma with people-oriented ground-floor uses;
Amend the Planning Code and Transbay redevelopment plan to prohibit new parking and loading entrances on Natoma Street between Second and First to keep the rest of the block car-free; and
Amend plans and codes to protect other car-free blocks, including the extension of Clementina and Tehama streets between Main and Beale that will front on the proposed new park.
The Parcel F project will be heard at the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee on March 8.
By speaking up for public space in our car-congested City, we are changing the public conversation. Since the Planning Commission hearing, Streetsblog and the San Francisco Chronicle have written articles about Natoma Plaza’s threatened destruction, and the Supervisor has indicated his interest in saving this invaluable car-free public open space. Please contact Supervisor Matt Haney and your supervisor today, and urge them to keep Natoma Street car-free!
Mark your calendars! Every Saturday in April from 10am-3pm, choose your own adventure along the India Basin & Hunter’s Point waterfront during #BaysideSaturdays.
Streets. They connect us to work, home, school, food and fun. They’re the first thing to greet us when we step into the public sphere. They are tragically too often the last place of life for loved ones due to traffic and street violence. And yet, they continue to hold the splendid diversity of life — first bike rides and playdates, romantic strolls, commutes to work and work itself, art, and celebrations that affirm our identity and belonging.
On 25% More Joy, we’ll hear about why and how communities around the world — and our own neighbors in San Francisco — are taking to their streets to reclaim spaces and time for joy.
The 5 senses are some of the most powerful and accessible tools we have to create the city we want to live in now and give to future generations. Our senses or “feelings” about a place are often disregarded by traditional planning processes, but if honored, can guide us to build environments that nurture our biology. By supporting our biology, we naturally support the biological processes of fellow living creatures and plants and make our city more sustainable.
In the Feel Your Way To A Livable City series, we invite you to embrace the wisdom of your senses and empower you with knowledge to advocate for the built environment your body and community needs to thrive.
First up, sight — the sense human biology has adapted most keenly to — and how our attempts to access it after dark might be hurting our bodies and minds.
Street lighting is important for cities to get right so people can move about safely and comfortably and enjoy the public spaces of the City after dark. It’s also something San Francisco hasn’t figured out yet.
SF’s street lighting standards are derived from mid-century highway standards. They call for widely-spaced lights, high on arching poles, which wash light evenly over the roadway surface. Sidewalk lighting is incendental. The color of light is given little thought, and lamps were often chosen by what was cheapest to install and maintain, rather than what gives the best quality light. Effective pedestrian-scale lighting has been installed in a few places in the City, but it’s still the exception.
The highway lighting ethos works best in places without trees. Where the tree canopy is robust and healthy, little light reaches the sidewalk. San Francisco is still one of the country’s most treeless cities, but our tree cover has increased fitfully and incrementally over the decades, and improving tree cover is a civic goal. We shouldn’t have to choose between robust and healthy street trees and good sidewalk lighting, but the City’s street lighting standards create this unnecessary dilemma.
Another problem with setting lights high is light trespass. Lighting the sidewalk is a nighttime amenity, but light cast elsewhere – into residents’ windows, or the night sky – is pollution. There is strong evidence that light trespass disturbs our sleep, and endangers the other living creatures we share the City with. Well-designed urban street lighting generally sets lights below the tree canopy, either on pedestrian-scaled poles or fixtures mounted on street-facing buildings, and shields the lamps to direct most of the light downwards.
Lights in or on buildings, building setbacks, signs, and awnings are part of the street lighting system, and shouldn’t be ignored. Done well, signs, awnings, exterior building lighting, and lighting from storefronts improve urban safety and livability; done badly or selfishly they erode it, degrade public spaces, and make neighborhoods less livable.
Light On Leadership
For years neighbors and merchants across the City have told us how important better street lighting is for making their streets and neighborhoods more comfortable, safe, and inviting – and how unresponsive the City has been.
Over half of the City’s street lights are owned and operated by the Streetlight Services Division of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC). SFPUC hasn’t made improving street lighting a priority, and Streetlight Services hasn’t had strong leadership. Most of the rest of our street lights are on poles owned by regulated utilities, principally PG&E. Street lights on a few streets are built and maintained by other city agencies, like Recreation and Parks or the Port.
Two years ago we worked on legislation to reform San Francisco’s street frontage requirements for new buildings. It proposed requiring large new buildings with significant public frontage to provide adequate nighttime lighting to adjacent sidewalks, while preventing light trespass into residents’ windows or the night sky. Planning Department staff opposed the provision, and the sponsoring supervisor agreed to nix it. The Planning Department was wrong; large building projects should enhance the adjacent sidewalks, including lighting them appropriately. Merchants are now are pleading with the City for economic recovery grants and launching Kickstarter campaigns to install adequate sidewalk lighting in commercial districts.
We need better standards, and a City strategy for improving sidewalk lighting. Mayor Breed has made small business and commercial district recovery her highest priorities. It should be clear to all of us by now how important sidewalks and public life are to commercial vitality and community, and that getting sidewalk lighting right is an important part of helping small business and commercial districts thrive in the future.
The French city of Lyon is a great model for cities to follow. The city developed a lighting master plan decades ago, and is working on its third update. Lyon’s plan isn’t one-size fits all; it includes a menu of lighting standards for different parts of the city, from wilderness parks lit by the moon and stars to bright central-city commercial streets, along with specific lighting plans for monuments like civic buildings, churches, and bridges. Lyon approaches lighting as both an art as a science, and celebrates public lighting as public art in its annual Festival of Light which draws Lyonnais and people from around the world every winter.
It’s time for City government to see the light. The pandemic has impressed on all of us how important public spaces are to our health, our social and civic lives, and a robust, equitable, and diverse local economy. Projects like The Bay Lights have become beloved additions to our City.
Department heads at several of the agencies responsible for the city’s fractured streets governance are new or soon to be appointed, making this an opportune time to demand new thinking and effective leadership on San Francisco’s lighting standards. With a push from citizens like you and leadership from our elected and appointed officials, San Francisco can go from lighting laggard to lighting leader.
Thank you for your interest in Livable City and a more sustainable, affordable, and inclusive San Francisco, especially in this difficult year. As we look to a better future, we are heartened by the outpouring of recognition for the work we are doing.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Livable City resolved to help city residents and businesses by finding new ways to meet urgent needs and promote long-term change. We have advanced policy changes and bolstered efforts to expand street uses, provide relief for small businesses, and improve housing access. Looking forward, we see the potential to make great progress towards green, safe, and healthy neighborhoods; sustainable mobility; and meeting San Franciscans’ housing needs. Read on to see what we achieved this year, and what we are working toward.
The resilience of our collaborative partners — San Francisco residents, small business owners, and City officials — to persist in challenging circumstances like these continues to inspire us. As Livable City continues to make San Francisco a healthier and more accessible city, we need the support of our community. If able, will you join us by making a contribution of just $10 or more? You can donate online at our secure website: livablecity.org/donate.
Thank you for helping us to create a more sustainable San Francisco.
Stay well, healthy, and safe,
Achievements
Vibrant Neighborhoods
Reformed zoning controls on Ocean Avenue to foster arts, culture, community institutions, and small business, creating a model for other commercial corridors.
Helped enact policy changes to help small businesses recover by changing regulations to community-serving uses and outdoor activities (parklets).
Increasing housing Access
Increasing housing Access Advanced our ordinance to increase allowable density for affordable housing units and unauthorized units to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Committee.
Came together with the American Institute of Architects San Francisco to jointly propose recommendations to SF Planning to create more “missing middle” housing.
Reimagined streets
In the Bayview, Chinatown, SoMa and Tenderloin, we launched open streets to provide residents and businesses opportunities to safely reconnect. While putting Sunday Streets on pause, our neighborhood pop-ups opened up recreational space for families and vendors to recapture neighborhood vibrancy and jump start economic recovery.
Co-authored recommended changes to public space governance during the pandemic to foster innovation, coordination between departments, community engagement, mobility, accessibility, and equity. The recommendations, co-authored with the SF Bike Coalition and Walk SF, have guided the City’s public space response to Covid.
Looking Forward
In addition to sustaining our open streets and community recovery work, in the future we plan to:
Make slow streets permanent, create more people-oriented commercial streets.
Advocate for robust climate plans and accountability structures to move San Francisco towards zero emissions by 2030.
Promote 15-minute neighborhoods as a holistic strategy for creating a more livable, sustainable, healthy, and equitable San Francisco.
Advocate for planning and zoning changes to create more supportive housing, transitional housing for the formerly homeless, residential care facilities, support ageing in place, and improve community access to health services and healthy food.
In response to the latest SIP restrictions and public health directives to limit all exposure, Livable City will be suspending the last two sessions of Sunday Streets SoMa Pop-Ups in 2020 (December 13th & 20th).
We look forward to seeing you in the streets next year — Stay tuned for updates!
– The Livable City team
Car-Free Sundays Street SoMa Pop-Up • Sunday, December 6th 2020
Hi Folks; Due to the impending shelter in place order that will go into affect on Sunday at 10 PM, Livable City has decided to offer only limited activities during the Sunday Streets SOMA Pop-Up scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 6th, on Folsom street—we will only close the segment between 7th and 8th streets.
You are still invited to stroll in the open air while following social distancing and face covering wearing guidelines, and you can still take advantage of outdoor dining opportunities at Decant, Cat Club, Trademark and any other establishments that may be open.
Hi Folks, Thank you for doing your part to keep the community healthy by sticking to essential activities with people from your household! Sunshine and fresh air are essential too, so enjoy them at Sunday Streets SoMa while following these public health guidelines:
Sunday Streets SOMA Pop-up, through Dec. 20th, 2020
There are also dozens of Shared Spaces and Slow Streets destinations you can enjoy citywide if you don’t see a Livable City-powered happening in your neighborhood.
