Advocates Warn of ‘Dangerous and Chaotic’ Market St. as It Reopens to Some Cars

Updated 1:57 p.m. Friday

Five years after safe street advocates celebrated San Francisco’s decision to make Market Street car-free, cars — both with and without drivers — will begin rolling down the thoroughfare on Tuesday.

Mayor Daniel Lurie said Wednesday that his office was granting Waymo autonomous vehicles and some Uber and Lyft cars access to the two-mile vehicle-free span of the street as part of his push to revitalize downtown. But Robin Pam, the executive director of Streets for All San Francisco, says the limited, and likely expensive, vehicle expansion will only harm the corridor’s long-desired transformation.

“Putting cars back on Market is really a big step backwards, and it’s going to prevent us from making progress toward that vision of a more vibrant people-first space that really will attract more people to come downtown and want to be there,” she told KQED.

The pilot phase that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency starts Tuesday will test the impact of Waymo and some Uber and Lyft operations on Market Street outside peak commute hours.

The move comes after Lurie gave Waymo permission to begin mapping the street for an expansion in April, which was met with opposition from other ride-hail companies. Since Waymos, as well as Uber and Lyft’s black cars, are categorized as commercial vehicles, they’ve not been legally obligated to stay off the car-free section of Market Street under SFMTA traffic regulations. Waymo confirmed in April that it had voluntarily refrained from operating there.

Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., and overnight from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., Waymo can drop off and pick up passengers at seven locations along Market Street, between 5th and 8th streets. They’ll be allowed to run on the two-mile strip between Van Ness Avenue and Steuart Street, where cars are barred, according to SFMTA Director Julie Kirschbaum.

Uber and Lyft black cars, the apps’ top-line rides that offer a more luxurious experience at a higher price tag, will be allowed to pick up passengers at those locations during the evening and night hours, from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Both apps require drivers to meet certain car standards: the cars have to be black, and Lyft prohibits vehicles older than 2018, while Uber requires them to be models made within the last five years.

The area where these vehicles will begin operating is a sector of Market Street that has been closed to cars since January 2020, following more than a decade of advocacy to remove cars from the busy downtown road.

In a statement, Lurie said, “The city will monitor Muni performance, traffic conditions, safety incidents, and Waymo, Uber Black, and Lyft Black’s performance through shared data and street traffic observations,” to decide how best to increase safe transportation through all modes in the future.

But Pam said data shows banning cars from the road has already benefited non-drivers. Since 2020, she said, SFMTA found that traffic collisions on the road fell by 40%.

“The people who are going to lose are the hundreds of thousands of people who take Muni, who walk and bike downtown every day, versus a couple dozen people traveling in these luxury vehicles,” she told KQED.

Those reliant on Muni to get downtown are already adjusting to service cuts along Market that went into effect in June. As the city agency struggles to recover from a plummet in ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s facing a dire financial crisis that threatens to force even more cuts in future years.

For the last two months, three lines that used to run all the way down to the Embarcadero from various city neighborhoods have begun turning back when they reach Market Street. Two other routes headed toward the Bay from the Inner Sunset and the northeast edge of Golden Gate Park were combined into a new Muni line, which also now ends when it hits the street. After feedback from residents, Muni is restoring two morning trips on the 1X California Express and adding one trip on the 30X Marina Express into downtown on Aug. 30.

“At a time when Muni is facing an enormous fiscal crisis and we’re already cutting service, to make Market more congested with vehicles and slow down Muni and make it less efficient is really not the direction the city needs to go in,” Pam said.

While Market Street has wide sidewalks designated for foot traffic, Marta Lindsey, WalkSF’s communications director, said increased vehicle traffic will increase collision risks for pedestrians, especially in crosswalks.

“When you’re crossing the street one of the biggest risks is turning vehicles,” she said. “Bringing back vehicles is less of a risk to someone walking on the sidewalk, but it’s bringing back all this intersection chaos and maneuvers that really put pedestrians at risk.”

She said people entering and exiting buses will also have to navigate more cars on the road, and even walking on the sidewalk could become more risky if more bikers migrate off the street.

While cycling groups have done copious work to ensure bicyclists don’t use pedestrian-only sidewalks, Christopher White, who heads the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, said it’s much more difficult when there aren’t designated spaces for people on bikes.

East of 8th Street, which accounts for much of the area that’s been car-free, there aren’t separate biking lanes, he said.

“We have invested an enormous amount of resources trying to teach people that [the sidewalk] is not where bikes and scooters belong, but it is also the rational choice when people don’t have protected infrastructure,” he said. “More cars will cause people to feel less safe on their bikes and scooters. That is going to drive them onto the sidewalk, and that is going to put in danger people who are walking, particularly seniors, people with disabilities, and children.”

The current expansion is fairly limited and doesn’t actually change any city law. Both banning the commercial vehicles outright or allowing all private vehicles back onto the road would need to go through more rigorous channels, but many of the advocates who’ve formed the Keep Market Street Moving coalition to oppose the expansion fear it will only be a matter of time before the road is hopping with cars.

Multiple advocates told KQED they already see private vehicles on prohibited parts of the street fairly often, and with some Uber and Lyft operators in standard cars allowed to operate, enforcement of the rules will only become more difficult.

“I think people have forgotten how chaotic and dangerous Market was,” Lindsey said. “We cannot go back to how dangerous and chaotic it was, and these changes are opening up the door to going back.”