Initial surveying and clearing in 1847. Market Street is the prominent dividing line between the north-south grid laid by
Jean Jacques Vioget and the grid of Happy Valley aligned with
Mission Street. In 1839, the first street grid was laid in the Mexican trading post of
Yerba Buena by
Jean Jacques Vioget, largely aligned with the cardinal directions, with blocks measuring . Yerba Buena was renamed to
San Francisco in 1847 after it was
captured by United States troops during the
Mexican–American War. Market Street, which cuts across the city for from the waterfront to the hills of Twin Peaks, was laid out originally in an 1847 survey by
Jasper O'Farrell, a 26-year-old trained civil engineer who had immigrated there. Market Street was described at the time as an arrow aimed straight at "Los Pechos de la Chola" (the Breasts of the Maiden), now called
Twin Peaks. Property owners forced O'Farrell to retain the earlier Vioget-drawn north-south Yerba Buena street grid rather than conform the roads to the hilly topography; they also forced him to establish the diagonally-offset grid south of Market with larger blocks aligned with
Mission Street for
Happy Valley. Market was laid out to transition between the two competing street grids, parallel to and one block north of Mission. O'Farrell first repaired Vioget's original layout of the settlement centered around
Portsmouth Square, and then established Market Street as the widest street in town: between property lines. However, the width of Market also aroused the ire of property owners, who felt the new street was excessively wide and potentially encroached on their holdings; they made preparations to lynch O'Farrell. In
Forgotten Pioneers, T. F. Prendergast recounts: When the engineer had completed his map of Market Street and the southern part of the city, what was regarded as the abnormal width of the proposed street excited part of the populace, and an indignation meeting was held to protest against the plan as wanton disregard for rights of landowners; and the mob, for such it was, decided for lynch law. A friend warned O'Farrell before the crowd had dispersed. He rode with all haste to North Beach, took a boat for Sausalito, and thence put distance behind him on fast horses in relay until he reached his retreat in Sonoma. He found it discreet to remain some time in the country before venturing to return to the city. At the time, the Market Street
right-of-way was blocked by a sixty-foot
sand dune where the
Palace Hotel is now (at the intersection with New Montgomery), and a hundred yards further west stood a second sandhill nearly ninety feet tall. The dunes were leveled between 1852–54 and 1859–73, first by James Cunningham, who was responsible for levelling the area around Second and Montgomery, and then by
David "Steam Paddy" Hewes; Hewes purchased the steam shovel (nicknamed "Steam Paddy" as it was reputed to be able to do the work of a dozen Irishmen) that had been brought to San Francisco by Cunningham during the earlier period. The sand removed was used to fill Yerba Buena Cove between Portsmouth Square and Happy Valley at First and
Mission Street; Mission Bay at Fourth and Townsend; and for the construction of the
San Francisco and San Jose Railroad.
Growth streetcar turns at the foot of Market Street, in front of the
Ferry Building Hewes was also granted the right to lay tracks on Market to Beale to carry away the sand he was clearing. The Hewes Steam Paddy line carried of sand per 18-car load, with trains running every half-hour. By 1918 Muni was in direct competition with the
United Railroads of San Francisco (the successor company to the Market Street RailRoad Company) down the length of Market Street; the two operators each operated their own pair of rail tracks down that thoroughfare, which came to be known as the 'roar of the four'. The two Union Railroad tracks were on the inside and the two San Francisco Municipal Railway tracks were on the outside. at
Powell Street.
The Emporium is to the right. In 1892
The Owl Drug Company was established at 1128 Market Street and later grew into a leading American drugstore retailer.
Earthquake and fire File:1907 Geological Survey Map of San Francisco after 1906 Earthquake - Geographicus - SanFrancisco-humphrey-1907.jpg|Boundary of destruction following the
1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire File:Market Street, San Francisco, in ruins (1906).jpg|View southwest along Market (1906) File:Market St. From Ferry. (6348563732).jpg|Market, view southwest from near Ferry Building (1906) Early in the morning of April 18, 1906, an earthquake lasting less than a minute and subsequent fire left many of the buildings along Market Street in ruins; in some cases, buildings were dynamited to prevent the spread of flames. The burned area extended from Dolores and Franklin east to the waterfront. Within days, prominent citizens and property owners announced plans to rebuild their buildings along Market. United Railroads traffic was temporarily rerouted to Fillmore Street, and repairs to the tracks on Market were underway by April 22.
Willis Polk designed the Path of Gold Street Lamps in 1908 for United Railways’ trolley poles with street lights. The tops were designed in 1916 by sculptor
Leo Lentelli and engineer
Walter D'Arcy Ryan. The
Winning of the West bases were designed by sculptor
Arthur Putnam and feature three historical subjects: covered wagons, mountain lions, and alternating prospectors and Indians. The City required the highly ornamental poles to permit the much-opposed overhead trolley wires.
Market Street Redevelopment Plan Shortly after voters approved the creation of the
Bay Area Rapid Transit District in 1962, the report
What to Do About Market Street was published by the
San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR). A group of businessmen and property owners had commissioned SPUR to lead a team of city planners, designers, and real estate experts to form a plan which would "put new life into Market Street as a center of Bay Area business, shopping, and entertainment." At the same time, the City Planning department commissioned the architecture firm led by
Mario Ciampi to create the
Downtown Plan, which was published in 1963 and recommended that Market be limited to buses and emergency vehicles; it also called for extending the
Central Freeway under Van Ness and the downtown area via a new tunnel. The limited-access Market would extend all the way from The Embarcadero to Van Ness. The
San Francisco Municipal Railway streetcars were moved underground as
Muni Metro in concert with the development of the
Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the late 1960s. Construction of the
Market Street subway commenced in July 1967. Prolonged disruption to what had traditionally been the social and economic center of the city contributed to the decline of the mid-Market shopping district in later years. On June 4, 1968, voters in San Francisco approved Proposition A, which issued $24.5 million in bonds to pay for the reconstruction and improvement of Market Street to follow the completion of the double-decked subway. In 1980, Muni's surface operations were partially routed underground with full service changes occurring in 1982. While there were initially no plans to retain the surface tracks, several
Historic Trolley Festivals in 1980s had proven popular enough to reinstate operations in the form of the
F Market historic streetcar line.
Traffic changes , looking northeast toward the Ferry Building. The foreground bronze is entitled
Admission Day, by
Douglas Tilden. On September 29, 2009,
traffic-calming efforts took effect for a six-week test in which private automobiles would be restricted in travelling east from Sixth Street towards the Ferry Building. All eastbound traffic was encouraged to turn right onto 10th Street and then required to do so at 8th Street. Eastbound traffic entering Market from Seventh Street was required to exit Market at Sixth. These efforts followed recent
urban planning trends seeking to make streets safer and more pleasant. Drivers failing to comply faced fines. These changes were later made permanent. Planning efforts began in 2012 to ban private automobiles from Market Street altogether between Franklin and Steuart streets, in order to provide a better environment for transit, cyclists, and pedestrians. On August 11, 2015, the city banned private vehicles from turning onto Market Street between Third and Eighth streets. In December 2013, the city launched free
Wi-Fi internet access along Market Street.
Better Market Street A project called Better Market Street was started under
Gavin Newsom's administration to improve transportation on the corridor for people who walk, use bicycles, or ride public transit. Early efforts included traffic circulations trials in 2009 which disallowed right turns for automobiles on parts of the street. With Newsom stepping down as mayor in 2011,
Mayor Ed Lee continued planning for Better Market Street and announced a series of public workshops. Originally, the street redesign was intended to be implemented around 2013-2014 when Market Street was scheduled to be repaved. By 2013 the project had been delayed twice; first to 2015 and subsequently to 2017. After further delays, the most recent iteration of the project began implementation in 2020 under Mayor
London Breed's administration. The project initially proposed three alternative designs for Market Street: two that would provide transit priority and improved bicycle infrastructure in the form of raised
cycle tracks, and one that would separate
bicycle infrastructure onto
Mission Street instead. In 2018, the project was redesigned with a new alternative that would keep the cycle tracks on Market Street but would implement them as sidewalk-level bicycle lanes. The project would also reconfigure the transit boarding islands for buses and streetcars with two sets of boarding islands: a set on the inside for rapid service with larger stop spacing, and a set on the outside for local service. If implemented fully, the project is expected to cost at least $500 million and also include repaving the sidewalk and reconstructing sewer and utility lines under the street. In March 2019, a draft environmental impact report (EIR) for the project was released, with a final approval for the EIR expected later in 2019. The full plan was approved by the city in October 2019, including a short-term implementation plan that would disallow private automobiles on most of Market Street and a long-term plan that would include rebuilding much of the street. The transition to a car-free Market Street began on January 29, 2020. Studies released in late February indicated 6-12% travel time savings for transit routes on Market Street after the implementation, with negligible traffic effects on other streets. ==Sectors==