Decision is a major step backward for transit service, safety, and creating a thriving boulevard.
Kid Safe SF, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, San Francisco Transit Riders, and Walk San Francisco join together to denounce Mayor Daniel Lurie’s decision, announced this morning, to permit autonomous vehicles — specifically Waymos — onto Market Street. For the past five years, Market Street has been free of private cars, resulting in a far safer corridor, with faster, more efficient transit service. Undoing those successes, the result of two decades of work by city agencies, elected officials, and advocates, moves San Francisco in the wrong direction. It is a step backward to a chaotic, dangerous Market Street that serves no one’s purposes, including businesses.
By moving forward with this effort, the Mayor hampers Muni’s recovery and makes Market Street significantly more dangerous for people walking, biking, scooting, and taking public transit, who must cross lanes of traffic to access boarding islands. Muni buses and streetcars, which have sustained 14% greater speed and efficiency since the removal of cars, will be slowed as well. With hundreds of thousands of people riding Muni and over 30,000 bike trips on Market each month, not to mention the countless pedestrians walking the corridor, the negative impacts will be enormous. The Mayor’s action also upends the robust, decades-long public process that led to car-free Market Street.
“Mayor Lurie’s unilateral decision to give Waymo free rein on Market Street is dangerous, undemocratic, and inequitable,” said Dylan Fabris, the community and policy manager at San Francisco Transit Riders. “Allowing Waymo exclusive access to Market Street essentially creates a nearly two-mile-long City-sanctioned monopoly for the Google-owned tech company – all while the City is cutting vital Muni service on the same corridor. Transit riders will now not only need to deal with increased transfers and delays brought on by upcoming service cuts, but also the delays and hazards caused by a fleet of new Waymo vehicles flooding Market Street.”
“This is a dangerous decision made with a shocking lack of process,” says SFBike’s Executive Director Christopher White. “If we want Market Street to reclaim its rightful place as a commercial and cultural destination, it should be safe and welcoming to people. Prioritizing safe, affordable ways of traveling, like walking, biking, and transit, achieves that aim. Handing the street over to a single private company flies in the face of San Francisco’s values and goals.”
“This plan will slow down Muni, add congestion, and undermine years of progress toward a more efficient and reliable transit system and a safer, more accessible Market Street,” said KidSafe SF co-founder Robin Pam. “With Muni facing service cuts this summer and a $322M deficit next year, San Francisco can’t afford to give up the gains in Muni efficiency we’ve already made. The path to a thriving downtown is to make it a neighborhood that people want to live in and visit by building new housing and revitalizing our public spaces, which we can do without undercutting our vital public transportation.”
“Bringing vehicle traffic back to Market Street won’t solve its problems, and will only create new ones,” says Walk San Francisco Executive Director Jodie Medeiros. “We know that a Market Street with more cars is dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and drivers. Before car-free Market Street, half of the city’s ten most dangerous intersections were on Market Street, with almost three people injured each week on average. Mayor Lurie should focus on increasing foot traffic, not vehicle traffic.”
The organizations jointly call on the Mayor’s office to rescind this decision and focus instead on making Market Street a desirable destination with shops, culture, and foot traffic – becoming the vibrant Main Street our city needs.
For more information, historical context and data about car-free Market Street, please refer to our fact sheet.
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