'We've Been Waiting 30 Years': San Franciscans Demand Results as City Launches Infrastructure Overhaul

San Francisco's Department of Public Works formally launched its decade-long infrastructure rehabilitation program on July 1, committing $2.8 billion toward street repaving, sewer replacement, and water main upgrades across all 11 supervisorial districts. For the people who live and work alongside the decay, the announcement landed with a mix of relief and deep skepticism.

The timing matters. The city has deferred maintenance on core systems for so long that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave San Francisco's street network a D-minus grade in its 2024 infrastructure report — citing more than 680 miles of roadway rated in poor or failed condition. That backlog didn't accumulate overnight, and residents know it. Three consecutive mayoral administrations, including London Breed's eight-year tenure, prioritized homelessness response and housing production in budget negotiations, repeatedly pushing infrastructure line items into the out-years.

'Every Rain Season, the Same Holes'

Walk two blocks down 16th Street in the Mission and the problem is visible from both directions. Concrete panels heaved up by tree roots bracket a stretch of sidewalk near Guerrero Street that has sent at least four pedestrians to the emergency room since 2022, according to a 311 complaint log obtained through a public records request. A wheelchair user who lives in a rent-controlled apartment on Capp Street described navigating half a mile of broken curb cuts each morning just to reach the BART station at 16th and Mission. The city received her first complaint in 2019.

Conditions in the Tenderloin are worse by most measures. The nonprofit Tenderloin Community Benefit District has documented more than 200 active sidewalk defects between Turk Street and Golden Gate Avenue — a corridor that also hosts the city's highest concentration of unhoused residents sleeping on pavement that the Department of Public Works hasn't fully repaved since 1993. A longtime restaurant owner on Leavenworth Street said he lost two outdoor tables to a sinkhole that opened last February and sat coned off for 11 weeks before any crew arrived.

The Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant in Bayview-Hunters Point offers a different kind of infrastructure failure. The facility, which processes roughly 80 percent of the city's sewage, runs on equipment installed during the 1970s expansion. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission estimates it needs $400 million in capital upgrades before 2030 just to maintain Clean Water Act compliance. Residents in Hunters Point — who already bear disproportionate environmental burdens from the former Naval Shipyard — have been telling the SFPUC the plant smells and periodically malfunctions for at least a decade.

Money Allocated, Trust Deficit Remaining

The $2.8 billion package, drawn from a combination of a 2024 general obligation bond, federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocations, and SFMTA capital reserves, is the largest single infrastructure commitment in the city's history. Department of Public Works Director Carla Short said at the July 1 press conference that her agency would begin repaving work on 47 priority corridors by October 2026, starting with segments of Cesar Chavez Street, Potrero Avenue, and Geary Boulevard.

Community organizers at groups including the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation and the Mission Economic Development Agency have already scheduled town halls in August to review which blocks are on the priority list — and which got bumped. They point to a familiar pattern: infrastructure dollars flow first toward commercial corridors and tech-adjacent neighborhoods south of Market Street, while lower-income residential streets wait another cycle.

The city has set up a public tracking dashboard at sfgov.org/infrastructure that will show project status, contractor assignments, and timeline updates by block. Residents can also file infrastructure complaints directly through the SF311 app, though the SFPUC has acknowledged a current backlog of roughly 14,000 open work orders. District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey has proposed quarterly public hearings before the Board of Supervisors' Public Works Committee beginning in September to hold department heads accountable to the rollout schedule. For neighbors who have watched promises dissolve into budget dust before, the dashboard and the hearings are a start — but only that.