San Francisco crackdown at Mission BART plazas shows early progress
City Hall says its Mission BART plaza crackdown is showing early gains, but neighbors warn open drug use and vending may be moving to side streets.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said San Francisco’s 90-day crackdown at the 16th Street/Mission and 24th Street/Mission BART plazas was showing early progress after the first month. The campaign is meant to stop illegal fencing, curb open drug activity, connect people to services and make the plazas feel welcoming again, but the real test is whether the disorder disappears or just shifts a block away in the Mission.
The city’s response has pulled together public safety and transit agencies, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Recreation and Parks Department. Lurie said the work includes stronger enforcement, improved lighting, new cameras, ambassadors on the ground and real-time data sharing. City officials have said the first month was producing promising results, but that claim has to be measured against what riders, nearby shopkeepers and people walking between BART and Mission Street actually see day to day.
Those plazas were already symbols of a deeper breakdown. In 2022, the 24th and Mission plaza was fenced off because of open drug use and illegal vending of stolen goods. On March 6, 2025, police swarmed 16th and Mission in an effort to shut down an open-air drug scene and the illegal vending that had turned the area into a public nuisance. The latest push is an attempt to break that cycle without simply pushing it onto the next block.
Vendors have also been caught in the middle of the city’s broader crackdown. In January 2024, after 62 days of a 90-day street vending ban on Mission Street, businesses were reporting the first signs of improvement while vendors were struggling. San Francisco Public Works later extended vending prohibitions within a 300-foot radius of the Mission Street corridor and extended a limited vending pilot on Mission Street between 22nd and 25th streets, showing how tightly the city has tried to manage the street economy around the plazas.
Still, some residents and business owners say pressure at the plazas can send drug activity onto nearby side streets and parks instead of ending it. For the Mission District, the question is not just whether the two BART plazas look better, but whether the cleanup has made the surrounding blocks safer for commuters, neighbors and merchants or merely shifted the burden out of sight.
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