San Francisco Arbitrarily Closes 16th Street and 24th Street BART Plazas with No Public Process

16th Street/Mission BART Plaza, Photo from Bart Director Bevan Dufty’s Twitter Page

On April 16, the city of San Francisco barricaded the 16th Street/Mission and 24th Street/Mission BART Plazas except for walkways into the stations. The walkway at the 24th Street Plaza is exactly six feet wide, making it physically impossible for people passing each other to maintain proper physical distance. San Francisco has closed the public spaces around only these two Mission District stations, not at any of the other six San Francisco BART stations.

These two plazas are some of the only public spaces available to homeless and poor people, many of whom live in tiny SRO rooms. Supposedly, the reason to close the plazas is to enforce physical distancing. However, by closing the plazas, San Francisco has forced people to hang out in an even smaller area, most notably on the sidewalks near the plazas, making it more difficult to maintain six feet of separation among each other.

This arbitrary and discriminatory closure of the BART Plazas is the latest example of San Francisco trying to erase poor and homeless people from public view.

BART and San Francisco held no public meetings and did not solicit any public input before closing the plazas.

Outraged?

Contact these elected officials.

Bart Director Bevan Dufty: 510-464-6095, bevan.dufty [at] bart.gov.

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen: 415-554-5144, Hillary.Ronen [at] sfgov.org.