A line of people waits to ride the cable car in 2024 at the Powell Street turnaround in downtown San Francisco.

The cable car turnaround at Powell Street is ground zero for many tourists wanting to have an only-in-San-Francisco experience. 

While waiting for their cable car ride, however, tourists also get a close look at the “poster child” for San Francisco’s downtown post-COVID doom loop. Thankfully, as my colleague Allison Arieff writes in her column on Thursday, the city plans to reinvent three blocks of Powell Street near Union Square.

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If you’ve been to the cable car turnaround lately, you’ve seen the empty storefronts. While tourism is up, the sidewalks are still not as bustling as they used to be.

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So, a reimagining is in order. 

The section of Powell from Market Street to Geary Boulevard will be transformed “into a world-class gateway,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said........

© San Francisco Chronicle