Upper Haight School Bans Students, Parents From Ride-Hailing On Its Block

Upper Haight School Bans Students, Parents From Ride-Hailing On Its BlockPhotos: Camden Avery/Hoodline
Camden Avery
Published on March 21, 2017

If you've made your way along the 1500 block of Page Street lately, chances are you've caught a look at the hot pink signs posted up and down the street outside of the Urban School.

"NO RIDESHARE ON THIS BLOCK," the signs read. "No rideshare pick up or drop off on Page between Masonic and Ashbury."

A spokesperson for the private high school says that it's concerned about the dangers that ride-hailing cars pose to nearby pedestrians and cyclists.

"It's really just a safety thing," a spokesperson for the school told us. "Ubers were just stopping in the middle of the street."

The crosswalk outside the Urban School.

Kristen Bailey, Urban's director of communications and marketing, confirmed that "we are trying to change both parent and student habits" around ride-hailing services, because "just telling them and emailing them didn't work as well as we needed."

"Not only are there our students and faculty" using the street as pedestrians, Bailey added, "but the small children at FACES next door and the numerous bikers using the Page corridor."

But neighbors worried that the posting will crimp their plans for rushing off to the disco shouldn't be alarmed.

The measure was put in place as a school policy, Bailey said, not in conjunction with any restrictions put in place by the SFMTA.

The postings are "just for our school, not for the public at large," said the spokesperson. "Anyone who lives on the block is perfectly welcome to do whatever they like, of course."

Bailey said the school was in the midst of printing new signs that would clarify that the ride-hailing ban was a school rule, not a city rule.

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