I still retrieve the first clip I group ft connected Market Street. I was a freshman successful college, and large cities were still a very caller point to me. It felt for illustration I was swimming done an water of ft traffic; the towering shops and hotels seemed for illustration they were built by giants.
That Market Street is gone now. In its spot is simply a elephantine quiet section of asphalt successful the halfway of San Francisco — a desolate grey discarded baking successful the sun, quiet isolated from for the occasional autobus and a mini smattering of bicycles.
On either broadside of this yawning wasteland are elephantine sidewalks pinch only a fewer pedestrians, boarded-up stores, and the occasional small, sad unit chain. At midday connected a Monday, what was erstwhile the bustling commercialized bosom of San Francisco feels abandoned.
What happened? In fact, Market Street was destroyed by respective things:
The city’s determination to adjacent the thoroughfare to cars (but not buses), enacted successful 2019
The crime activity of the early 2020s
The pandemic, and the displacement to distant work
The 2nd and 3rd of these, together, are known arsenic the “Doom Loop”. It’s been talked astir a lot, truthful let’s conscionable screen it briefly.
The pandemic, and the economical and societal changes it brought, came retired of the blue. But San Francisco was peculiarly susceptible to the shock. As successful galore American cities, 20th period municipality readying and zoning rules concentrated agency buildings successful the downtown area and put lodging farther out. This meant that erstwhile group stopped going downtown for work, the vicinity was conscionable a batch much empty, because almost nary one lives there. This is successful opposition to large cities successful Europe and Asia, wherever downtown neighborhoods are typically mixed-use. (SF besides had a stronger displacement to distant work, because of the dense beingness of the tech industry.)
The crime activity was different shock. Although SF escaped the destructive rioting that deed different West Coast cities for illustration Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles successful 2020, it had plenty of looting successful downtown areas — particularly astir Union Square and the San Francisco Centre promenade connected Market Street. Even aft the pandemic ended, San Francisco suffered particularly hard from the statewide activity of “smash-and-grab” shop thefts. It sewage truthful bad that American Eagle really sued the San Francisco Centre for being negligent toward crime, reporting complete 100 superior incidents of unit and harassment successful its downtown store.
Crime and emptiness fed connected each other. Less ft postulation meant less “eyes connected the street” to discourage spot crime. Property crime and reduced ft postulation forced stores to close. Fewer stores meant little ft traffic, and truthful on. The illness of downtown culminated successful January 2026 pinch the closure of the San Francisco Centre, the iconic promenade that had formed the commercialized bosom of Market Street, but which had been gutted by the Doom Loop. It now stands arsenic a looming, empty, boarded-up building dominating the area astir the Powell Street train station:
The intersection of Powell Street and Market Street, erstwhile bustling and live pinch tourists, shoppers, and thoroughfare vendors, is now virtually empty, isolated from for a forlorn statement of group waiting to get connected the iconic streetcar:
But caller years person seen the first glints of betterment from the Doom Loop. For 1 thing, crime has begun to fall. 2025 unsocial saw a 27% alteration successful spot crime, including a 29% alteration successful burglaries, a 22% alteration successful larceny (including unit theft), and a 24% alteration successful robbery. 2026 has seen further drops. The reasons for this are interesting, but I’ll spell into them different time. Suffice it to opportunity that this has made downtown SF consciousness overmuch safer and much orderly. The stereotype of SF arsenic being overrun by supplier addicts and vulnerable vagrants still holds existent of a fewer areas of the city, but from Powell Street to the bay, the metropolis nary longer feels for illustration a post-apocalyptic movie.
Meanwhile, the business territory is showing a fewer sluggish signs of life. The AI roar is causing a (modest) rebound successful the request for agency space. Some agency buildings are being converted to housing, raising hopes that SF’s downtown tin yet go a mixed-use neighborhood. A concerted effort to revive Union Square aft the devastation of 2020 is beginning to carnivore fruit. And some companies and the SF metropolis government are mandating return-to-office policies.
And yet Market Street remains a dormant zone. Weekday ft postulation is still down by half compared to 2019:
The wounds inflicted by the Doom Loop will return tons much clip and effort to heal. Retail businesses person to beryllium encouraged to open. Defunct buildings person to beryllium torn down and rebuilt. Crime has to beryllium reduced moreover further, and truthful on. This will each return years.
But there’s 1 different facet contributing to the decease of San Francisco’s astir important street, and it began earlier the pandemic: The prohibition connected cars.
In caller years, a number of cities astir the world have experimented pinch car-free zones and postulation simplification policies successful their downtown areas. The astir celebrated of these is Paris, pinch its Limited Traffic Zone, its expansion of pedestrian malls, and its road closures during Sundays and holidays. Shortly earlier the pandemic, San Francisco decided to enact a plan its leaders thought was successful the aforesaid spirit: closing downtown Market Street to each car traffic:
But though Market Street was closed to cars, it wasn’t closed to buses, transportation trucks, and licensed taxis. This was successful keeping pinch the wide “transit good, cars bad” reasoning of modern progressive urbanism. But a autobus will termination a pedestrian conscionable arsenic easy arsenic a car will, which is why Market Street remains quiet of pedestrian traffic. This mathematically guaranteed that Market Street would go a much quiet place: Cars were subtracted, but pedestrians weren’t added.
The nonstop costs of this argumentation is beautiful obvious. When group can’t parkland successful a parking car shed connected Market, and erstwhile Uber and Lyft can’t prime group up and driblet group disconnected connected the street, it makes businesses connected the thoroughfare little charismatic to visit. Sure, group could motorcycle aliases return the train, but not everyone wants to do that; instead, they’ll conscionable spell to restaurants aliases stores successful different areas. In addition, restaurants connected Market Street now can’t present food, cutting them disconnected from an important root of revenue. That astir apt helps explicate why Market has suffered much from the Doom Loop than different areas.
But what did SF gain by deleting cars from Market Street and adding thing astatine each successful their place? Cars create a small spot of contamination (though modern cars are very clean), truthful that was removed. Pedestrians who tally disconnected the sidewalk and into the thoroughfare are somewhat little successful threat of being killed (though still successful danger). These are meager benefits indeed.
What astir motorcycle traffic? Presumably, reduced threat of being deed by a car would let much cyclists to thrust down Market Street. But successful fact, motorcycle postulation connected the thoroughfare is considerably lower than it was pre-pandemic:
A batch of that is the Doom Loop — location are simply less stores for cyclists to sojourn connected Market Street, truthful there’s little logic for them to spell there. But overmuch of downtown hasn’t collapsed the measurement Market Street has, and presumably cyclists could usage the thoroughfare arsenic a measurement to get to places for illustration the Embarcadero, Chinatown, etc. They’re not doing it. Cyclists are a comparatively uncommon show connected Market these days.
One logic mightiness beryllium that though the metropolis planned to make the car-free agelong of Market much bike-friendly, it ne'er really followed up connected those plans. So it’s still beautiful vulnerable to thrust a motorcycle aliases scooter down the thoroughfare — you tin get caught successful the train tracks, and you tin get deed by a autobus aliases truck.
“paula”@paularambles
reminder to beryllium ace observant riding bikes/scooters complete the tram lines connected marketplace street. insanely dangerous.
6:29 PM · Aug 12, 2026 · 44.6K Views
8 Replies · 3 Reposts · 83 Likes
In fact, this sloppy implementation is simply a wide shape pinch the Market Street closure. Josh Koehn had a awesome article successful 2023 astir really the scheme degenerated from its first form:
A $600 cardinal superior task called Better Market Street promised to create a futuristic boulevard that would safely buffer bicycles and scooters connected elevated sidewalk lanes, separating the small wheels from accelerated autobus lines, vintage streetcars and pedestrians…The caller imagination for Market Street, advocates said, would create a safer, much vibrant multimodal avenue…More than a decade of readying went into alterations of Market Street…
But costs for thing beyond humble improvements on a three-block agelong of Market Street betwixt Fifth and Eighth streets…have evaporated…The costs of Better Market Street, which soared supra a cardinal dollars earlier being reined successful to a still-staggering $604 million, is almost double the magnitude spent connected the tormented Van Ness Avenue redesign…
City officials enraged safe streets advocates erstwhile they announced successful precocious 2020 that the elevated motorcycle lanes connected sidewalks would beryllium scrapped.
SF’s deficiency of authorities capacity had a batch to do pinch this; changeless costs overruns inevitably require eager projects to beryllium scaled back. The pandemic besides evidently sewage successful the way. But portion of what killed the imagination for Market Street is simply that the imagination itself was ne'er very good.
If you look astatine Paris, it’s instantly clear really that city’s car-limitation measures were designed to create spaces for pedestrians. In definite areas for illustration the banks of the Seine, Paris didn’t conscionable prohibition cars; it besides banned buses and trucks, truthful that group could locomotion safely. Paris besides reserved overmuch larger areas for pedestrians connected definite days.
But Market Street has no much pedestrian areas than it did successful 2019. You tin still only locomotion connected the sidewalk. If the full thoroughfare were reserved for ft postulation during definite times — for illustration SF does pinch Valencia Street, for illustration — past these periodic impermanent pedestrianizations could go an arena that regularly draws tons of group to the area. This could see farmers’ markets, thoroughfare concerts, and different nosy events. Those would springiness group a logic to locomotion astir Market Street moreover earlier caller businesses opened.
Alternatively, if SF permanently closed disconnected immoderate information of the thoroughfare to buses and trucks, that agelong of roadworthy could go a pedestrian nationalist square, akin to the halfway of Times Square:
Instead of reasoning astir really to create spaces that group would really want to locomotion astir in, the SF authorities — and the galore activistic groups and nonprofits that power its argumentation — look to person adhered to the elemental norm of “bikes and buses good, cars bad”.
This is simply a measurement of reasoning centered astir modes of transit alternatively than public space. It implicitly conceives of areas for illustration Market Street arsenic thoroughfares to return group from 1 spot to another, alternatively than arsenic existent destinations. Market Street’s car closure is each astir forcing group to go down Market Street successful a different way, alternatively than astir encouraging group to go to Market Street.
There’s thing inescapably and depressingly suburban astir this measurement of thinking. In the suburbs, life is lived point-to-point — you spell from location to strip-mall to edifice to agency without reasoning overmuch astir the places you traverse successful between. In a suburb, the mode of proscription — really you get from Point A to Point B — is the important question.
Americans are a suburban people; moreover galore of our municipality areas look for illustration suburbs successful different countries. So possibly it’s inevitable that the urbanists who closed Market Street disconnected to car postulation would deliberation wholly astir modes of proscription and disregard the vibrant metropolis halfway whose demolition they exacerbated. Instead of Jane Jacobs, they ended up conscionable being the Robert Moses of buses.
Again, observant attraction to car limitations successful cities for illustration Paris, wherever group are utilized to occupying municipality places alternatively of simply whizzing done them, would person proven enlightening. Paris’s Limited Traffic Zone doesn’t prohibition cars successful downtown areas; it simply bans cars from transiting through those areas. People who enactment wrong the area tin still drive. The constituent is to make downtown spaces into places group inhabit alternatively than places group simply spell through. What San Francisco did to Market Street was, successful galore ways, the nonstop opposite.
In lieu of turning Market Street into a pedestrian paradise, SF’s champion move is astir apt conscionable to let backstage cars again. It’s not the optimal measurement to create much ft postulation to nourish unit businesses, but it’s the quickest and easiest. In fact, Mayor Daniel Lurie has made moves successful this direction, allowing definite Uber, Lyft, and Waymo cars to run connected the street. But they mightiness arsenic good simply spell each the way. Best to simply hide the era erstwhile Market Street was a ample quiet scar commemorating the diminution of San Francisco; if San Francisco can’t beryllium Paris, astatine slightest it tin return to what it utilized to be.
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