A Digital Journal - San Francisco Public Works
In the Works
January 2026
In a neighborhood known for its pizzerias, North Beach residents long have complained that people were leaving empty takeout pizza containers stacked on the sidewalk or on park benches. But with the help of some outside-the-box thinking and San Francisco’s brand of ingenuity, we just may have solved the pizza box dilemma.
FEATURE STORIES
New Center for Homeless Youth Brings Critical Services to Lower Nob Hill
Designed by Public Works, the new Transitional Age Youth Health & Wellness Center at 888 Post St. will be open 24/7, ensuring that unhoused adults – between 18 and 27 years old – will have access to showers, laundry facilities, a hair salon and more.
An accordion-playing busker sets up next to one of the new pizza box bins to the delight of passersby.
Thinking Outside
the
Box
When it comes to ways to dispose of takeout pizza containers, San Francisco’s famed North Beach neighborhood is no longer boxed in.
This month, District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter led the unveiling of two new trash bins designed specifically for pizza boxes — no more trying to squeeze a square cardboard box into the round opening of a standard public garbage can.
Supervisor Danny Sauter holds court at the public launch of the new pizza box bins.
These custom-designed receptacles are outfitted with horizontal openings big enough to accommodate most pizza boxes, making it much easier to throw them away properly.
The opening of the bins was designed to accommodate most pizza box sizes.
In a neighborhood known for its pizzerias, North Beach residents long have complained that people were leaving empty pizza boxes stacked on the sidewalk or on park benches. Or they tried to stuff them in the public trash can only to get them stuck, making it all but impossible to fit more trash in the can.
Sauter responded and brought together Public Works and Recology, the City contractor that services the public trash cans, to brainstorm solutions to the pizza box dilemma.
“We want to make it easy to do the right thing,” Sauter said.
This bin, near the corner of Union and Stockton streets, sits in a prime location for people looking to toss their empty pizza boxes.
Recology had the new trash cans manufactured and commissioned muralist Simon Norris to design the whimsical exterior wrap that depicts North Beach attractions and uses illustrations to show people what the bin is for and how it works.
Public Works suggested the best locations for the bins from an operations and sidewalk accessibility standpoint and the department’s in-house carpenters installed them.
Muralist Simon Norris designed the colorful wrap around the bin.
Both bins can be found on the Union Street sidewalk along the perimeter of Washington Square.
“It’s great people are in North Beach enjoying a delicious slice or a whole pie,” said Public Works Director Carla Short. “These new pizza box bins will make it easier for them to discard their empty cardboard containers without littering.”
If these two on Union Street prove popular and effective, City officials may install others in areas where pizza boxes are often piling up.
Any way you slice it, it’s worth a try.
The Public Works team involved in the pizza bin project.
San Francisco wasn’t the first city in the country to put out pizza box bins — New York City got a jump two years ago. But the ones in North Beach, designed in-house by Recology, were made to be maintained and serviced more efficiently.
It didn’t take long after the receptacles were unveiled at a lunch-time press conference on Jan. 23 for people to start using them.
And it works! Soon after installation, the specialized bin was put to use.
“OK, this is pretty sweet,” said North Beach resident Kathy Dennison, as she used one of the new bins to toss out a takeout pizza box that had held the medium cheese, sausage and mushroom pizza she had shared at Washington Square with her cousin visiting from Colorado.
“I get pizza to go pretty regularly,” she added. “And while I really haven’t given this much thought before, getting the empty boxes into the regular garbage cans can be frustrating sometimes. Like they just don’t want to fit. What the City is doing now is a good idea.”
An insider’s view of the pizza bin at work.
BY THE NUM83R5
PUBLIC WORKS
In 2025 (January through December 2025)
10,073
POTHOLES
FILLED
11,985
TREES
PRUNED
1,197
CURB RAMPS
CONSTRUCTED
586
NUMBER OF BLOCKS RESURFACED
23,756
TONS OF DEBRIS COLLECTED
Crews dismantle the walkways piece by piece.
Walk the Walk: Public Works Crews Remove Downtown Eyesore
People walking along the perimeter of a construction site for a high-rise development in the East Cut neighborhood had very reluctantly gotten used to awkwardly navigating a series of temporary, narrow walkways that replaced the regular sidewalk to accommodate the project.
A portion of a First Street walkway that has not yet been removed.
But then months turned into years and the word “temporary” took on a new meaning when the walkways on the northwest edge of Mission Street and First Street stayed in place for nearly a decade, becoming magnets for trash and graffiti.
Six years ago, China-based developer Oceanwide Holdings went into default, abandoning the unfinished Oceanwide Center project that at one time envisioned a pair of mixed-use skyscrapers in downtown San Francisco.
Left behind was a partially completed project with little to show for except for a foundation, shabby construction fencing and the temporary walkways — much to the dismay of people who regularly walk the route.
Scene from the abandoned construction site.
But this month, in a deal brokered by the City’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, crews removed the walkways and began sidewalk restoration work. The project is expected to wrap up the first week of February.
It took the coordinated labor of Public Works’ sheet metal workers, steamfitters, carpenters, cement masons, electricians, asphalt workers and general laborers to get the job done. They dismantled the walkways, removed the temporary fencing and gates, relocated about 49 tons of bricks stacked on pallets, repaired damaged sidewalks, patched holes in the roadway pavement where the structure had been and installed new fencing to keep people out of the construction site. Our chief structural engineer also consulted on how to safely dismantle the walkway structures.
After removing each scaffolding frame, workers cut out the remaining plates that are bolted into the sidewalk and sweep up the debris.
A crane was brought in to rig the heavy tops of the walkways. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency de-energized overhead power lines to accommodate the crane and installed new poles to support the overhead wires.
A crane lifts up the top of a walkway.
Jeffrey Soria, assistant superintendent of the Public Works Bureau of Building and Street Repair, served as project manager. Jamal Katout, a Public Works maintenance manager, was on site daily, coordinating the trades staff while maximizing staff safety and minimizing the disruption to the public in the heavily congested area in the shadow of the Salesforce Tower.
It was a major undertaking and one welcomed by the neighborhood.
A Public Works carpenter disassembles the walkway.
“Good news,” the East Cut Community Benefit District posted on social media. “The sidewalks are officially REOPENING at Mission and 1st. After years of fencing and scaffolding, we are thrilled to see the sidewalks coming back at one of the East Cut’s busiest corners. This is a big win for the neighborhood’s walkability, safety and streetscape.
“A massive shout-out to the city team that made this possible,” the East Cut said, “especially the Public Works and MTA staff carrying out the project.”
Public Works sheet metal pros take apart a walkway frame.
As for the future of the site, a new development team closed on a deal this month to purchase the property, the Chronicle reported. The team intends to jump-start the project and reconfigure it.
The City fronted the money to pay for the sidewalk restoration work – the final tab is still being calculated – with an expectation of reimbursement with funds from the sale of the property.
Restoration of the Mission Street sidewalk is almost complete.
The new health and wellness center for unhoused, young adults features a large communal space.
City Opens New Health and Wellness Center for
Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness
As part of San Francisco’s push to serve and support young adults experiencing homelessness, a newly opened center in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood, on the edge of the Tenderloin, aims to provide critical health and wellness services, from showers to laundry facilities and even a hair salon.
Designed by Public Works, which also provided construction administration services, the new Transitional Age Youth Health & Wellness Center at 888 Post St. will be open 24/7, ensuring that unhoused adults – between 18 and 27 years old – will have access to personal hygiene opportunities and essential services.
The center includes lockers, showers, restrooms and changing rooms.
The need is real. The City’s Point-in-Time count in 2024, the most recent available dataset, showed there were more than 1,100 unhoused young adults, ages 18 through 24, in San Francisco.
“The opening of the TAY Health and Wellness Center is a significant step forward in our commitment to addressing the special needs of young adults struggling with homelessness,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the City’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
The health and wellness center project, a partnership between the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and San Francisco-based nonprofit GLIDE, looks to empower young adults by maximizing their ability to live and work in the community, offering them the support they need to pursue their goals. The floor above the new center houses an existing congregate homeless shelter for young adults.
Officials cut the ribbon for the new center in the Lower Nob Hill neighborhood.
To mark the ribbon-cutting of the new health and wellness hub on Jan. 29, scores of City officials, community members and GLIDE workers – surrounded by refreshments and colorful balloons – joined together in song, prayer and celebration inside the brand-new center.
“This really was a group effort, working alongside everybody's vision, to create this incredible space,” Public Works Director Carla Short told the crowd. “We are super excited to be part of it. We are honored to have contributed to it and we look forward to seeing what the future holds.”
Public Works architect Peter Engel, who helped design the new center, shared the sentiment.
“This is a very important project, in my opinion,” he said. “Because it’s trying to provide a safe place and more for youth of this age group who are basically on the streets. And part of the purpose of this place is to meet basic functional needs.”
The roughly 10,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of a three-story, City-owned building at the corner of Post and Hyde streets features a range of amenities. They include secure storage for personal belongings, a kitchenette, a pantry, a community space to watch movies and play video games, a quiet room, a small clinic, computer workstations and even an outdoor area for pets.
An outdoor space for pets includes a washing station for them.
The fenced-in patio space – with a patch of artificial grass for pets and plenty of seating opportunities for visitors – also includes a pet washing station. “And if you think about it, that’s really important,” Engel said. “It’s not like an extra thing. People who live on the street or spend a lot of time on the street, for whom a pet is really an important part of their life, they need to wash and their pet needs to get washed.”
Without those types of amenities and a low-barrier-to-entry setup, people may not want to come and take advantage of the center, making it harder for them to get connected to services, he added.
Turning the space – which once housed a car showroom – into a welcoming, functional sanctuary for unhoused, young adults was not without its challenges. For one, designers had to make sure they afforded patrons a certain level of privacy while at the same time providing an inviting environment.
“There’s a push and pull between making it open for natural light and making it pleasant and having it protect the people inside” from being viewed by people from the outside, Engel explained.
The solution: giant shades that can be pulled down to adjust the visibility to everyone’s liking.
Attendees of the Jan. 29 ribbon-cutting event share a laugh.
Additionally, designers and crews had to contend with an uneven, worn concrete floor that needed to be leveled out to meet accessibility requirements. “It had been hacked up and patched and there were previous trenches in the floor,” Engel said. “And that proved to be very challenging. You know, if something is 1% too steep, that’s not good enough.”
Designers also had to make sure that staff and case managers are able to monitor the communal space in the center of the floor from their offices along the perimeter. That’s why generous windows open a sightline from the offices to the large, multipurpose room.
“So people actually at their desks can look out and see what’s going on,” Engel said.
Even within the communal space in the middle of the center, designers wanted to give staff and patrons the flexibility to adjust the environment to their needs.
T-shaped partitions allow staff and patrons to create different zones within the large communal space.
“The idea was to make the big multipurpose space have flow,” said Patty Solis, senior architect and section manager with Public Works' Bureau of Architecture. “And that was accomplished by having it organized with these T-shaped partitions, which are very low in height.”
That allows people to create zones for different activities, from reading to working on a laptop to playing video games, Solis said.
The center includes a breakroom area for patrons to share a meal.
Tiered seating in a corner of the space is intended for watching movies on a dropdown screen. A small lunch area allows patrons to heat up their food. Acoustic panels floating overhead and on the walls are designed to prevent noise from bouncing off the concrete walls and high ceilings.
“I think this will provide a huge service to the neighborhood,” Solis said of the new center. “Help alleviate some of the stress from being out on the street for a lot of these youth and be a nice, quiet respite for people to catch up, take a breather, get some help.”
A Public Works employee evaluates a freshly paved street.
San Francisco Roadway Conditions Rank Above
Bay Area Average
An end-of-the-year assessment of San Francisco roads found that the City maintained a Pavement Condition Index score of 75 in 2025, a rating deemed “good” and tops among big Bay Area cities.
Findings from the annual evaluation are released Dec. 31 of every year and are tracked by the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The assessment looks at the condition of each block and assigns a cumulative score.
The score represents an overall rating of road conditions on a scale from 0-100, with zero being a pothole-riddled, crumbling street and 100 signifying a freshly paved road. The average score in the region is 67. San Jose’s latest reported score is 73; Oakland’s is 58.
In San Francisco, crews paved 581 City-maintained blocks in 2025.
San Francisco Public Works oversees the City’s Street Resurfacing Program and uses both in-house and contractor crews to complete the work.
Crews pour concrete during improvement work in the shadow of Coit Tower.
San Francisco’s PCI score sat in the mid-60s during the early 2000s. But the City’s commitment to fund roadway maintenance over the last 15-plus years has yielded a steady rise in the pavement condition score. The $979 million investment over that period resulted in more than 9,000 – or two-thirds – of San Francisco’s nearly 13,000 City-maintained blocks being resurfaced.
Any dip in funding will likely lead to worsening roadway conditions.
Crews paved 581 City-maintained blocks in San Francisco in 2025.
The resurfacing program at Public Works follows industry best practices by preserving streets in good condition instead of letting them deteriorate. This approach is the most cost-effective. Our driving philosophy is to treat the right road with the right treatment at the right time for the right price.
Extending the life of a block in San Francisco that is in good condition can cost as little as $50,000. By comparison, the price to completely reconstruct a block in very poor condition is $500,000 or more.
Hut! Hut! Super Bowl LX festivities are coming
to San Francisco
Football royalty is touching down in the Bay Area next month.
The 2026 Pro Bowl Games will be held at Moscone Center in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena neighborhood on Feb. 3, followed by the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Thousands of visitors will be in the City throughout the week to attend concerts, a Chinatown block party, speakers’ forums and other public and private events.
With all that activity comes crowds and congestion. Please give yourself extra time and plan ahead to get around town.
Over the past year, the City has been preparing for Super Bowl week, ensuring increased law enforcement presence to keep people safe. Public Works will have extra street cleaners and inspectors on the ground in high-impact neighborhoods, as well.
“We are prepared, we are coordinated, and we are confident that we will provide a safe, welcoming experience for our residents and visitors,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Visit the City's Official Super Bowl page for event information, transportation updates and public safety details to help you navigate the week.
The new Public Works Permits Portal lets you apply from anywhere.
Say Goodbye to Paper: Public Works
Launches New Digital Permits Portal
As part of a citywide effort to cut red tape and streamline the permitting process, Public Works is moving from analog to digital, ditching long lines and scrapping onerous paper forms in favor of an easy-to-use online portal.
Now you can apply for permits, track your application status and communicate with City staff — all online, all in one place. Welcome to the Public Works Permits Portal. The new system went live Jan. 29.
For a quarter century, our permitting system has relied on paper forms, in-person visits to the Permit Center and clumsy online forms that often led to errors and frustration.
Today, the new Public Works Permits Portal lets you apply from anywhere — your desk, your phone, even your kitchen table. You'll create an account once with your personal or business information, and you're set. No more filling out the same forms repeatedly for every application. If you prefer in-person help, our Permit Center team is still here to guide you through the digital process.
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A screenshot shows the landing page of the new Public Works Permits Portal.
Once you submit your application, you'll be able to follow along as your request moves through the queue. Log in anytime to see where it stands, read plan checker comments and track progress, from submission to approval. Even better, you can message your plan checker directly in the portal — a real person, not a bot. No more chasing updates through email or phone calls.
We've also streamlined other processes.
Need tow-away signs for your construction project? You can now pay for City-printed signs when you pay your permit fee or print your own. Either way, access them anytime in the portal instead of navigating a separate system. If you're a designated First Year Free business, you can validate your status and Business Account Number automatically rather than wait for manual staff approval. And we've eliminated parking plans from applications entirely.
The portal also makes collaboration easier. Permit consultants, engineers and architects can share applications and comments directly with their clients. Businesses sharing a Business Account Number can view all their company's applications in one place instead of emailing documents back and forth with colleagues.
Some of the permits now available through the online portal include sidewalk repair permits and street space permits.
We launched with four of our most-used permits — street space permits, sidewalk repair permits, right-of-way conformity inspections and temporary occupancy permits. Together, these represent 62% of the annual permit volume at Public Works. Over the next year, more permits will be added to the Public Works Permits Portal.
This is the first phase of our journey toward PermitSF — a unified, digital permitting system for all City permits, not just those administered by Public Works. As you use the new portal, we'll be listening. Your feedback, along with staff insights and technical data, will shape the development of long-term solutions.
Visit sfpublicworks.org/permitsportal to create your account and submit your first digital application.
Need help? Stop by the Permit Center on the second floor at 49 South Van Ness Ave. for personalized assistance or email us at PublicWorksPermits@sfdpw.org.
Want updates on our permits and programs? Subscribe here.
Welcome to the future of permitting in San Francisco.
A young volunteer digs in during this month’s Love Our City: Neighborhood Beautification Day.
#LoveOurCity with a Celebratory Twist
Public Works has hosted large monthly volunteer greening and cleaning workdays in neighborhoods across San Francisco for more than two decades but the one this month marked a first: incorporating a 5-year-old’s birthday party as part of the day’s activities.
“We wanted to do something our daughter and her friends would enjoy and to give them an opportunity to learn more about volunteering,” said Christina Chen.
Her daughter, Maeve, is not new to volunteering; she and her mom have become regulars at our Love Our City: Neighborhood Beautification Day events, planting trees and tending to schoolyard gardens.
Rather than a traditional party, the family chose to spend Maeve’s birthday giving back — volunteering together at the 2026 season kickoff of Love Our City: Neighborhood Beautification Day.
Maeve (front, right) celebrates her birthday with her parents and younger brother at the volunteer workday.
Maeve’s dad, Kaixiang Lin, said volunteering has become part of the family’s DNA. He and his wife are both immigrants from Dalian, China. They moved to the United States in 2009 and settled in San Francisco eight years later.
“When we came to this country, the community helped us,” he said, “and now we want to give back.”
The family invited about three dozen people, about half of them kids 4 to 6 years old, to the event, providing pizza, cupcakes, salad, drinks and party favors. Public Works set aside a special space with tables and a canopy for them to gather. District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood led a rousing sing-along to “Happy Birthday” and Mayor Daniel Lurie, who also was on hand, extended birthday wishes.
A flurry of helpful hands makes quick work of weeds.
The young volunteers’ project: pull weeds and mulch the garden at Civic Center Secondary School in the Western Addition. Equipped with smaller kid-friendly wheelbarrows, gloves, vests, shovels and rakes, they got to work. Their parents and Public Works staff joined them. Close your eyes for a moment and it sounded a lot like a children’s playground with joy-filled whoops of enthusiasm.
The Jan. 10 event drew more than 100 volunteers in total. In addition to the schoolyard garden project, participants planted trees, painted out graffiti, picked up litter and spruced up sidewalk planter boxes in the Tenderloin, Hayes Valley, Western Addition and other District 5 neighborhoods.
Young volunteers work in the garden at Civic Center Secondary School.
Public Works organizes a Neighborhood Beautification Day event once a month, January through November, rotating through each supervisorial district. Public Works’ arborists, landscapers and cleaning and community engagement teams work alongside community members to not only improve neighborhoods but also to forge partnerships and bolster civic pride. While Maeve’s birthday party was the first one we hosted for kids, we certainly hope it won’t be the last.
Next month, the Neighborhood Beautification Day operation heads to Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, Dogpatch and other District 10 neighborhoods on Saturday, Feb. 14. We’ll be marking Valentine’s Day as we show San Francisco some love. The day will get started at 9 a.m. at Bayview K.C. Jones Playground, 1601 Armstrong Ave. We hope to see you there!
