At the beginning of last year, San Francisco was a different city. But since February 2020, the coronavirus has killed over 500 of its people and left thousands of storefronts vacant. The pandemic closed schools and exacerbated challenges for businesses, municipal government, and vulnerable residents, casting social inequities in stark relief.
Now, for the first time in 15 months, things are looking up: Almost 70 percent of San Franciscans are fully vaccinated, and 79 percent have received at least one dose. Restaurants are open for indoor dining as the CDC relaxes federal mask regulations. Though we’re not past the pandemic, it seems that we’re returning to a semblance of normalcy.
While the mists of death and loss still hang heavy, silver linings are poking through the cloud blanket like cautious, crepuscular rays. Indeed, well over a year after COVID-19 set off a crisis, some San Franciscans are seeing ways in which their city is actually better than it was — safer, more connected, more civic-minded. We saw reforms to help renters, small businesses, the unhoused, and others that have been elusive for years.
The changes hardly offset the pandemic’s toll and long-term effects. What’s more, they’re not set in stone and could be reverted to a pre-pandemic state. Nevertheless, there are clear improvements spurred by COVID. We’re taking a closer look at five of them.
Slow Streets
The month after the city announced its shelter in place order, SFMTA used temporary barricades to close streets across the city to motor vehicle traffic. Some of these closures — JFK Drive and the Great Highway in particular — have set off yearlong controversies, with fights breaking out between those who want car access restored and supporters who want the roadways to stay slow forever. Slow streets in denser neighborhoods have also seen their fair share of drama, but some are immensely popular with locals who enjoy the quiet, the safety, and the breathing room.
The Slow Streets program is the most dramatic change for San Francisco public space since Sunday Streets kicked off in 2008, and in a city that remains dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists (and drivers too), it’s a bold challenge to what activists call “car supremacy.” As a whole, the program has been a hit; 78 percent of respondents to an SFMTA questionnaire said they support the Slow Streets program.
Right now, three slowed streets are slated for permanent deceleration: Page, Sanchez, and Shotwell. Virtual open houses where residents can explore information and give feedback are currently open for Sanchez and Shotwell.
SFMTA hosted a virtual meeting last week about Sanchez Street, which is closed to through traffic between 23rd and 30th streets in Noe Valley. Many local residents said they loved walking and cycling on the freed-up space. Others, particularly those who live on Sanchez, complained about increased noise, unattended children running in front of cars, and people using the street as a park rather than a shared transportation corridor.
Shannon Hake, an SFMTA planner and Slow Streets project manager, said that the agency does not support people setting up lawn chairs, staging musical performances, or otherwise using the street for purposes other than transportation. She stressed that the Slow Streets team would continue to monitor activity on the street and make design changes as needed.
There will be more virtual meetings soon (the second meeting for Sanchez is scheduled for June 10), and SFMTA is evaluating other slow streets across the city to see which might be suitable for permanent slow status. The Slow Streets team will present their findings to the SFMTA board next month, where members will decide whether to extend the temporary program beyond the end of the COVID-19 emergency.
In the meantime, SFMTA will soon begin implementing uniform materials on existing temporary slow streets. Infrastructure on approved permanent slow streets will be installed in the fall. — Max Harrison-Caldwell
Shared Spaces
The emergency Shared Spaces program, a collaborative effort between SFMTA and other city agencies and departments, launched last July to make it easier for businesses to use space beyond their storefronts. Most shared spaces are parklets owned by bars and restaurants, but some retailers and businesses like barbershops have taken advantage of the program as well. So far, over 2,200 Shared Space permits have been approved.
Like Slow Streets, the program was implemented as an emergency measure, and was up and running just two months after the mayor announced it last May. Given San Francisco’s bureaucratic inertia, the process was inconceivably quick and efficient for large-scale urban change. According to a presentation by the Shared Spaces team in May, 80 percent of surveyed business owners with Shared Spaces said they either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “the Shared Spaces program is enabling me to avoid permanent closure.”
Also like Slow Streets, this program is now on its way to becoming permanent. Mayor London Breed introduced legislation in March for a version of Shared Spaces that will last beyond the end of the pandemic. It has been reviewed and revised over the course of 10 public hearings since April 1.
The city’s chief economist, Ted Egan, said last month that an analysis of the analogous parklet program that existed before the pandemic suggests that Shared Spaces will benefit the city’s economy. But the program is not universally beloved. Some say outdoor dining makes the sidewalks difficult to navigate, especially for the disabled. Others are concerned about the price tag: The program would cost SFMTA $10.6 million per year, mostly from loss of parking meter revenue, although permit fees could eventually offset some of that.
The Board of Supervisors’ land use committee voted last month not to send the legislation to the full board. The committee brought it up again this week and, after adopting amendments by supervisors Myrna Melgar and Aaron Peskin, decided to discuss the legislation further on June 18, with the public welcome to comment. — Max Harrison-Caldwell
Homelessness
It’s hard to find silver linings in San Francisco’s homelessness crisis. But the pandemic had one undeniable effect: More San Franciscans understand what’s at stake. During COVID, volunteers cooked meals and donated tents, and voters said yes in November 2020 to nearly $250 million in homelessness and mental health services, building upon a 2018 vote for a business tax (Proposition C) to create an annual revenue stream.
Perhaps the biggest change in mindset happened in City Hall. When the inevitable COVID cases shut down group shelters, Mayor London Breed’s team slowly moved people to hotels, citing “fiscal prudence.”
As the Tenderloin and other neighborhoods filled with encampments, a lawsuit from UC Hastings Law School and others forced the issue more. It was part of a pattern from Breed, who in 2018 opposed Prop C in the name of fiscal accountability.
But the pandemic finally made her go bolder. In mid-2020, Breed announced plans to add 1,500 permanent supportive housing units and fund outreach teams to respond to mental health crises.
Last week, the mayor’s new budget proposal offered more than $1 billion to address homelessness. A leading Bay Area business group is also calling for much more spending here and across the region.
The Board of Supervisors will have its say as the two sides hammer out a final budget. Making a big dent in homelessness would go down as a true silver lining of the pandemic era; that’s for future assessment. For now, at least there’s acknowledgment that spending a lot more money is going to be necessary. — Kristi Coale
Housing
Among tenant advocates, San Francisco’s response to COVID-19 could be construed as a radical proof of concept, demonstrating the extent to which the city can help renters given proper resources and motivations.
Last year, SF’s budget analyst estimated that at least 85 percent of renters were paying in full during the pandemic, but this statistic doesn’t account for those who asked for rent reductions, broke leases, or simply moved away. Though the budget analyst reported difficulty crunching the numbers, it nevertheless estimated that total unpaid rents may have topped $32 million monthly.
Last month, City Hall kicked off a $90 million renter relief fund, furnishing up to six months of back and future rent costs. In addition, the state is offering to cover 80 percent of back rents to landlords out of its own $5.2 billion fund, though that process is pretty byzantine.
Meanwhile, the eviction moratorium (actually, a series of moratoriums) all but exorcised the E-word from SF’s vocabulary: The annual eviction report to the Rent Board recorded just 733 eviction notices since March 2020, compared with 1,442 the previous year. Eviction attempts had been on the decline for several years already, but this 50 percent drop is still remarkable.
These measures came in response to a public health emergency, but of course, housing itself is a long-standing SF crisis. Now that Pandora’s cashbox is open, if we could bail out renters during one situation, why not another? It remains to be seen whether tenant groups and their progressive allies can strap wheels on this argument. Yet it’s always easier to pitch a continuation than a new proposal. — Adam Brinklow
Muni
The pandemic hit our transit operations hard. In the early months, ridership plummeted, and service was quick to follow. Until last month, the agency was operating at only 70 percent of former capacity. But now service is coming back, with all subway stations reopened and most light rail lines, as well as streetcar service, restored in mid-May.https://twitter.com/jeffreytumlin/status/1398714262592258048
In addition, the agency also plans to restore a dozen suspended bus lines in August, after which 98 percent of SF residents will live within three blocks of a transit stop. Stephen Chun, a spokesperson for SFMTA, said this level of access is “about the same” as the pre-pandemic level.
Five of the bus lines slated for August restoration, all in the southern half of the city, will come back with altered routes. (Maps are available starting on page 166 of this presentation.) These alterations will connect routes that previously did not overlap and extend lines to areas that lacked service before, particularly in the Bayview, Park Merced, and Visitacion Valley. A new bus line, the 58, will go around Lake Merced from San Francisco State University and into Daly City. Cable cars, for their part, will be restored by the fall, according to SFMTA.
These shifts are not as shiny as the silver linings for Slow Streets and Shared Spaces, yet tweaking these routes in advance of their restoration eases the transition for transit riders. The suspension of service during the pandemic has given Muni the chance to reevaluate routes and address gaps before bringing back lines. This may not be glamorous, but it’s important. — Max Harrison-Caldwell