What is a Better 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.

 

Better Market Street will deliver transformative transportation, streetscape and safety improvements along 2.2 miles of Market Street between Octavia Boulevard and Steuart Street.

 

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 Salesforce Transit Center, the regional transit hub. The vision is to create Market Street as a place to stop and spend time, meet friends, people-watch while sitting in a café, or just stroll and take in the urban scene.

 

The Better Market Street Project proposes a complete makeover of 2.2 miles of Market Street, from Steuart Street to Octavia Boulevard. In addition to addressing key safety needs, the multi-agency project will replace and upgrade aging infrastructure – including traffic signals, streetlights, streetcar tracks, BART grates, overhead wires and underground utilities and repaving the roadway from curb to curb. The project aims to improve the speed and reliability of surface Muni service. Additionally, the Better Market Street plan will ensure that all transit stops, curb ramps and paving meet current Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards and will construct larger center boarding islands.

 

Phase 1 includes installing new traffic signals, building sidewalk bulb-outs to shorten crossing distances and replacing worn out pavers at street corners, repaving the curb lane and intersections, planting new street trees and installing new street furniture. Additionally, the Better Market Street plan will ensure that all curb ramps and crosswalks within the project area meet current Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. Due to the numerous challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which severely impacted our community, some design elements such as Muni track replacement, larger transit boarding islands, new water and sewer lines, BART grates, sidewalk replacement and relocation of the Path of Gold light poles and curb line, will be deferred.

 

San Francisco Public Works is leading the project in collaboration with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Other City agencies involved include the Department of Technology, SF Planning, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, Federal Highway administration (FHWA), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), BART, the Mayor’s Office on Disability and the Office of Workforce and Economic Development.

 

Better Market Street: Fact Sheet

 

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Better Market Street:
FACT SHEET

 

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