Tell Mayor Lurie: Keep Market Street Moving!
Mayor Daniel Lurie
Market Street is a critical corridor for San Francisco’s downtown. It’s the spine of our transit network, San Francisco’s grand boulevard, and a street where hundreds of thousands of people walk, bike, and take Muni every day. Since 2020, private cars have been banned from most of Market Street, making it safer, faster, and more reliable for everyone who travels downtown. Now, Mayor Lurie wants to reverse that progress by putting cars back on our city’s main street.
We can’t afford to go backward.
Cars on Market Street isn’t just bad policy. It’s harmful and costly to all San Franciscans:
Muni speeds on Market have improved by up to 14%. Reintroducing cars would force SFMTA to add more buses and drivers just to maintain current service levels at a time when the agency is cutting service and already faces a $322 million budget deficit.
Traffic collisions are down 40%. Market Street was once one of the most dangerous streets in SF. Since removing cars, collisions have dropped and the street is safer.
Ridership is recovering faster than citywide. Lines serving Market Street have seen 79% ridership recovery, outpacing the rest of the system.
Market Street is for people, not private cars.
Hundreds of thousands of people ride transit on Market Street every day.
35,000 people ride a bike on Market Street each month. Reintroducing cars would make it unsafe east of 7th Street and undermine the city’s newly passed Biking and Rolling Plan.
Over 100 new commercial loading zones were added on side streets to support car-free Market Street, and most Market Street destinations are within a few hundred feet of a loading zone.
Market Street is still part of the city’s High Injury Network, with several of the city’s most dangerous intersections. Adding more traffic directly threatens our Vision Zero goals.
There are better ways to revitalize downtown.
Mid-Market’s struggles predate car restrictions. Adding cars won’t solve vacancy, safety, or vibrancy. Instead, the city should invest in public space, street activation, economic development, and projects like the Urban Land Institute’s new Market Street design competition.
✍️ Sign the petition now to demand a better future for Market Street: car-free, people-first, and built for San Francisco’s future, not its past.
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To:
Mayor Daniel Lurie
From:
[Your Name]
We, the undersigned San Franciscans, call on you to commit to upholding the city’s commitment to car-free Market Street.
Since cars were removed from Market Street, buses and streetcars have become significantly faster and more reliable. The street is also significantly safer. Injury collisions are down 40% since private vehicles were removed.
Allowing vehicles back on Market will increase congestion downtown, slow down Muni, and put people who walk, bike, and take transit on the street at risk. With upcoming Muni service cuts and a massive budget shortfall at SFMTA, the last thing we need is to undo the safety and efficiency gains we’ve already made.
Market Street should continue to be a safe, vibrant space for people—not a shortcut for cars. We are looking to you to defend the hard-won progress the city has made for safety and transit on Market Street that took decades to achieve, and to explore other solutions to the real issues preventing a full downtown recovery.
Market Street’s struggles can’t be solved by transportation policy. We strongly urge you to pause this effort to add cars back to Market Street, go back to the drawing board, and invest in real solutions to revitalize downtown and bring back the economy that won’t undermine Muni or compromise safety.