No Single Agency Owns Market Street's Future as Committee Advances Five Bills

San Francisco's Land Use and Transportation Committee spent more than two hours on a sweeping hearing that laid bare a stark reality: no city department owns a unified vision for Market Street's recovery. The hearing, called by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, drew testimony from four departments and more than a dozen members of the public — transit advocates, neighborhood groups, small business owners, and labor — who split sharply over whether to close a loophole allowing ride-hail and Waymo on the car-free corridor or reopen the street to private vehicles. Before that marathon session, the committee unanimously advanced five pieces of legislation touching housing, electrification, street permits, building inspections, and indigenous cultural recognition.

• No unified plan for Market Street: Four departments acknowledged no single entity coordinates the corridor's transportation, economic, and public realm strategy

• 20+ organizations demand TNC loophole closure on car-free Market while SOMA residents push to bring private cars back

• SFPUC gains authority to buy developer-built electric infrastructure, unlocking Cordia's gas-to-electric conversion heating 185 downtown buildings

• 80–90% of block party permits will skip ISCOT hearings under new Permit SF streamlining law

• "Helen Waukazoo Way" advances to honor the founder of Friendship House after emotional testimony from alumni, staff, and advocates

• 335 units of 100% affordable housing clear their final infrastructure hurdle in the Transbay district