Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Next Sunday Streets

This year's third Sunday Streets route has been announced! On June 7th 2.3 miles of streets in the Mission District will be closed outright and another 2/3 of a mile will be open only to local access.

The route will connect Dolores and Garfield Square Parks with Rolph Playground. Activities along the route haven't been announced yet, but there should be little doubt that this route will be interesting.

Commercial corridors along Valencia and 24th streets will be spared from cars for 4 hours - from 10am to 2pm. These are exciting streets on any day, with lots to do. Add several thousand people on bikes and on foot and the result will be an unprecedented event.

24th Street in particular is a de facto pedestrian-priority street anyway, with four way stops at most of its intersections. That is is possibly the busiest and longest commercial corridor in the Mission hardly seems like a coincidence. And apparently, according to Streetsblog, the merchants along Two-Four actually requested the route pass in front of their stores.

Take that Fisherman's Wharf (and Market Street, Geary and any other commercial corridors who object to street closures) but note that you will not be taking in the increased revenue that the 24th street merchants likely will.

The June route also directly touches the 24th Street BART station, making it the most regionally accessible event so far.

For more information, visit the Sunday Streets website. They have PDF outreach fliers in English and Spanish, if you'd like to help spread the word.

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