SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A section of San Francisco’s Great Highway will reopen to weekday traffic after being restricted to pedestrians and bicycles as a safe recreational area for more than a year during the COVID pandemic, city officials said on Known Thursday.

The route – from Lincoln Way to Sloat Blvd – has been a popular spot for local residents to walk, hike, or cycle since April 2020.

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According to the new plan, car traffic on the route will be prohibited on weekends.

“Using the Great Highway during this pandemic has shown what we can do to give our residents and families more opportunities to enjoy the west side of our city,” the Mayor of San Francisco London Breed said in a press release. “Closing the Great Highway on weekends and holidays ensures residents and visitors alike can continue to enjoy this incredible space while also addressing the needs of our families and residents who will have to go to school and work during the week when it reopens.”

Starting Monday, August 16, the Great Highway will be closed to vehicle traffic and only open to pedestrians and bicycles from 12:00 PM Friday to 6:00 AM Monday

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“Creating a boardwalk on the Great Highway during the pandemic has changed with incredible benefits and real challenges,” said Supervisor Gordon Mar. “New and solid investments in Westside transit and transportation will be needed to really get the traffic going.” “Impact, and it is unreasonable to continue closing around the clock without them.”

Supervisor Connie Chan expressed her support for the plan.

“As the chief of the Richmond District, I’ve heard from most of my constituents that more traffic and connectivity are needed in north-south directions, and the Great Highway has been an important access road,” said Chan.

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Going forward, San Francisco officials said they would develop a plan to determine the long-term future of the Great Highway.

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After more than 10 years as a research center in San Francisco, Bayer is leaving the city to concentrate its research activities in Boston.

“In order to optimally use our resources and carefully leverage internal and external innovation potential worldwide, we have decided to consolidate our research innovation activities in the USA in the Boston, MA area, where we are working on the Kendall Square project in. invest Cambridge, “said a Bayer spokesman on Tuesday evening in an email.

“As a result of this decision, we will close our Open Innovation Center-North America West in Mission Bay, San Francisco in accordance with the end of the lease for this facility,” added the spokesman.

The San Francisco Business Times first reported the site’s impending closure on Monday, noting that the company’s lease for the space expires in October.

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Germany-based Bayer settled in San Francisco in May 2010 and relocated 65 researchers to a space vacated by Pfizer near the University of San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus. In 2012, the company opened its Mission Bay CoLaborator, a 6,000-square-foot incubator in the same building. The incubator has now been expanded to 30,000 square meters.

When Bayer’s lease on the space expires, the companies that have settled in the incubator will be without homes. Bayer is working “with the CoLaborator companies to ensure a smooth transition to future locations of their choice,” said the spokesman.

The company’s own workforce at the site has shrunk to just 20 as a result of the relocation of research projects between different locations, the spokesman said, adding: “The work of this team will be integrated into the work of other Bayer teams around the world.”

In April, Bayer announced the impending closure to its employees and encouraged those affected to apply for other positions within the company, including nearly 100 biotech positions at the Berkeley site across the bay.

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The Berkeley site is home to Bayer’s global production center for hemophilia A products, but could contain a lot more at some point. The company is seeking approval from Berkeley executives for a 30-year plan to add 1 million square feet of manufacturing, research, and office space to the site, the San Francisco Business Times reported in April. It is planned to use the site for the production of drugs such as protein therapeutics as well as cell and gene therapies.

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SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – San Francisco small businesses will soon benefit from a new $ 62 million relief plan, Mayor London Breed said in a COVID-19 update Tuesday afternoon.

The financial relief includes grants and “very low to interest-free loans,” the city said.

“We have already lost too many of our small businesses during this pandemic and this relief plan will help many businesses get through these challenging next months as the vaccine is distributed and we can begin our recovery,” said Mayor of London Breed.

How the city describes the assistance proposals:

SF Relief Grants – up to $ 12.4 million: The proposed grant program will provide immediate help in stabilizing small business operations by offering grants ranging from $ 5,000 to $ 20,000 based on the number of employees each employer had in February 2020. This program will support small businesses run by colored people, women, long-term businesses who are hardest hit by home work and who are excluded from or otherwise inaccessible to state and federal programs. Companies must be located in San Francisco and / or have a corporate license in San Francisco to operate.

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SF Community Investment Loans – Up to $ 50 Million: This proposed loan program aims to assist businesses by providing working capital, especially to those excluded from existing aid programs. This includes companies that typically have annual sales in excess of $ 2.5 million, including many restaurants. This plan also includes an emphasis on microcredit for businesses that may otherwise not be able to borrow capital.

Before the funds can be distributed, the board of directors must first pass an ordinance, which will be introduced this month.

The latest COVID-19 numbers

Dr. Grant Colfax said while the city has seen a 70% increase in COVID-19 cases since Thanksgiving, the increase in December holidays is 28%.

He also offered positive information on ICU beds in San Francisco – Colfax said the county still has ICU capacity to treat patients, but surrounding counties in the Bay Area continue to have shrinking capacity.

Across the region, the Bay Area has an ICU availability of 0.7% as of the last update.

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Vaccination efforts

San Francisco leverages community-health partnerships to deliver vaccinations for the most vulnerable.

“The health department will ensure that vaccines are offered to these populations,” Colfax said.

People aged 65 and over will be offered the vaccination this week as part of the San Francisco Department of Health’s clinical care system, Colfax said.

The county is also working with the Latino Task Force to ensure vaccines reach the populations with the highest prevalence of COVID-19 cases.

According to the Department of Health, San Francisco residents who identify as Hispanic or Latin American account for 43.3% of all reported COVID-19 cases, despite only making up about 15% of the population.

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