San Francisco’s car-free series of outdoor street gatherings will continue for a third year as a permanent event and in an expanded form, the mayor’s office announced Monday.
The Sunday Streets program, modeled after an event in Bogota, Columbia and introduced in San Francisco in 2008, is designed to promote healthy outdoor activities such as walking and bicycling by closing neighborhoods to vehicle traffic on select Sundays.
Mayor Gavin Newsom today said residents “have shown great support” for Sunday Streets and that he would expand the free program to nine Sundays in 2010.
Proposed dates include: March 14 on the Embarcadero, April 11 on the Great Highway, April 18 and May 23 in the Bayview District, June 20 and July 11 in the Mission District, Aug. 22 on the Great Highway and in Golden Gate Park, Sept. 19 in the Western Addition, and Oct. 24 in the Tenderloin/Civic Center area.
The last two neighborhoods will be new to Sunday Streets.
The events will also feature longer hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Newsom and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency are additionally planning a pilot project in at least one neighborhood to close an area to vehicle traffic once a week or month, similar to the closure on Sunday of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park.
More information is available at www.sundaystreetssf.com.
