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(credit: SFist reader Bryce)
by Chris Jones
We regularly commute by bike from our pad in the Upper Haight down to our office on the Embarcadero and have been curious as to how the closure of Market Street to east bound car traffic would affect our morning commute. Well, we're pleased to report that everything went swimmingly. Cross traffic was heavier than usual but most drivers seemed aware of what was going on. A few of the fattest of the City's finest were stationed in the middle of the intersections of 8th and Market and 6th and Market to direct ignorant drivers off the street. Only a few SUV drivers managed to barrel through obliviously. These cretins soon learned their lesson, as we cyclists shook our fists and hurled invective at them. Ok, not really.
The only other incident of note was when a friendly homeless wandered out into the street to greet us and a few of our fellow cyclists. "Mmmrph Market grrmp closed hungh you like? Heh heh heh Kaff! Kaff! Kaff! Snarch! Kaplooey!" he said.
Also, we even shaved five minutes off our commute time. We look forward to many more car free mornings.
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Now with Market partially closed... we can have some kind of flash mob dancing in the streets!
dear god, i hope this isn't permanent.
Phew, I'm glad this benefitted Chris Jones. Of all of the people involved, I was most worried about him.
I gotta go with Chris here - biked from the Haight to North Beach via market this morning at about 9:45. Once we were past 8th, things went much more smoothly than normal, and didn't nearly-die even once!
I'm more curious as to how this affected bus commuters - anyone here want to chime in about this?
I did the bike commute at 8:45 as usual from 10th and Market to 2nd and Market. I was looking forward to this day thinking it would be some miracle change. Well it was pretty anticlimactic. I realized there are very very few cars on these blocks anyway. It usually all busses and taxis at the Whitcomb and then nothing in front of Trinity and then some delivery trucks by Donut World. So at each intersection I was still squeezed between the curb, big ass vans, buses and trucks. No change...
there will be madness and mayhem and roving bands of feral barking humans!
saaaaaaay.....this is kinda nice
took the bus around 10 a.m. and it went pretty smooth (not that that time of day is too busy for buses anyway).
The biggest changes are no long lines of cars waiting to turn right at 4th or New Montgomery
Ok, but how was the line of cars waiting to turn right at 10th and 8th?
No lines there that I noticed. Those aren't very traffic jam-my intersections anyway
I biked. the air had a delicious autumn crispness.
It will be worth all the smug "great streets" claptrap if bus service is actually faster at rush hour. I bet some enterprising soul could figure this out with Nextbus data.
who the hell drives on market anyway