Residents and hungry neighbors gather at Village Pizzeria for the Van Ness Improvement Project’s Meet the Expert speaker series, held each month at a different business on Van Ness.
As a sponsor of San Francisco Small Business Week (SFSBW), which takes place next week, we're proud to support the 85,000 small businesses that are an integral part of San Francisco's community and culture.
As part of SFSBW this year, we will join BART, SFO Airport and Caltrans to co-host a workshop called “Doing Business With Transportation Agencies,” where we'll help educate small business owners about opportunities to contract with local transportation agencies. All are invited to join the workshop on Monday, May 15 at 10 a.m.
Our efforts to support small businesses are certainly not limited to Small Business Week – they’re an essential part of our daily work to make transportation in San Francisco work better for everyone.
Whether it's making it easier for customers to get to neighborhood businesses using sustainable options like transit, walking and biking, or providing curb zones for loading and short-term parking, we work with merchants to help meet their needs every day.
We also engage with business owners early on when starting transportation projects such as street redesigns to hear about their priorities and needs, which helps us better plan our projects.
As a recent example, we distributed a survey to ask merchants about their curbside loading needs to help plan our Folsom-Howard Streetscape Project. And on the large Van Ness Improvement Project, we formed a Business Advisory Committee to receive regular guidance on how to minimize construction impacts as we revitalize this busy avenue. We're also working with Mission District merchants to form the Mission District Parking Validation Program with two of our nearby city-owned garages.
With our Small Business Working Group, which consists of members representing all 11 supervisorial districts, we meet several times a year to update business leaders on key transportation projects and hear their input.
When small businesses thrive, the city’s neighborhoods also profit culturally and economically. We're excited to be a part of this year’s SFSBW to celebrate our business community's contributions and achievements.
For information on how to apply for street improvements like new color curbs, traffic calming features, bicycle racks and transit shelters, please visit our Installation Requests webpage.
You can explore all of the workshops and events offered next week on the SF Small Business Week Events website and follow the conversation about SFSBW on social media with the hashtag #SFSBW2017.