Recent Streetsblog SF posts about Car-Free Streets

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Hearst Corp Backs Off Bid to Tear Out Annie Alley Street Plaza

By Aaron Bialick | Feb 2, 2015 | 5 Comments

The Hearst Corporation has withdrawn its appeal against the Annie Alley street plaza [PDF] after talks with city planners and the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. The bid to get the plaza torn out was surprising, since Hearst had been involved in creating the plaza, leading to speculation that closing the alley to cars had irked executives at the company. […]

Stockton Street “Winter Walk” Plaza to Return Next Holiday Season

By Aaron Bialick | Jan 28, 2015 | 4 Comments

The incredibly popular (but temporary) “Winter Walk” plaza will return to Stockton Street in Union Square for another holiday season in December, the local business improvement district announced. The news isn’t a huge surprise, given the boost to business brought by the plaza and the fact that the one-block section of Stockton is already filled with […]

Union Square’s “Winter Walk” Plaza on Stockton a Hit – Why Bring Cars Back?

By Aaron Bialick | Dec 8, 2014 | 33 Comments

Families are loving “Winter Walk SF,” the temporary holiday plaza filling two blocks of Stockton Street in Union Square. As CBS reporter John Ramos put it, the on-street downtown play space “represents the San Francisco everyone wants it to be.” “I didn’t expect to see this,” one smiling girl told Ramos, standing on the green […]

This post is supported by GJEL Accident Attorneys

Auto-Clogged Powell Street Could Be a Car-Free Haven

By Aaron Bialick | Sep 19, 2014 | 49 Comments

It’s a wonder that anyone drives a car on Powell Street in Union Square. Yet along the busiest pedestrian thoroughfare this side of the United States, you’ll typically see the perplexing scene of drivers, sitting in a line heading down the hill, all seemingly going nowhere in particular and certainly not very quickly. These private autos […]

Eyes on the Street: New Car-Free Fourth Street Extension at UCSF Campus

By Aaron Bialick | Sep 17, 2014 | 13 Comments

The extension of Fourth Street with a car-free promenade appears mostly complete at the University of California, San Francisco campus in Mission Bay. In 2012 we reported on how this project can connect 16th Street to Mariposa Street and the Dogpatch neighborhood without inviting more car traffic as UCSF builds out its development. The new block […]

Dance Performance Celebrates Temporarily Car-Free Lombard Street

By Aaron Bialick | Jul 21, 2014 | 3 Comments

Last week, cars once again took over SF’s crooked block of Lombard Street, following the last of a series of weekend trials that banned most cars from the street and opened it up to people instead. The Bay Area Flash Mob celebrated the last car-free day with a choreographed dance all the way down the winding road, […]

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