Send Your Letters to:
To express your support for re-opening Page Street to cars, and reducing traffic on Oak Street, please send your letter to the people and organizations listed here. Short on time? Feel free to use, or modify, the sample letter below.
Sample Letter
From: [Your Name]
Subject: Re-open Page Street Now!
Dear SF Supervisors,
Page Street was designated a Slow Street in response to a once-in-a-lifetime public health crisis. But we no longer need the extra space provided by Page’s closure for exercise and recreation while physically distanced. We’re lucky to live in a world-class city with existing parks and recreation, as well as vibrant business corridors that provide dining and entertainment, which even more San Franciscans will return to as life gets back to normal. And, regardless, most pedestrians have already reverted to using the sidewalks on Page Street.
As commutes and car traffic resume, the communities that border Page Street are also suffering unfairly due to its closure. It has only exacerbated several issues by funneling even more traffic to neighboring streets, especially Oak Street. Without investing huge sums of money on new windows and insulation to address air and noise pollution impacts, it’s becoming impossible to sleep, to work, and even to safely breathe, in our own homes!
Closing Page Street also poses significant public safety issues. Neighboring streets, particularly Oak Street, have become more dangerous for pedestrians as anxious drivers stuck in traffic block our intersections – yet there’s no car traffic and hardly any pedestrian traffic on Page! And that’s just the danger we can obviously see. In review of Slow Streets, Fire Marshal Dan de Cossio recently reported to the SF Fire Commission that “we’ve seen an increase anywhere from just a few seconds to 32 seconds in response time throughout the city. So moving forward, and if we’re running between 50 and 70 percent traffic volume now, what is that going to be when we’re at a hundred percent?” Mere seconds can mean the difference between life and death, or between property protection and property loss. Is that a risk you’re willing to take just to satisfy the whims of the SFMTA?
Pedestrian usage of Page Street is likely to decline even further as the City and the world re-open; but closing Page Street to cars forever will benefit just a few vocal Page Street property owners at the expense of the safety and health of their current and future neighbors. It’s time to re-open Page Street now!
Thank you,
[Your name]