A stretch of San Francisco’s Market Street is closing for about 24 hours starting Friday evening so crews can repave the roadway, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works said.
The work is scheduled to begin at about 7 p.m. Friday in the lanes closest to the curb in both directions of Market Street between Van Ness Avenue and Sixth Street.
Traffic crossing Market Street will be allowed to pass through, but motorists and bicyclists attempting to travel along the thoroughfare will be rerouted, DPW spokeswoman Rachel Gordon said.
Gordon said the street is among the busiest in San Francisco and “is pretty rutted in some areas.”
Crews will lay down an estimated 1,300 tons of new asphalt on the road and will then repaint the traffic lanes and green bicycle lanes, Gordon said.
She said this will be the largest repaving project on Market Street in the past three decades.
The $700,000 project is being funded by revenue from gas taxes, according to the department, which plans to repave the stretch of Market Street between Steuart and Third streets on the weekend of June 21-22 and the area between Third and Sixth streets in mid-July.
Repaving in the intersections along Market Street will take place later this year after the summer tourist rush and special events such as the America’s Cup sailing races.
Gordon said the repaving will only be done in the curbside lanes for now since a project involving the center lanes would be more difficult because of complications involving Municipal Railway service, which would have to be rerouted.
“It will eventually be done, but it takes a lot more coordination,” she said.
Muni and other transit service will continue during this weekend’s project, but all boardings and drop-offs will take place on the center islands, Gordon said.
DPW director Mohammed Nuru said in a statement that the project will “create a much safer and more comfortable experience for the thousands of people who use the street every day.”
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition executive director Leah Shahum called Market Street “the city’s most important bicycling street” and said “this repaving could not come soon enough.”
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
