San Francisco Public Works

Today’s Neighborhood Beautification Day brought dozens of community volunteers out to the Sunset, Parkside and other District 4 neighborhoods to clean and green San Francisco!

Balmy weather fueled high spirits and hard work, inspiring volunteers to take part in projects including pruning, litter pickup, median landscaping, graffiti removal and the planting of six trees on 28th Avenue.

Earlier today, Public Works staff and community members helped plant six street trees along Turk Street, near Jones and Leavenworth streets, to commemorate Pride Month and the 60th anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, which occurred in August 1966 in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, marking the beginning of transgender activism in the City.

The Tenderloin is home to The Transgender District, created in 2018 as Compton's Transgender Cultural District, the nation's first legally recognized district dedicated to the transgender, nonbinary and intersex community.

The tree planting – in partnership with the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, nonprofit SFLuv and The Transgender District – boosts the tree canopy in this diverse neighborhood.

Thank you to all who joined us!

We held our fifth annual flag raising event at our Operations Yard today to officially kick off our Pride Month celebrations.

The ritual of raising a flag provides us an opportunity to join together in celebration and remembrance. The colorful Pride flag is a symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community – a show of support and recognition that ours is an inclusive department where everyone is welcome. It is a value we strive to uphold every day, but shine a brighter light on during our June Pride Month celebrations.

We wish everyone a happy Pride Month!

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

ANNUAL OCEAN BEACH SAND RELOCATION PROJECT STARTS TUESDAY, JUNE 2

The operation aims to reduce recurring sand buildup on the Great Highway

Starting Tuesday, June 2, San Francisco Public Works will begin its annual sand maintenance activities at Ocean Beach. City crews will redistribute approximately 24,000 pounds of sand over the next two weeks. The aim is to decrease the likelihood of sand buildup on the adjacent Great Highway – now an oceanside park known as Sunset Dunes – during windy weather.

Public Works Operations staff will use front-end loaders, backhoes and other heavy machinery to reduce the height and width of the sand dunes and move sand away from the roadway and toward the ocean – efforts that have been shown in past years to delay the natural progression of sand encroachment onto the Great Highway.

Crews will be on the job weekdays, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. The work will focus on the stretch of beach between Noriega Street and Santiago Street. The sand buildup near Judah Street then will be addressed if time permits.

Considered an active construction site, people and their pets should keep at least 50 feet from the heavy machinery as a safety precaution.

Public Works has a small window to perform the annual sand redistribution work; it must be timed to make sure crews do not disturb the Western Snowy Plover, a small shorebird that is protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The plovers can be found at Ocean Beach about 10 months out of the year but take off in the spring or early summer to nest in other coastal areas and inland salt flats. Monitors with the federal Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) have confirmed that the plovers have left Ocean Beach and that it is safe to begin relocating the sand.

The work is being done in coordination with the GGNRA and under a special-use permit for activities that occur on federal parklands.

🗣 Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

The latest edition of "In the Works - A Digital Journal,” our monthly newsletter, is hot off the presses. 📰

In this issue:

💡 LiDAR, Camera, Action: New Tool Helps Public Works Level Up Its Architectural Surveying

🏗️ A Concrete Way to Build Greener

🚴 City Rolls Out Traffic-Safety Upgrades Along Eastern Waterfront

🫧 UN Plaza Fountain Scrub-Down

🌱 Love Our City: Neighborhood Beautification Day

🔗 Read our newsletter: https://www.sanfranciscopublicworks.org/may2026

Crews were out this morning reconstructing parking strips along Turk Street, between Divisadero and Buchanan streets.

Our Bureau of Urban Forestry crews were out in force across the City yesterday, cleaning and greening and repairing damaged curbs and sidewalks from the Marina District to Noe Valley and Ingleside.

At Chestnut Street and Van Ness Avenue, gardeners and laborers removed invasive foxtail and nasturtium and line-trimmed the median, while another crew mowed the median along Dolores Street near 28th Street. Nearby, crews from our nonprofit street tree planting partner, Friends of the Urban Forest, planted a young red horse chestnut.

In the hills of Ingleside, our cement masons demolished and framed a 150-foot stretch of sidewalk and curb in preparation for a major replacement pour scheduled for this week.

Ugh: Big litter mess at 15th and South Van Ness in the Mission this morning. 😒 Ahh: Public Works crews swooped in promptly and cleaned up the mess. 🙂 But what would be better? If people didn't trash our streets in the first place. ❤️

Bay to Breakers 2026: ~30,000 participants, tens of thousands of spectators and 60+ Public Works crews cleaning up after the iconic race.