A Street Closure That Fails the Climate, the Community, and Common Sense
You’ve probably heard the pitch: closing streets is good for the environment. Fewer cars, more walk-ability, climate wins. But here’s what actually happens when the 400 block of Hayes Street is closed and why it undermines the very goals it claims to support.
Let’s be real: Hayes Valley has always had traffic. It’s a dense, active, mixed-use neighborhood. But the current closure is not business as usual, it’s a disruption with a ripple effect that’s making things demonstrably worse. Despite being marketed as a solution, the closure has done nothing to mitigate traffic; it’s simply shifted the burden onto surrounding streets and neighborhoods.
The permit holder even claims the closure provides a “reprieve” from the busy surrounding area…an ironic assertion, considering the only thing this street is offering a break from is basic functionality.
Since the City allowed the 400 block closure to continue, traffic hasn’t disappeared, it’s just been displaced. Vehicles are being rerouted onto residential streets, delivery and app-based drivers are circling nonstop, and the 21 Muni bus has been pushed off Hayes entirely – so much for prioritizing public transit.
Even more absurd is the idea that closing one block flanked by existing open space assets like Patricia’s Green, Parcel K, and the Page Slow Street—constitutes a net environmental or public space gain. This stretch is already surrounded by pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, making the argument for further closure not just weak, but wasteful.
Meanwhile, idling vehicles now clog Oak, Fell, Laguna, and the surrounding grid compounding traffic that’s already notorious in this area. Cars burn fuel as they wait for pickups or inch through congestion created by a weekend long roadblock. It’s not calming traffic–it’s amplifying emissions and chaos elsewhere.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a climate solution. It’s a climate contradiction.
The permit holder claims this closure is about sustainability and enjoyment for “every resident.” But who exactly is “every resident”? It certainly doesn’t include transit riders pushed off the street, delivery drivers in gridlock, or elderly neighbors who can’t be dropped off near their homes or appointments.
What’s being sold as a vision of inclusive, green public space is, in practice, a weekend playground for a select few, at the expense of small business, public transit, and actual climate progress.
Advocates for the closure lean on anti-car, pro-pedestrian messaging, but the outcome tells another story: fewer buses, more congestion, longer detours, and no realistic alternatives. In fact, the number of bus lines serving this part of the city has decreased compared to just five years ago—further undermining claims of improved transit access.
Hayes Street has gone from a functional mixed corridor to a feel-good bottleneck…wrapped in climate language but delivered with policy negligence.
And let’s not pretend this is truly a car-free zone. It’s a misnomer. Cars still enter and exit, there’s no consistent enforcement, and the street is constantly used by delivery vehicles, app-based drivers, and even private cars—undermining the premise of a pedestrian-first environment. To make matters worse, scooters and motorcycles zip through nonstop to pick up food orders, turning the so-called closure into a glorified delivery pickup zone.
This isn’t a shared street or a public realm success, it’s a failure of implementation, oversight, and accountability. The SFMTA has not enforced permit conditions, failed to adapt to real-world outcomes, and allowed private interests to define public space.
SFMTA and proponents of this closure should be joining our crusade for meaningful traffic mitigation…but instead, we hear crickets as they quietly pursue a permanent closure on Hayes. This misplaced focus doesn’t help mobility, the environment, or our neighborhoods.
And who benefits? Not the planet. Not the people stuck in traffic. Not the small businesses losing access and revenue. Only a narrow faction holding the permit to keep the street closed—while the rest of the city deals with the spillover.
What’s more, the chaos this closure creates isn’t just about emissions – it’s about equity. By displacing traffic and noise onto neighboring blocks, the City is effectively exporting pollution and disruption while privileging a curated street experience for a narrow group. That’s not climate forward, that’s climate selective.
This closure also runs directly counter to San Francisco’s own stated climate goals. Undermining public transit, increasing vehicle emissions, and failing to create accessible, equitable infrastructure is not how cities move toward sustainability, it’s how they erode it.
And let’s be clear: this isn’t an argument against pedestrian-friendly design. It’s a call for doing it well with broad-based support, data informed planning, and accountability. But a closure of this kind has no place on a prominent business corridor—especially one already serving a dense, diverse community. Public space done right improves life for everyone. This one doesn’t.
Reopen Hayes Street. Restore transit flow. Stop the greenwashing — and stop confusing a curated street fair with a climate solution.