SF Planning’s Lead Planner for the Hayes Public Life Study Was Just Looped In on Ways to Make the Hayes Street Closure More Permanent
This email was produced today in SFMTA’s response to our latest records request. On February 26, 2026, David Long, Senior Transportation Planner at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), emailed Jeremy Shaw — the lead/principal planner for the Hayes Public Life study* — with the following: “I’m reaching out from the SFCTA with an fyi that may or may not be relevant to your Hayes Public Life study… Lloyd Silverstein, president of the Hayes Valley Merchant Association, shared during …
The Politics of Exclusion in Hayes Valley
For the past several years, many of us have spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to participate in the future of Hayes Valley in good faith. We attended hearings. We submitted records requests. We documented conditions. We spoke with neighbors, merchants, agencies, and elected officials. We tried to ask difficult but reasonable questions about a one-block street closure that has steadily evolved into something much larger: a long-term political project reshaping an active commercial corridor. Somewhere along the way, …
Where Things Stand: The Hayes Street Farmers Market
The proposed weekly farmers market on the 400 block of Hayes Street is not occurring in isolation. It is being introduced into a corridor already operating under a long-running temporary street closure, recurring activations, and ongoing unresolved administrative concerns. What began as a limited, emergency-era response has quietly evolved into a layered operating environment. The farmers market is simply the latest addition to that framework. A Merchant Corridor Under Increasing Pressure The 400 block of Hayes is a functioning neighborhood …
Spring Roundup 2026
A Corridor Under Pressure Over the past several months, a series of decisions affecting Hayes Street have moved forward with increasing speed and decreasing coordination. What once appeared to be isolated actions (temporary closures, event permits, and incremental activations) now points to a broader pattern in how public space is being managed, and who is being included in those decisions. At the center of this is the 400 block of Hayes Street. What began as a temporary, pandemic-era measure has …
The Question No One in City Hall Wants to Answer: Why Are Business Corridors Left Unprotected?
San Francisco has spent years making it easier to close streets than to keep them open for the businesses and residents who actually use them. On the 400 block of Hayes Street, we are watching this play out in real time: a Shared Spaces permit already under formal administrative complaint for 71 weeks of sustained noncompliance is now being layered with a proposed year-long weekly farmers market. On Saturdays, this would effectively close the corridor from 7:00 AM to 10:00 …
The Question No One Is Asking: Why Is Restoring Hayes Street Not Even Being Considered?
A new proposal for a year-long weekly farmers market on the 400 block of Hayes Street (Gough to Octavia) is being framed as simple community activation. But the real issue is deeper. Every new “activation”, whether a market, event, or shared space extension, is being decided on the assumption that the street must remain closed. No one in City Hall is revisiting the fundamental question: Should Hayes Street be reopened at all? This is not about opposing a farmers market. …
