San Francisco has, over the past couple of years, embarked on an ambitious program to take street space, and turn it into public space. This enables the city to take land it already owns and repurpose it to make the streets of business districts more livable, more pedestrian friendly, and attract more customers to help merchants struggling under the weight of a recession.
There have been 4 installations so far, and they have all been very successful. A fifth one goes in this weekend. The Noe Valley neighborhood is fighting for one of their own. And we need your help. Read on and sign our Online Petition
The program is called Pavement to Parks and it takes street space, repurposes it with inexpensive materials and donated labor, to test out community reaction to this new space. If projects succeed, they can be made permanent once dollars appear to build full on public parks with more permanent structures. The most famous example of a project like this is Times Square in New York City, which was closed to traffic on a test basis, and which is now closed permanently due to the success of that space.
If you support projects like this, we need you to sign our Online Petition
The first one was at 17th and Castro, and closed a street known for being a bit of a pedestrian nightmare and turned it into a plaza where people could lounge and eat in the Castro business district. There was a bit of a hullabaloo - "If we close the street, surely traffic will be displaced to other streets to the detriment of the neighborhood". "This will just attract homeless people". "There will be lots of noise". None of this happened, and the project was a huge hit.
This was followed up by installations in Potrero Hill, "La Lengua" (Outer Missiom), and a street parklet on Divisadero. Streetsblog did an excellent video on the projects under the Streetsfilms banner. A fifth installation opens up in the Mission this weekend.
Another installation has been proposed as a street plaza in Noe Valley.
Here is an artist's rendition of the installation.
Information on the installation can be had on the Yes Noe Valley blog. This project also opens up a full street to pedestrian usage - 60 feet deep at the intersection of Noe and 24th Street in Noe Valley, off the primary business street (24th) right in the heart of the neighborhood. It is a large space which fits the neighborhood - San Francisco is known to be a "City without Children" but the Noe Valley Neighborhood looks like this...
Parents with children in strollers, children on scooters, and don't get me started on the Double-Wide strollers! This baby boom has not evicted the dogs who used to rule Noe Valley either. All of these street users could really use a sizeable public space in the Central Business District to enjoy in this, one of San Francisco's least foggy neighborhoods!
Similar to the Castro installation, there has been some resistance. If Noe Street is closed, how will we get to point X/Y/Z? Fortunately, the neighborhood is laid out as a grid, and traffic can adjust by taking other streets. Meanwhile, the closest substantive public space to the proposed plaza is 5 blocks away up a steep hill. Despite 24th Street's appearance as a "cute" business corridor, storefronts are empty and businesses are hurting, even with a new anchor Whole Foods bringing in traffic. Unfortunately the WF brings in more car traffic, and any small retailer will tell you it is FOOT traffic that brings money.
The most frustrating part of the whole drama is that this project installs this public space on a budget of $38,000 - roughly 3 minutes out of San Francisco's annual budget - and is a temporary TRIAL installation, which will allow planners to evaluate if the neighborhood uses the space, if business improves, and most importantly - to assess if any number of potential concerns result in actual problems, or if unforseen problems arise. If the TRIAL fails - the installation can be removed in the space of a few hours.
The fate of this trial mostly has landed in the hands of District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty who has been disappointing in his soft stance, and Mayor Gavin Newsom who you can tell from the link provided, has "better things to do". This can only be remedied by showing strong community support for the project, as well as broader support from across San Francisco and the Bay Area (and California, and Nationally, and around the World!). We need Noe Valleyans to show support, but numbers from outside the neighborhood will send a message (to a couple of Public Officials with eyes on higher offices!) that public spaces are supported and that an installation like this will be good for our small merchants, which is good for the livability of our neighborhood.
Please take a moment and sign our Online Petition