Design
To Improve Street Safety, San Francisco Bans Cars From Turning
The changes to Market Street traffic come under the city’s Vision Zero plan.
There are all sorts of things a city can do in the service of safer streets, from reducing speed limits to making room for bike lanes to handing out gift cards to law-abiding drivers. San Francisco just added another strategy to the list: restricting turns.
The move is part of a package of changes called the Safer Market Street plan—a subset of San Francisco’s broader Vision Zero initiative—that recently won the unanimous approval of city officials. Under the new rules, private cars will have limited chances to turn onto Market Street for a mile-long stretch between 3rd and 8th streets. SFMTA documents show that a total of 14 turns will be eliminated from the grid: