Beach Street Quick-Build Project

The open house period has concluded but this page will remain for display informational purposes. Thank you to everyone who participated.

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Welcome! |  歡迎!  

Thank you for joining the Beach Street Quick-Build Project Open House! This is an opportunity for you to learn more and give us feedback on our proposed traffic safety improvements along Beach Street between Polk Street and The Embarcadero.  We want to hear from you! 

This online Open House (also known as a story map) will be available for feedback from February 28, 2024 to March 19, 2024. While the Open House website is live, staff will be responding to your emails and survey responses during the three-week period.

The SFMTA is seeking your input on the proposed street design changes for the corridor so that we can better understand interest in creating more pedestrian safety and protected bike improvements in the Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood.

This open house website will be available for feedback for a three-week period from February 28th to March 19th. While the open house website is live, staff will be available via email for further questions.

The Open House story map is best viewed on a laptop or desktop web browser, but it is also accessible by tablet or mobile devices.

There is a navigation bar at the top of the web page that can help you move to specific sections that you're interested in, such as quick-build opportunities and benefits, the survey link, project schedule and more. For full project context, we recommend scrolling from the beginning to the end.

To leave a question or comment, please visit the "Feedback" section, which can be found in the navigation bar above, at the bottom of this web page, or by clicking on the button below.

If you encounter any issues with this web page, please send an email to Ashley Hong, Project Manager, Ashley.Hong@sfmta.com

Language assistance:

We have translated this Open House Storymap to the most common language in the Fisherman's Wharf District! To access the Open House in Chinese, please scroll back up to the top and click on the word, "Welcome" in the corresponding language.

Contact 311 - Free language assistance / 免費語言協助 / Ayuda gratis con el idioma / Бесплатная помощь переводчиков / Trợ giúp Thông dịch Miễn phí / Assistance linguistique gratuite / 無料の言語支援 / 무료 언어 지원 / Libreng tulong para sa wikang Filipino / การช่วยเหลือทางด้านภาษาโดยไม่เสียค่าใช้จ่าย /خط المساعدة المجاني على الرقم

The Beach Street Quick-Build Project is committed to delivering transportation safety and comfort on the project corridor from The Embarcadero to Polk Street for all users. The project will consider travel patterns, community input, and technical feasibility to inform street designs that address safety issues, including the implementation of pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements, curb management changes, and traffic signal retiming. 

The project extents on Beach Street from The Embarcadero to Polk Street are about half a mile long (9 blocks). In its current condition, there is typically one vehicle travel lane in each direction (east-west) with parking on the north side of Beach Street. There is parallel parking on both sides of Beach Street between Polk and Jones Streets. Beach Street is in the Fisherman's Wharf area and includes tourist, maritime, commercial retail, office, and hotel activity. There are currently no bike markings along Beach Street despite a high volume of bicycle traffic. There is a mix of regular metered parking spaces and commercial and passenger loading zones on the corridor. The F- Line to Fisherman's Wharf streetcar runs east along Beach Street from Jones to The Embarcadero, the 19-Polk runs on one block of Beach Street between Polk and Larkin Streets, and the Powell/Hyde Cable Car line terminates at Beach and Hyde Streets.

Please give the application a few minutes to load as you scroll through the maps below.

Beach Street is part of San Francisco's Vision Zero High Injury Network, or the 12% of San Francisco streets which experience 68% of the city’s severe traffic injuries and fatalities. The Beach Street Quick-Build Project seeks to address these safety issues and build on transportation safety improvements near Beach Street, including recent past projects such as  The Jefferson Streetscape Improvement Project ,  Daylighting at High Injury Network Intersections , and  Reduced Street Speeds .

The Beach Street Quick-Build Project is dedicated to improving traffic safety and comfort for all who travel on the Beach Street between The Embarcadero and Polk Street by reducing the number of conflicts between those who walk, bike, take transit, and drive along this corridor.

• Build trust and connection with the Fisherman's Wharf community.
• Improve pedestrian and bicycle safety by increasing the visibility of people walking and biking and reducing potential conflicts between people walking, biking, and driving.
• Improve safe access to tourist and maritime destinations along Beach Street for all roadway users.

During our early phase of outreach we interviewed 14 businesses and organizations including the Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District, Pier 39, hotels, and more along and adjacent to the corridor. The following themes summarize the key points we heard:

• Increase SFMTA enforcement for loading zones activity
• Remove on-street parking in specific areas to increase eyes on the street

• Street murals between Powell/Taylor
• Shared space on Beach between Hyde and Larkin
• Create public space around Joseph Conrad Park

• Clarify garage/parking lot entrances and wayfinding
• Improve visibility at driveways and near parklets

• Reduce pedestrian and bicycle/scooter conflicts
• Increase pedestrian and bicyclist visibility at intersections
• Install bike parking near Beach/Hyde

• Hotel activities
• Tour bus activities
• TNC/Taxi pickup/drop off
• Commercial loading

Quick-build projects are reversible, adjustable, traffic safety improvements that can be installed relatively quickly with city crews using road paint, street bollards and traffic signs. Unlike major capital projects that may take years to plan, design, bid and construct, quick-build projects are buildable within months and are reviewed,   evaluated  , and adjusted for a 24-month period following initial construction.

Many of the traffic safety and bikeway connection issues we see on Beach Street can be addressed through quick-build improvements. While quick-builds are typically low-cost and use low-impact materials, they can create highly effective results. Community outreach and engagement play a key role in ensuring quick-build projects respond appropriately to the neighborhood's needs.

For more information, please visit   SFMTA.com/QuickBuild  .

Click on the left/right arrows to scroll through and learn more about some of the proposed quick-build improvements for Beach Street. Click on the photo itself to enlarge the image.  

The SFMTA is proposing a street design on Beach Street that includes three main elements:

(1) Intersection Safety: Quick and effective pedestrian safety and traffic improvements at all intersections along the project corridor.

(2) Placemaking: Enhanced safety treatments from Larkin to Hyde Streets that prioritize pedestrian safety and support temporary weekend street closures for public events/activities in coordination with the Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District.

(3) Bike Network Improvements: Protected bike lane from Powell Street to Columbus Avenue, with potential connections to Larkin at the western end of the corridor, and connections south to the existing bike facility on North Point Street.

These three elements are shown visually in the diagram below.

Our proposed designs are guided by our ongoing public outreach and coordination efforts with transit, emergency responders, and other stakeholder groups. Input received during this open house period along with identified engineering constraints will help inform the preferred design option for Beach Street.

The SFMTA proposes to install quick-build intersection improvements on Beach Street that increase pedestrian safety but have low impacts to vehicular traffic. These proposed changes include:

• Upgraded crosswalks
• Signal retiming for increased walk-times
• Daylighting (red zones) and painted safety zones
• Advanced limit lines

To learn more about these tools and the benefits of these quick-build improvements please visit:  https://www.sfmta.com/pedestrian-improvements-toolkit 

The SFMTA has heard a strong desire for placemaking and street activation along Beach Street from the community, particularly on the block of Beach Street between Hyde and Larkin streets.

The SFMTA is currently investigating turn restrictions, changes to roadway striping and geometries, and parking changes that can help to traffic calm this block and prioritize pedestrians on this block.

In tandem with these roadway safety changes, the SFMTA is also working closely with the Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District (FWCBD) on a Roadway Shared Spaces permit that will allow for temporary closures of the street on Fridays and weekends during peak tourism months. The Shared Spaces permit/closure hours will be carefully defined to maintain loading needs for merchants on Beach Street between Larkin and Hyde Street. You can find out more about the Shared Spaces program and process  here .

Together, the roadway safety changes and the Shared Spaces activity can allow for this block of Beach Street to become a community gathering place for the neighborhood.

With many bike rental shops in the area and visitors on bikes, the SFMTA believes providing a low-stress, comfortable, protected bike lane on Beach Street can be a major benefit to the area. This bike lane can serve as an important connection between major destinations like Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and the Maritime Museum. We also heard from stakeholders that providing "eyes on the street" and activation can be beneficial to thwarting the frequent car break-ins on Beach Street.

With these benefits in mind, the SFMTA has developed two proposed design options on Beach Street. The SFMTA is in the process of determining the exact extents of any bike lane proposal, but both proposals include at minimum a bike lane from Powell Street to Columbus Avenue, with potential connections Larkin at the western end of the corridor, and connections south to the existing bike facility on North Point Street.

The two proposed design option for a bike lane on Beach Street are detailed below.

• One-way westbound protected bike lane on the north side of Beach Street (at minimum from Columbus Ave. to Powell St.)
• Removal of parking on the north side of Beach Street
• A reallocation of some parking/loading space - includes assessing the south side of Beach Street at some locations and side street parking
• Signal timing changes to support bike lane

• Two-way westbound/eastbound protected bike lane on the north side of Beach Street (at minimum from Columbus Ave. to Powell St.)
• Removal of parking on the north side of Beach Street
• A reallocation of parking/loading space - includes assessing the south side of Beach Street at some locations and side street parking
• Signal timing changes to support bike lane

• Two-way alternative provides a protected bike lane for both directions of travel
• Two-way alternative may be easier for tourists to navigate
• One-way alternative offers wider bike lane and buffer dimensions
• One-way alternative provides more space at intersections for better safety treatments
• One-way alternative does not provide a protected bike lane for eastbound bicycle travel
• Parking removal is the same for both alternatives
• Pedestrian safety improvements are the same for both bikeway alternatives
• Placemaking footprint (Beach St. from Larkin to Hyde Sts.) and features are the same for both bikeway alternatives

There are over 4,100 off-street public parking spaces in the vicinity of the project area. The map below shows the location of the public parking lots and garages. You can click on the blue pin icon to view more information.

The map also contains parking occupancy information analyzed from November 2022 to November 2023. The map's red and dotted purple lines indicate which blocks have the highest parking demand on the weekends and weekdays, respectively, meaning on average over 90% occupied. The blocks that generally have the highest parking occupancy along Beach Street are:

• Beach Street between Polk and Larkin
•  Beach Street between Mason and Powell

Generally, the weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) after 12 pm have the highest parking demand. The remaining blocks along Beach Street generally see parking occupancy range between 30-60% on weekdays and 70-85% on weekends.

Based on initial community feedback, we heard some desire for on-street parking removal to increase "eyes on the street", promote activation, and better connect to the activities on Jefferson Street.

The project proposals may remove approximately 52-66 metered parking spaces. To mitigate some of these impacts, the project may add additional parking spaces where feasible. These numbers are approximated and may change based on final design considerations.

A detailed curb management plan will be developed to prioritize commercial, passenger, and ADA loading zones and will be posted on the website at a later date after community feedback is considered.

Let us know what you think about the proposed changes in the following survey.

Thank you for visiting the virtual open house!

While the open house website is live staff will be available via email.

Other questions, comments, or concerns not answered here? View our  Frequently Asked Questions Document  on our project webpage or email Ashley Hong at Ashley.Hong@sfmta.com with your feedback.