Sunday Streets — 8 days until ‘go time’
SPUR held a meeting at their offices in downtown San Francisco to continue to introduce Sunday Streets to more people, and it was a productive meeting. Here is the calendar listing for the event:
Made famous by Bogota’s “Ciclovias” and Guadalajara’s “Via RecreActiva” the idea of closing streets on Sundays for recreation is coming to San Francisco! Following on Portland’s “Sunday Parkways” and New York’s “Summer Streets,” San Francisco’s own Sunday Streets will liberate a section of streets along the eastern edge of the city for recreation several Sundays in August. Learn from Cheryl Brinkman, president of Livable City, and Wade Crowfoot of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, about the details of and philosophy behind this proposal to bring the parks to the people. Feel free to bring a lunch; open to the public, free for SPUR members and $5 for non-members.
Excitement is definitely building. I’ve notified lots of the businesses in my area of town (from just south of AT&T Park down to Dogpatch), and many were very receptive. One business owner practically demanded that I use the best window space I could find to post a flyer for the event.
Wade Crowfoot, who works for Gavin Newsom, represented the City of San Francisco, and answered a bunch of questions, including where he thought the event would lead. He left it open-ended - it will be whatever we all want it to be, depending on the level of success we achieve over these first two pilot dates. It could crank up again next year, when the good weather returns to the city. A lot of us in the room were probably thinking, ‘Why not just keep them going right now?’ At least, I was. 
Wade blogged on the Slow Food Nation site about a big event going on that same weekend:
While you’re exploring Slow Food Nation events, consider checking out another landmark environmental event in San Francisco that weekend called Sunday Streets.
Sunday Streets—an ally of Slow Food—is also a growing environmental health movement. It re-envisions city streets as safe spaces for physical activities. The concept is simple: open streets for people on Sunday mornings to use as open space and create new car-free havens for physical activity.
Sunday Streets is also an innovative way to connect local residents to San Francisco’s neighborhoods, and support local businesses in the process. It literally brings open space to local residents, activating local corridors with healthy activities and demonstrating the benefits of increasing open space within urban boundaries.
Cheryl Brinkman, president of Livable City, did a good job explaining some of the motivations behind Sunday Streets. It sounded like she put a lot of work into it.
Let’s do this!
And don’t forget to volunteer if you’d like to participate in what will be a historic event for our city!
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