Townsend St
120+ decisions the Board of Supervisors took about Townsend St, between 1906 and 2019, read from its own minutes and each linked to the scanned page; most of them in the 1910s; often about railroads and spur tracks, streetcars and transit, paving and grading.
Open Townsend St on the map, street by street →
What keeps coming up
- Railroads and spur tracks29Rail lines run into factories and yards — the industrial city, mostly gone by 1930.
- Streetcars and transit7Streetcar lines built, extended and pulled up again.
- Paving and grading7Cutting streets to their official level and surfacing them.
- Parking7Where you could leave a car, and where you could not.
- Clinics and hospitals7Clinics, health centres and hospitals.
- Sewers6Sewers laid, broken, replaced — and occasionally sinking with the ground.
Decade by decade
Newest first. Each decade shows its most notable decision; the line opens the scanned page.
- 2010s14Planning report backs freeze on replacing South of Market workshops · 2016
- 2000s12Western SoMa special use district passed, ten votes to one · 2006
- 1990s6Building height limits reset across Mission Bay · 1991
- 1980s13$50M in bonds for 414 flats on Townsend Street · 1985
- 1970s1State grant sought to design an Embarcadero surface rail line · 1978
- 1950s2Hearings on assessment cuts put off to July 10 · 1950
- 1940s1Gale Street between Townsend and King proposed for closing · 1945
- 1930s3Thirty-day trial agreed for the bus route past the railway station · 1939
- 1920s8City buses ordered along The Embarcadero to the Golden Gate Ferry · 1925
- 1910s43Baggage charges capped at 75 cents a trunk from the depot · 1918
- 1900s17United Railroads asks to keep its Market Street trolley running · 1908
The most notable decisions
City buses ordered along The Embarcadero to the Golden Gate Ferry
Ordinance · 30 December 1925 ↗City to run a five-cent bus line along The Embarcadero
Ordinance · 10 August 1925 ↗$50M in bonds for 414 flats on Townsend Street
Resolution · 9 December 1985 ↗Western SoMa special use district passed, ten votes to one
Ordinance · 18 July 2006 ↗Building height limits reset across Mission Bay
Ordinance · 25 February 1991 ↗Below-market flats proposed for buildings of ten or more units
Ordinance · proposed · 13 November 2001 ↗Moving the CalTrain terminal to the Transbay Terminal is proposed
Resolution · proposed · 24 November 1986 ↗$550,000 sought for a shuttle bus from the Caltrain terminal
Resolution · proposed · 14 May 1984 ↗State grant sought to design an Embarcadero surface rail line
Resolution · proposed · 20 March 1978 ↗Thirty-day trial agreed for the bus route past the railway station
Motion · 21 August 1939 ↗
Where this comes from
The street holds more than 120 decisions; this page carries the 120 most notable. Every line is written from one item in the minutes of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city council, and links to the page it was printed on at the Internet Archive or in the Clerk's own files. Many of the Board's decisions name no street at all, and only the ones that do can be placed here. How the record was read · The whole city