Market Street makeover — safe bike lanes and no cars — finally at hand

That’s the potential of the makeover of Market Street that will be going to the Planning Commission on Thursday for approval of its environmental impact report, the last vote on its physical aspects. Details can be quibbled with, and the process has taken twice as long as it should have, but the results have a disciplined clarity that public initiatives so often lack.

The first phase of the upgrade would extend from Fifth Street to Eighth Street, a $150 million investment in what the city calls Better Market Street. Eventually, the improvements will stretch 2.2 miles between the Embarcadero and Octavia Boulevard, at a current estimated cost of $604 million, some of which will be for sewer and utility updates that were needed anyway.

The schedule calls for construction to begin early in 2021. However, the board of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will vote on Oct. 15 on whether to begin operational changes early next year — such as making Market off-limits to private vehicles east of 10th Street and restricting commercial loading on the street to certain hours.

Taxis would still be allowed. Uber and Lyft service would be confined to loading zones on side streets.

The already-wide sidewalks would be broadened from 35 to 37 feet, with as much as 12 feet along the curb reserved for bicycle lanes and a curbside buffer zone. The red bricks with their herringbone pattern would be replaced by gray concrete pavers that are easier to clean and repair and more hospitable to wheelchair users.

The street itself would be repaved, the center lanes in concrete rather than asphalt to reduce the noise from historic streetcars. Those archaic attractions would get another boost: While service to Castro Street would continue, a new loop just east of United Nations Plaza would allow some of them to shuttle back and forth from Market and the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf, increasing service in the tourist corridor.

City plannersbegan working on a new approach to Market Streeta decade ago, the idea being that construction could begin in 2013. But with five departments involved, and constantly evolving design concepts, it was 2017 beforea preferred alternative was selected.

The one upside to the absurdly drawn-out process might be that potential flash points didn’t trigger battles. Banishing private automobiles east of Van Ness, for instance, seems less radical given that they’ve been hindered by various forced detours onto side streets since 2010.

Nor is there visible opposition to doing away with Market Street’s current look with its red brick carpet and twin rows of London plane trees. That supposedly majestic vision was pushed in the 1960s as a ceremonial path by civic boosters who wanted what one organization promised would be “one of the world’s most attractive and vital downtown boulevards,” and it was designed in part by legendary landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.

What’s now planned is more relaxed, conceived as a backdrop for the ever-changing array of elements that intrude on fanciful visions in real life. The gray pavers are intended to be compatible with the glass-and-metal subway canopies that BART has begun to install, or the futuristic toilets and ad kiosks that next year will begin replacing the current faux-Parisian models.

“所有的街道设施将有一个相似的外观,” said Cristina Olea, project manager for the Public Works department. She also suggested this new approach has more in common with the existing one than meets the eye. “What we talked about a lot is Halprin’sintent— he wanted an area where people could promenade.”

That’s the surprising strength of the design that, if the schedule finally sticks, will be installed beginning early in 2021. It has the potential to be comfortable and flexible, but with an orderly strength.

That includes the sidewalk with its parallel paths for pedestrians and cyclists.

组合听起来像一个秘方碰撞——磨her from cyclists cutting into the pedestrian zone or, conversely, phone-obsessed pedestrians wandering into the bike lanes — but the paths aren’t actually side by side. They’ll be separated by a 10-foot-wide zone that will include a single row of trees, benches and bike racks and kiosks, and the historic black lampposts that date back to 1916.

The hope of planners is that with the so-called “street-life zone” in-between, the different publics will coexist.

“Everyone gets their space in the future design, instead of things being all hodgepodge like they are now,” Olea said.

Some hodgepodge will remain.

Anyone who has walked the length of Market Street knows that it rarely offers a uniform procession: BART portals form one type of impediment, while delivery zones cut into the sidewalk. Some Muni buses pull up to the sidewalk, others to linear boarding islands midstream. The aged streetcars share the center lanes with two busy bus lines.

Market’s makeover can’t erase this. As Olea conceded, “the bikeway and buffer will narrow” in especially pinched locations.

The bigger issue is the Mid-Market scene: It attracts theatergoers and office workers, but also drug dealers and peddlers of stolen goods. People suffering from mental illness, screaming or zombie-like, are an all-too-common sight.

“It’s a tough area, especially between Fifth and Eighth,” Olea said. “Our seating, our materials, everything needs to be durable. ... We hear from people all the time, ‘whatever you do, address the social elements.’”

That’s a tall order for any designer — especially in this city where the extremes between haves and have-nots have never been more pronounced.

But designcanhelp make a difference.

Market Street isn’t some atmospheric throwback to past glories. It is worn-down and outdated, at odds with how San Francisco has evolved. Halprin’s bricks remain, but the additional elements of aspirational grandeur — even the garbage cans were bespoke — were removed long ago.

When there’s a major civic or protest march, the potential comes alive. Otherwise, whole blocks can feel vacant — a void that helps explain why Mid-Market still has a dangerous edge,despite new businesses and residents.

If nothing else, Better Market Street balances a realization of today’s transportation needs with a sense of how today’s city can be accommodated. It’s a start — one that is long overdue.