19th Avenue closes for 70 hours in San Francisco repair project

Northbound 19th Avenue closed Friday morning between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way, turning one of San Francisco’s busiest north-south arteries into a 70-hour repair zone that rippled through commuter traffic, Muni service and weekend trips to the west side. With only one lane left open for local access, emergency vehicles and buses, the shutdown hit a corridor that carries roughly 66,000 to 67,000 vehicles a day.

Caltrans said the closure was part of a three-phase rehabilitation project meant to compress work that would normally take about 40 working days into 10 days of full closures. The agency said the broader 19th Avenue Rehabilitation Project will repave all northbound and southbound lanes of State Route 1 between Lincoln Way and Holloway Avenue, covering about 18.8 lane miles, along with the Park Presidio Boulevard and California Street intersection. The project is targeted for completion by December 2026.

The first shutdown ran from 7 a.m. Friday, April 24, through 5 a.m. Monday, April 27. Two more weekend closures are scheduled, one on southbound 19th Avenue from Friday, May 8, through Monday, May 11, and another northbound closure from Friday, May 22, through Monday, May 25. Caltrans said Phase 1 parking-strip repaving was completed on January 30, 2026, before the larger lane closures began.

Transit riders along the corridor were set to feel the squeeze as well. SFMTA materials show that the 28 19th Avenue and 28L 19th Avenue Limited lines together serve more than 8,500 customers on an average weekday, while the M Ocean View adds about 5,400 more riders at stops along 19th Avenue at Holloway Avenue and Winston Drive. San Francisco Unified School District warned that the closures begin at 7 a.m. on Fridays and could disrupt school drop-off and pickup traffic, with students, families and staff facing major delays and detours.

Drivers were urged to use Junipero Serra Boulevard and Brotherhood Way, with Sunset Boulevard also expected to absorb some of the west-side spillover. The pressure on nearby businesses was immediate, as merchants along the corridor worried about lost foot traffic and sales during a closure that some said arrived with too little notice. San Francisco Public Works has already seen the corridor need emergency pavement repair in May 2024, a reminder that the aging street infrastructure is now forcing repeated and disruptive fixes.