The San Francisco Chronicle reports that City Supervisor Chris Daly wants to ban cars from part of Market Street.  While transit would still be able to traverse the 2.3 mile stretch between Octavia Boulevard and the Embarcadero all privately owned passenger vehicles would be banned.

Daly says that the idea of closing Market Street came from the popularity of temporary street closures that Mayor Gavin Newsome is proposing.

Daly said discussion of a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom to close portions of city streets, including a large stretch of the Embarcadero, on two Sundays this year prompted his action.

"It's the city's grand boulevard," Daly said. "Why don't we go for the gold?"

Closing the 2.3-mile portion of Market Street would open the often-congested roadway to pedestrians and cyclists, though Daly said there would still need to be places where cars and other vehicles could cross.

Hopefully the reaction in the comments section isn't reflective of the overall mood of the populace towards street closures.  Most of the 590 comments on the Chronicle story are less than supportive.  Car free streets may be popular with the reform advocates and cyclists, but if the reaction of the Chronicle's readers is any indication, they have a long way to go before catching on with mainstream America.Some examples from the first page of comments:

Excellent! This way, business on Market will dry up, and all the cars will just end up on side streets anyway causing evey more traffic headaches. I can't think of a better idea.

 and...

Yet another example of why we need to make the board of supervisors position a part time job. These imbiciles have too much time on their hands so they come up with worthless legislation. Mission, Howard and Folsom Streets are already quite busy so the idea of diverting traffic to those streets is only more absurd. I suppose if one were to bad automobiles on Market Street, it would only make sense to ban bicycles since they are equally reckless in the face of pedestrians.

Photo: Kurt Rogers/San Francisco Chronicle