When you're driving, it's easy to get trapped turning right onto Market Street at intersections where you can't drive across. And it is damn near impossible to turn left off Market.
Market Street is also a topic of debate for the San Francisco Bike Coalition. They are trying to make Market Street car-free, and have proposed a plan to go into effect when the street will be re-paved in 2010.
More information on a Car-Free Market Street can be found on the Bike Coalition's web-site at http://www.sfbike.org/?market
Here are some good places to get across:
Driving south to north
- Third Street crosses Market and turns into Kearny. (Or, if you take an immediate left after crossing, the beginning of Geary.)
- Seventh Street crosses Market to turn into Leavenworth or McAllister.
- Ninth Street crosses Market to become Larkin in the right lanes, and Hayes veering off to the left.
- Van Ness.
- Duboce lets you cross and go right up Buchanan behind The Mint into the Lower Haight.
- Church Street crosses Market and gets you into the Lower Haight, but you can end up stuck behind a Muni train.
- Diamond Street crosses Market (one-way going north).
Driving north to south
- Stockton and Ellis cross Market to become Fourth Street.
- Hyde becomes Eighth Street.
- Polk and Fell Street become 10th Street.
- Van Ness.
- Gough Street Gough crosses and then in a couple of blocks becomes Otis, which merges into Mission.
- Octavia takes you across Market and straight onto the highway with no options out.
- 14th takes you across at the six-way intersection with Church and Market, see below.
- Church Street works this direction too. Trains and pedestrians are thick here so be careful at this six-way intersection.
For more tips, see Driving.