Mission neighbors envision future free of Central Freeway

San Francisco resident Nico Pitney said that as far as he’s concerned, The City could remove the Central Freeway tomorrow.

“I’ve lived in the neighborhood for four years,” Pitney said. “My issue is less about removing the structure than turning it into a livable space.

“You could have more parks, more walkable areas, more retail … It couldn’t happen soon enough!” he said.

Pitney was one of around 100 attendees at a Mission District block party earlier this month to raise money for the demolition of the Central Freeway .

The freeway, which runs east-west as part of U.S. Highway 101 and terminates at Market and Octavia streets, is a thoroughfare for drivers headed north into The City who want to avoid the Bay Bridge.

Now, many neighbors say they want it gone.

“I’m for removing it entirely,“ said Hesham Assabahi, a resident who has been supportive of past freeway teardowns. “In the middle of the day, nobody is on the Central Freeway. It’s hardly used.”

Assabahi acknowledged that the double-decker’s demise would ultimately bring more cars to city boulevards, including in his nearby neighborhood.

“Some traffic would be rerouted onto my street, but I don’t care,” he said.

The debate over tearing down the freeway has been a long time coming and is part of a nationwide movement to remove roadways and make space for communities. Los Angeles, Long Beach, New Orleans, Portland, and Buffalo, New York, are among the cities where residents have pushed — in some cases, successfully — to remove or convert highways.

At the Mission District block party, which took place in a cul-de-sac near the freeway, there was music, a food truck, kids’ activities, and large poster boards. Some illustrated the outcomes of highway noise and pollution, while others displayed what could be included in a reimagined corridor: a youth center, sports park, expansive sidewalks, affordable housing, and other proposals.

The party was the idea of Mission resident and high-school teacher Daniel Owens , who lives a short walk away. He says momentum is building. His organization, Vision Blvd., has partnered with nonprofit Greening Projects and design firm Multistudio — both of which were in attendance — and has received serious interest from Kids Safe SF, Walk San Francisco, and Livable City.

State Sen. Scott Wiener was also among those present, telling The Examiner he has no particular plan for what the freeway could become.

“I don’t want to prejudge it,” said Wiener, who represents San Francisco. “We need to engage with the community. There are a number of options, but all are better than a freeway going through a residential area.”

Wiener said the project might be difficult because “San Francisco has never removed a freeway without an earthquake happening first.”

Nonetheless, Wiener said he believes there is a national trend towards reassessing urban highways and their effects that could give the project momentum. Lauren Mayer of the Congress for the New Urbanism, a leading organization that promotes walkable neighborhood development, said she concurs.

“People are realizing that freeways are more than just moving traffic as quickly as possible,” said Mayer, the organization’s communications manager, who pointed out that many such pieces of infrastructure are reaching the end of their lives. Decisions must be made about whether to keep or tear them down.

She said that ever since the federal government started funding freeway removals for the first time a few years ago, many advocates have become encouraged.

“Money is flowing around,” Mayer said. “It’s a much bigger leap forward.”

Congress established Reconnecting Communities grants in 2021. Dedicated to bringing together — for economic and social benefit — regions previously separated by highways, it allocates $1 billion towards “the removal, retrofit, mitigation, or replacement of eligible transportation infrastructure facilities” according to the U.S. Department of Transportation website.

More than 40 localities have received grants, and federal transportation officials earlier this year approved The City’s application to study reconnecting the Fillmore, Japantown and Western Addition neighborhoods 60 years after San Francisco widened Geary Street into an expressway.

Geary’s expansion was part of The City’s urban renewal , which displaced thousands of San Francisco residents, homes and businesses in predominantly Black neighborhoods. The Central Freeway’s 1959 construction was contemporaneous with those efforts, and the building of highways around the country often specifically bisected communities of color.

Some at the block party, however, drew attention to the benefits of the Central Freeway. One local mother, children in tow, mentioned that she can quickly hop on and leave The City in five minutes.

Jen Levinson, who lives on nearby Woodward Street, echoed that sentiment. New to the topic, she said “the freeway is conveniently located to get out of town.”

But, glancing around at the block party, she said, “The idea of a community coming together to discuss this issue is appealing.”

Studies have been done to gauge the effects of local freeway removal.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority’s 2012 “Central Freeway and Octavia Circulation Study” analyzed a past demolition project, concluding that the replacement of four blocks of Octavia Street at surface level north of Market prompted by damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake “brought significant urban design and land use benefits to the Market-Octavia area,” but “operational challenges and concerns remain.”

The suggested solutions were to redirect freeway traffic to other on-ramps and to offer alternative means of getting around. New bus lanes, better pedestrian walkways and crosswalks, and bicycle lanes and racks were later installed.

A 2019 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health evaluated the partial replacement of Oakland’s Cypress Freeway with a street, finding a substantial reduction in pollutants. The authors stressed the importance of accounting for the “unintended paradoxical consequences” of environmental-justice activism, potential displacement chief among them.

Those at the Central Freeway block party maintained it all can work.

“I support removal,” said Jorge Romero-Lozano of Greening Projects. “If traffic is OK and nobody is displaced, this could be so much more.”