One of the most popular events at our annual Designing Cities Conference, the Meet the Cities poster session gives every NACTO member agency the opportunity to share their projects, successes, and works-in-progress with their peers. SFMTA prepared the content below for its 2025 Meet the Cities poster.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is making comprehensive changes along Folsom and Howard Streets to improve safety, comfort, livability, and multimodal function. This effort combines multiple capital projects with a phased implementation approach that includes quick-build installations.
Folsom Street serves eastbound traffic, and Howard Street serves westbound traffic. These couplets were designed for trucks and cars serving the manufacturing and warehousing industry, which was the dominant use in the post-World War II era. Walkways and bikeways are currently inadequate because the existing roadway is still designed to support and prioritize high vehicle volumes and has not changed with the neighborhood. Folsom and Howard streets are part of San Francisco’s Vision Zero High Injury Network, where 13% of San Francisco’s streets endure 75% of the total severe and fatal traffic collisions. In 2018, two people were killed on Folsom and Howard.
Quick-build and capital projects in San Francisco
In 2019, the SFMTA Board of Directors passed a resolution that enables the Agency to deliver quick-build projects in a more efficient and expedited manner by streamlining project delivery. Unlike major capital projects that may take years to plan, design, bid and construct, quick-build projects are constructed within weeks or months and are intended to be evaluated and reviewed within the initial 24 months of construction.
Quick builds as proof-of-concept are not just early safety interventions but also critical design tools. Project teams observe how people interact with new configurations and make data-driven adjustments before committing to permanent upgrades.
Capital projects represent a major investment in long-term infrastructure, with costs reflecting curb work, underground utility upgrades, landscape architecture, and other hardscape features. Quick-builds can be delivered at a fraction of the cost using lower-cost materials.
The Howard Street “quick-build” project is funded by local sales taxes and will cost approximately $400,000. The Folsom Streetscape project, a capital construction project, is supported by local, state, and federal grants and will cost approximately $45 million.
- After bikeways on Folsom Street were installed in late 2017, SFMTA measured a 21% increase in people biking and rolling.
- After improvements were installed on Howard Street in late 2020, the average annual total collisions decreased by 43%.
Check out all of the posters from Meet the Cities 2025.
