CityLab Daily: San Francisco’s Busiest Street is Going Car-Free

No cars allowed: With streetcar tracks, bus platforms, and plenty of road traffic to dodge, a weekday bike commute on San Francisco’s Market Street can feel like running an obstacle course for your life. On Tuesday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency approved a $600 million plan to kick out the private cars and create protected bike lanes and dedicated transitways. The vote to ban private cars was unanimous, with the goal of giving more space to people on what is currently one of the city’s most dangerous corridors. But the change didn’t happen overnight, as “these automotive blockades can be among the most controversial moves a city government can make,” CityLab’s Laura Bliss writes.

As New York City made a similar transformation earlier this month on its 14th Street corridor, it’s worth remembering that these U.S. cities have been eyeing the pedestrianized urban cores of their peer cities like Paris and Barcelona with envy for quite awhile now. Read Laura’s story: San Francisco’s Busiest Street Is Going Car-Free