UrbanLogic

"…on the way to transforming our world-class corridor" is the words Mayor of San Francisco Ed Lee used to describe the first stages of the Gehl Architects led effort to redesign and revitalize one of the West Coast's most iconic street – Market Street. 

Market Street is San Francisco's civic backbone, connecting water to hills, businesses to neighborhoods, cultural centers to recreational opportunities. The movement of people and goods, from the very earliest times, has dominated its design and use.

But Market Street needs to be more than a transportation route, it needs to be the city's most vibrant public space and many San Franciscans feel it falls far short of this ideal.

A renewed Market Street will anchor neighborhoods, link public open spaces and connect the City's Civic Center with cultural, social, convention, tourism, and retail destinations, as well as with the regional transit hub that will be centered at the planned Transbay Terminal. The vision is to create Market Street as a place to stop and spend time, meet friends, watch people while sitting in a café, or just stroll and take in the scene.

Market Street can and should be a great place. To realize this goal, five key city agencies, together with community partners, are initiating an effort to improve and enhance this public realm. A big part of this process includes participation and feedback from the public in order to redesign Market Street as a more pedestrian, bicycle and transit-oriented street. Improvements will provide a safe, universally accessible, sustainable and enjoyable place to be that attracts more people on foot, bicycle and public transit to local shops, neighborhoods and area attractions. 

A new set of reports released recently by the Better Market Street Project, a coordinated effort between San Francisco city agencies and urban designers, presents ideas for optimizing the mobility, safety and overall experience on lower Market Street when it is rebuilt in 2015.

The reports present a collection of best practices from similar streets throughout the world that can be adapted to improve Market Street. “It’s very valuable background information to help us know if we’re on the right track with our design concepts,” said DPW Project Manager Kris Opbroek.

Drawing on some of those celebrated streets for inspiration, the reports make a wide-ranging series of recommendations to improve safety and mobility on Market. To speed Muni vehicles, the recommendations include extending and enforcing bus-only lanes, optimizing stop locations, longer boarding islands, off-vehicle ticket machines, bus-priority traffic signals, and seeking alternative locations for deliveries. The reports also suggest that continuous protected bikeways could reduce conflicts with pedestrians and buses, and recommend multi-modal solutions like locating bike share stations at transit hubs.

For more information about the project and great street design go to "publications" or check out bettermarketstreetsf.org

(sources: bettermarketstreetsf.org, gehlarchitects.com, sf.streetsblog.org)
 

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