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.