[Blue Greenway Planning and Design Guidelines, via Port of San Francisco]
Once home to ships and their navigators, much of San Francisco's waterfront remains largely open and unused. But now, thanks in part to a 2008 park bond, the multi-hued project Blue Greenway is underway, an effort to "link the city's growing population with those years when San Francisco's bustling seaport ruled the West Coast," writes the Chronicle. Working with The Recreation and Parks Department, the Port of San Francisco is developing public space spanning 13 miles of shoreline between China Basin and the San Mateo County line near Candlestick Point. The goal: to bring recreation and park land to these neighborhoods as they transition away from their strictly industrial roots. Among new creations: Bayfront Park, 6 acres of shoreline between Pier 54 and Mission Rock, and a "three-quarter-mile bikeway along Cargo Way from Third Street to Jennings Street, protected from traffic.....and featuring its own, cyclist-only traffic signals, the first in San Francisco." Expect picnic areas, play structures, benches and general sprucing up of landscape in future months, plus public art displays where now only abandoned grain silos hulk. The only downside we can see is that plans may overshoot the budget for this overhaul. "It's a $44 million project" but so far the city has less than half that amount to make waterfront dreams come true.
· Port of San Francisco Blue Greenway Project [official site]
· Open Future for City's Maritime Past [SF Chronicle]
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