San Francisco's Street Park Plan

Recently heard about a plan by the San Francisco Parks Trust that aims to reclaim so-called ‘unaccepted streets’ as public parks. The programme’s goal is to get citizens involved in the creation of new green in unused parts of public space by transforming these spots into “community-managed open spaces”. Interested people are encouraged to apply for adoption of a potential public green spot and/or raise money to turn it into new urban green. Unaccepted streets are known as public rights-of-way that have not been built to city standards and have not been accepted for maintenance, and also as paper streets, because the streets only exists on paper.

“Public rights-of-way are streets, unaccepted streets, sidewalks, medians, stairways, circles, and triangles that are public space. (…) ‘Public right-of-way’ shall mean the area across, along, beneath, in, on, over, under, upon, and within the dedicated public alleys, boulevards, courts, lanes, roads, sidewalks, spaces, streets, and ways within the City, as they now exist or hereafter will exist.”

To further clear up what streets in San Francisco are considered unaccepted streets, the reader is directed to this PDF which contains a map on which all street park opportunities are marked. Click here to see which street park projects are currently running.