Could San Francisco See July 4 Crowds for Fleet Week? City Leaders Say Not Exactly
Memories of the traffic meltdown and bathroom shortages that defined this year’s July 4 fireworks show on the Golden Gate Bridge loom over the planning for Fleet Week, one of San Francisco’s marquee events, which has historically drawn tens of thousands of people to the city.
Stephen Sherrill, a San Francisco supervisor who represents the Marina District, where the October airshow will take place, has raised concerns that city departments still lack an official crowd-size estimate, which typically comes from the San Francisco Fleet Week Association, the event’s sponsor.
“ Crowd size has been the flaw in planning over the past year, and when crowd size is mixed with a lack of time around preparation, we end up with negative outcomes,” Sherrill said, addressing reporters Thursday.
Lewis Loeven, executive director of the San Francisco Fleet Week Association, said he expected attendance to be similar to that of 2024 — an estimated 7,500 people at peak times — and that he would release the 2026 figures at “a later date.”
Peak crowd estimates for Fleet Week have varied dramatically in recent years, according to the city’s Department of Emergency Management. Fleet Week 2025 saw around 2,000 spectators at its peak, as the show was stymied by a government shutdown, preventing the participation of any U.S. military outfits, including the famed Blue Angels.
The U.S. Navy’s annual weeklong visit to San Francisco, which has brought boat tours and a chance to meet military sailors and pilots to the city for decades, is “extremely well run,” Sherrill emphasized, but he said he called Thursday’s hearing to make sure “excellent stays excellent.”
The shortcomings of the city’s Fourth of July celebration remain fresh. That night, an estimated 100,000 people streamed into the northwestern corner of the city, expecting to catch a special fireworks show staged from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the surge of people leaving the event resulted in gridlock for hours, and the situation worsened when autonomous vehicles stalled out on city streets, blocking traffic.
Loeven said Fleet Week “has not had many of the problems that were identified” with the Fourth of July celebration, since events are spaced out across multiple days, times and locations in the city.
Taking lessons from the Fourth of July 2026 fiasco and previous Fleet Weeks, the city’s Municipal Transportation Agency has submitted geofencing requests — a temporary off-limits zone for autonomous vehicles run by companies like Waymo and Zoox — for segments of major thoroughfares, such as Van Ness Boulevard, the Embarcadero and Lombard Street, during some Fleet Week events. The SFMTA also plans to offer extra service on key routes.
San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department plans to supply 20% more portable toilets than it has in previous years, for a total of 65.
This year, with the Blue Angels set to return, Sherrill wondered if city leaders should apply a “San Francisco is back” multiplier to any crowd estimates, based on what he thought was the city’s improving reputation and ability to attract crowds. He said higher-than-expected attendance at events like a Red Bull-sponsored Formula One race last February or the last Fourth of July underscores a need to do better planning around major events.
“When you can’t baseline against the past for new events, I’m not satisfied that there’s great crowd-capacity planning or infrastructure in place at this point,” Sherrill said.