As part of the Hayes Valley Public Life Study, the San Francisco Planning Department is conducting a survey of Hayes Valley businesses regarding the Hayes Street closure.
Hayes Valley Safe was asked to assist with distributing the survey to businesses in our network. Before sharing it, we identified two questions regarding the survey design that we believe should be addressed.
Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HayesValleyStreetClosure
Question 18 and normal street operations
The survey asks businesses which street-closure schedule would work best for them and provides several alternatives involving continued recurring closures. It does not provide an explicit option for ending the recurring closure and restoring normal street operations.
Because the study is intended to evaluate the Hayes Street closure and inform future decisions, we have asked Planning whether that option can be added.
Anonymous participation
The survey requests a business name and location but does not clearly explain whether businesses may participate anonymously or how identifying information will be handled.
Based on six years of outreach concerning the Hayes Street closure, we have encountered businesses willing to provide feedback but reluctant to have their views publicly attributed to them. We have therefore asked Planning to clarify whether anonymous participation is permitted and, if so, to make that clear in the survey.
Stakeholder review
At the outset of the Public Life Study, HVS was invited to provide input on study scope, questions, metrics, and survey methodology. We were not asked to review this business survey during its development and received the completed instrument when we were asked to assist with its distribution.
We have raised these questions with Planning and will update this page when we receive a response.
We recommend holding off on participating until Planning responds to these questions.