SFMTA Announces Sunday Streets 2014 Season
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which manages transportation in the city, and Livable City are pleased to announce the 2014 Sunday Streets Season, which starts on Sunday, March 9 along The Embarcadero, and concludes on October 26, 2014 with the season finale in the Mission District.
Sunday Streets began in San Francisco in 2008 and celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2013. As of October 26, 2013, San Francisco has hosted 44 Sunday Streets along 133 miles of temporary car-free streets for 212 fun and recreation-filled hours that inspired hundreds of thousands of people to participate in more than 1,000 free activities featured since the program started.
Sunday Streets organizers plan events in different communities across San Francisco, reaching dozens of diverse neighborhoods. Each season brings new opportunities for participants to engage in healthy physical activity, for neighborhoods to come together as a community and for local merchants to boost their business by taking advantage of additional foot traffic drawn to their area for Sunday Streets.
“Since its founding in 2008, San Francisco’s Sunday Streets has successfully created temporary open space for more than one million participants to safely walk, bike and play in different communities across the city,” said Edward D. Reiskin, SFMTA Director of Transportation. “We’re committed to continuing this successful program so that San Francisco residents and visitors, many of whom have come to anticipate these community-focused events, have regular opportunities to experience Sunday Streets.”
Sunday Streets 2014 Season features nine events taking place along established routes developed over the past five years, returning to popular host communities with a monthly schedule as follows:
- March 9: Season kick-off on The Embarcadero
- April 13: Tenderloin/Civic Center
- May 4: Bayview/Dogpatch
- June 8: Golden Gate Park/Great Highway
- July 13: Richmond
- August 24: Mission
- September 14: Western Addition
- September 28: Excelsior
- October 26: Season finale in the Mission
San Francisco’s Sunday Streets program is inspired by Ciclovía – Spanish for ‘bike path’ – that started in Bogota, Colombia in the 1970s as a cost-effective way to provide open space for recreation for city residents. This unique program sparked the imagination of city leaders in North America in 2008, when the first major Ciclovía-inspired programs – collectively referred to as ‘Open Streets’ – were introduced in Portland, OR, New York City and San Francisco.
There are now more than 100 Open Streets programs in the United States and many more cities are looking to adopt this type of program as the Open Streets phenomena continues to gain popularity across the globe. “We’re proud of San Francisco’s leadership role in creating one of the largest and most popular Open Streets programs in North America,” said Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City. “There are eight cities that we know of that call their program Sunday Streets, which is a direct reference to San Francisco’s successful program.”
Sunday Streets is presented by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and Livable City, Sunday Streets’ non-profit partner responsible for the day-to-day management of the program. Additional support from city agencies provided by Mayor Edwin Lee and his offices, Department of Public Works, Department of Public Health, Recreation & Parks Department, San Francisco Environment, the Port of San Francisco and San Francisco Police Department, Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Small Business Commission.
Sunday Streets funding is provided by our generous sponsors, Major funders include: AT&T, Bank of America, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Bi-Rite Markets, Blue Shield of California, Genentech, Kaiser Permanente, Partnership for a Healthier America, Presidio Trust and Parks Conservancy, Recology, REI, San Francisco Federal Credit Union, Shape Up SF, Sports Basement, The San Francisco Foundation, The Seed Fund, United Healthcare Workers West-SEIU, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Zendesk.
Valuable in kind support for Sunday Streets is provided by a range of organizations, including City CarShare, Parkwide LLC (free bike rentals at Sunday Streets), Red Cross of the Bay Area (emergency medical support), San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and YMCA of San Francisco. Media Sponsorships Clear Channel Radio, The San Francisco Examiner and Johnny Funcheap provide press and media support to help get the word out in advance of every Sunday Streets event.
For more information go to Sunday Streets website: www.sundaystreetssf.com; Twitter: Twitter.com/SundayStreets, Facebook: Facebook.com/SundayStreets
Livable City: www.Livablecity.org;
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency: www.sfmta.com