Mission Creek

Since 2017, the Port has connected with tens of thousands of San Francisco residents through the Waterfront Resilience Program.

Public feedback collected about Mission Creek underscores the importance of providing neighborhood recreation, including areas for walking and biking, and keeping connected to the rest of the city through bridges and infrastructure. Additional feedback highlights preserving and enhancing the creek, preserving natural habitats, protecting jobs and small businesses - including medical and research facilities - and maintaining housing and other neighborhood services. 

Further feedback highlights additional community priorities, including opportunities to:

• Restore and protect habitats and wetlands.
• Improve public access to the waterfront.

Community feedback also helped identify places in Mission Creek that people love, including:

• Mission Creek Shoreline Park, located on the shoreline of the bay and featuring pathways, benches, sport courts, a dog park, and landscaping. 
• Fire Station 1, which provides coverage for the South of Market area, and Fire Station 29. 
• Mission Bay houseboats, a tightly-knit community with about 35 boats and 20 houseboats. The community was relocated from Islais Creek in the 1960s. Many of the residents have lived in the community for decades and the houseboats are visible from many of the area's shoreline parks. 
• Caltrain King Street Station and Transit Hub, the northern end of the Caltrain commuter rail line between San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Santa Clara Valley.
• Wetlands and bird habitats that are part of the aquatic life in the area. 
• Locations where restoration projects have already been led, or could be organized, to continue to maintain and restore the creek. 
• Neighborhoods and local businesses.

Click on the blue dots to learn more about each place.

The Port, in collaboration with City partners and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is taking steps to better understand the different seismic and flood risk along its 7.5-mile bayside jurisdiction. Recent efforts include the:

• Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment
• Flood Resiliency Study (with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
• Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Consequences Assessment (City of San Francisco)
• Islais Creek Adaptation Strategy (with SF Planning, SFMTA, and SFPUC)
• Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study
• Southern Waterfront Seismic Vulnerability Assessment

Scroll down to learn more about the seismic and flood risks in Mission Creek based on these findings.

Improving the seismic safety of the waterfront is a top priority of the Waterfront Resilience Program. See the  Seismic and Flood Risk 101  page to learn more about the history of earthquakes in the Bay Area and San Francisco’s commitment to improving seismic safety. 

Much of San Francisco’s central waterfront, including the Mission Creek subarea, was built on bay fill. These filled areas are more prone to seismic risk and impacts from large earthquakes. Keep scrolling to find out why.

Liquefaction is an unique phenomenon that happens when water-saturated sediment (like sand) temporarily loses strength and acts as a fluid. Imagine jumping on wet sand near the water at the beach until it turns soft and your feet sink in.

Liquefaction is caused by strong ground shaking during an earthquake and is greater in areas with sandy soils. As a result of liquefaction, buildings, roads and utility lines may lose their foundational support and the likelihood of significant damage increases. 

The map shows the Mission Creek subarea liquefaction risk rated as: Very High (dark red), Moderate (orange), Low (light orange), and Very Low (yellow). The areas rated as Very High were once the Mission Creek floodplain and wetlands, and these areas have the thickest layer of bay fill.

Liquefaction can also increase the risk of lateral spreading, which is when gently sloping ground starts to move downhill, causing cracks to open up. Lateral spreading is a seismic hazard that causes large areas of land to move, typically toward a body of water. This results in potentially large cracks and settlement at the ground surface, resembling a landslide but on relatively flat ground.

While the unique, pressing risk of lateral spreading that is associated with the Embarcadero Seawall is not present in Mission Creek, the subarea’s filled land makes the risks of liquefaction and ground shaking important to consider.  

A preliminary seismic assessment for Mission Creek will be completed as part of the Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study, which will:

• Examine potential earthquake hazards and vulnerabilities along the waterfront between Mission Creek and Heron’s Head Park.
• Recommend areas for further analysis and produce a conceptual list of potential seismic mitigation measures.

Further information about the potential seismic hazards and vulnerability of Mission Creek will be included in the Southern Waterfront Seismic Vulnerability Assessment. This assessment will not be at the same level as the recently completed  Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment  (MHRA) under the Embarcadero Seawall Program. It will be used as part of the Port’s work to better understand the waterfront risks of the entire 7.5 miles in its jurisdiction.

Interested in learning more about what the Port is considering to improve seismic safety along the waterfront? Visit the  Measures Explorer  page to read about specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront in the event of earthquakes.

The Port and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have partnered to study flood risk along San Francisco’s bayside shoreline. The Flood Resiliency Study is one of several federal, state, and local collaborations to help the Port increase resilience along the San Francisco shoreline.

Launched in Fall 2018, the approximately three- to five-year Flood Resiliency Study will identify vulnerabilities and identify recommended strategies to reduce current and future flood risks for consideration by the Assistant Secretary of the Army and the U.S. Congress for federal investment and implementation.

Historically, Mission Creek ran from approximately Mission Dolores in the Mission District through what was once a much broader and extensive Mission Bay, which was once an approximately 500-acre lagoon filled with tidal waters. The subarea’s generally low, flat topography makes it more prone to flooding from current and future flooding as sea levels rise.   

Scroll down to see the different risks and impacts for Mission Creek when considering various scenarios for flooding and sea level rise. The flood maps presented here are from the  Adapting to Rising Tides Bay Shoreline Flood Explorer .

Overtopping is when water, usually in the form of storm surge or a wave, can reach over the shoreline and cause inland flooding. In general, overtopping of natural shorelines such as wetlands and beaches occurs at a lower flood elevation than overtopping of engineered shorelines such as seawalls, bulkheads, and wharves.

Red lines shown on the map indicate where overtopping begins to occur with 36 inches of sea level rise, or today's high tide combined with a 50-year coastal flood event. Overtopping would occur:

• Along a short distance of the southern shoreline along the Mission Creek channel, causing flooding in Mission Creek Park and the nearby residential neighborhood.
• At an isolated area near the Interstate 280 overpass, leading to flooding of the King and Berry Street intersection.

Learn more below about how flooding or future sea level rise is likely to impact Mission Creek.

A tipping point is reached when the impacts of a flood go beyond a certain area, creating cascading consequences that can have citywide or regional ramifications. Damage is more than can be immediately addressed and affects critical assets and the community. The Port and the City use the concept of a tipping point to understand when planning for large-scale shoreline adaptation projects is necessary and which site-specific approaches to flood risk reduction may be overwhelmed. Understanding tipping points and how they vary along the waterfront can also help compare and prioritize projects along the waterfront. 

Mission Creek reaches a critical tipping point with 48 inches of sea level rise, or 7 inches of sea level rise combined with a 100-year coastal flood event. In this situation, overtopping would:

• Occur at two places along theMission Creek shoreline, flooding multiple streets within the residential neighborhood and impacting local transit routes. 
• Create a widespread flooding inland of the southern Mission Creek shoreline that would span several streets. 
• Cause backwater flooding of the drainage channel adjacent to the Channel Pump Station, causing floodwaters to flow east along Berry Street and into the  Mission Rock  subarea. 
• Block access to both drawbridges across the Mission Creek Channel, resulting in cascading consequences to local and through traffic and operation of the T-Third Muni Metro line. 
• Prevent access to the Mission Creek boat launch, which also provides access to the San Francisco Bay Water Trail.

This map shows the flood impacts for Mission Creek when considering the City’s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Zone.

The City’s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Zone covers areas that will likely face future flooding and inundation in a 100-year coastal flood combined with 66 inches of sea level rise. This is a high-end  scenario projected by the end of the century. Projects within the Zone must include sea level rise adaptation strategies to support the increased resilience of San Francisco’s communities, but they are not usually required to build that level of flood risk reduction now. Rather, they must demonstrate approaches to adapt to that flood level at a later time.

Under this scenario, significant areas of Mission Creek could be flooded. The entire Mission Creek shoreline would be overtopped if flood protection or adaptation actions are not implemented. This could result in:

• Impacts to the support facilities and utilities connected to the Mission Bay houseboat community.
• Flooding of three smaller wastewater pump stations, the Berry Street, Harriet-Lucerne, and Merlin Morris Pump Stations. These pump stations help reduce the potential for rainfall-driven flooding within the Mission Creek neighborhood.
• Inundate the Caltrain tracks at the Caltrain King Street Station and Transit Hub. The trains would not be able to access this station if the tracks are flooding.
• Flood Fire Station 8, which could reduce emergency response times in the Mission Creek subarea.
• Impact the Channel Pump Station, which could have widespread consequences for most of the western side of the city. The Channel Pump Station is one of the city’s largest pump stations, pumping wastewater flows from neighborhoods near Fisherman’s Wharf down to Mission Creek for treatment at the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant.
• Flood the Fifth Street Homeless Center, the largest homeless shelter in Northern California, offering a wide range of services and assistance programs aimed to improve the basic quality of life for the individuals and families served.

The Port and the City are also considering the H++ Scenario in the  State of California’s most recent Sea Level Rise Guidance (2018) . The H++ Scenario (shown in magenta) represents the area that could be inundated by 2100 if global ice sheets melt much faster than currently anticipated.

Interested in learning more about what the Port is considering to mitigate flooding and sea level rise? Visit the  Measures Explorer  page to read about specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront.

Given the potential impacts of earthquakes, flooding, and future sea level rise, what is at stake in Mission Creek?

The following maps detail important disaster response resources, transportation services, maritime industries, public utilities, parks, historical and cultural resources, and critical facilities located in Mission Creek. 

Community indicators, such as income level, mobility access, race, age, education level, language access, all play a part in how communities are impacted and able to prepare and respond to hazards like earthquakes and sea level rise. Residents in this subarea live, work, and recreate along or nearby Mission Creek. Housing stock includes senior living facilities and affordable housing for low-income families. Flooding in the Mission Creek subarea becomes more extensive over time and comprehensive solutions will be needed to address future sea level rise. In addition to housing, access to both local and regional transportation is likely to be impacted as well as access to hospitals, open space, and schools in nearby neighborhoods. Flooding will affect small businesses, as well as medical and research facilities, and the associated jobs and economic benefits of these organizations. 

Keep scrolling to learn more about how particular places and services in Mission Creek could be impacted by these risks.

In the event of a natural disaster, the Mission Creek subarea contains several facilities and services to support the City in its response. These include: 

• Fire Stations 1, 8, and 29, three of the four fire stations in Battalion 2 that provide coverage for the South of Market area. 
• The Union Pacific Railroad, which connects the San Francisco Bay Railroad to the national railroad system and serves as a conduit to move goods and materials from large vessels. It is critical to the City’s emergency response and recovery plan.  
• Three Emergency Firefighting Water System suction connections, which allow fire engines to pump water directly from the bay for fire suppression. 
• 15 Emergency Firefighting Water System cisterns. These underground storage tanks each hold thousands of gallons of water that is accessible via a nearby fire hydrant to support fire suppression efforts.

Click on the yellow dots on the map to learn more about disaster response services in Mission Creek.

Transportation within the Mission Creek subarea provides both local and regional service, including:

• Muni’s T-Third Street line, the city’s newest light rail line which began full-time service in 2007. It runs along Third Street, offering important north-south transportation, and links to the broader Muni Metro system with a connection near Embarcadero and Third Street. 
• The Caltrain King Street Station, the final stop in San Francisco for Caltrain, a commuter rail line that provides regional transit service and connects the city to San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. 
• 137 Muni bus stops and 9 regional transit bus stops. 
• Bicycle and pedestrian lanes and paths.

The Embarcadero Promenade and San Francisco Bay Trail also run through the Mission Creek subarea as key routes.

Two historic drawbridges, the Lefty O’Doul / Third Street Bridge, and the Peter R. Maloney Fourth Street Bridge, cross the Mission Creek Channel, providing an important north-south connection for the adjacent neighborhood, and a critical thoroughfare through the city. 

Union Pacific Railroad, which connects to the San Francisco Bay Railroad and is used to move goods and materials from large vessels to the regional railroad system and can be used to remove materials after a disaster. Rail is particularly sensitive to flooding because trains cannot operate with even minimal flooding, and flooding in one section can shut down a whole network.  

Click the blue dots of the map to explore the transportation network options that help get people to, from, and around the Mission Creek subarea. 

A major maritime asset for this subarea is the Mission Creek Harbor. The Harbor is home to Mission Bay houseboats, a tightly-knit community with about 35 boats and 20 houseboats. The community was relocated from Islais Creek in the 1960s. Many of the residents have lived in the community for decades and the houseboats are visible from many of the area's shoreline parks. Additionally, Mission Creek is a popular area for water recreation activities, including kayaking and small boat and craft launch.

Draft guiding principles of the Waterfront Resilience Program include creating opportunities to enhance and expand open space, increasing free public access to the waterfront, restoring habitats, and offering education.

Mission Creek offers some of the city’s most popular public access to the waterfront, restored areas of the creek itself, as well as some great open spaces. Community favorites include:

• Mission Creek Garden, located on the southwestern corner of Mission Creek near the Houseboat Marina. 
• Mission Creek Shoreline Park, which features walking paths, picnic area, and community gardens on the southern shore of Mission Creek and creek access and views along the northern shoreline of Mission Creek. Although the channel between the two parks has been significantly altered, it is the last remnant of the original Mission Bay formed by Mission Creek, and it still supports wildlife. 
• Franklin Square, which started serving as a park as early as 1868. Today, it offers a newly-renovated turf soccer field, a playground, and picnic areas. 
• Howard & Langton Mini Park, an extensive community garden.
• The SoMa Recreation Center, also known as the Gene Friend Recreation Center. The facility is also used as a Red Cross emergency evacuation center. 
• Utah & 18th Mini Park, located at the end of the walking bridge across the freeway offering pedestrians a place to rest after their safe passage.
• Victoria Manalo Draves Park, adjacent to the Bessie Carmichael School, this park includes a softball field, basketball court, dual-level playground, picnic area, community garden, and a large grass field.

Both the San Francisco Bay Trail, a waterfront walking and cycling path around the entire bay that runs through all nine counties, and the San Francisco Bay Water Trail, a network of boat launching and landing sites, are also accessible from Mission Creek. A small boat launch is located in Mission Creek, providing access to the Water Trail.

In addition to outdoor space, the Mission Creek subarea is home to a mitigation area with wetlands and potential herring habitat as well as birds and aquatic life.

Click the green dots on the map to learn more about the public sites, open parks, and waterfront spaces in the subarea. 

San Francisco’s neighborhoods and businesses rely on buried and above ground infrastructure, such as wastewater and stormwater pipelines, power lines, and water distribution pipelines. Important utilities located and operated in the Mission Creek subarea include:

• Channel Pump Station, one of the city’s largest pump stations with a pumping capacity of 103 million gallons per day. This pump station operates in dry and wet weather, serving the majority of the western side of the city and pumping wastewater flows to the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant in the  Islais Creek  subarea.
• Channel Force Main, a 66 inch diameter concrete tunnel built in 1977 that connects the Channel Pump Station to the treatment plant.
• Three wet-weather pump stations that pump combined wastewater and stormwater flows to reduce the potential for rainfall-driven flooding, the Berry Street, Hariette--Lucerne, and Merlin Morris Pump Stations.
• Channel Transport / Storage Box, a large underground box that can store up to 38 million gallons of rainwater and stormwater runoff to reduce the potential for rainfall-driven flooding during heavy rainfall events. After the storms subside, the stored water is pumped to the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant for treatment before being discharged to the Bay.

Click the gray dots on the map to learn more about the city’s major utility infrastructure.

San Francisco defines critical facilities as those facilities or programs that are essential to recovery after a natural disaster, such as hospitals, medical centers, schools, and police stations. 

Critical facilities within the Mission Creek subarea include:

• Recology Golden Gate, which offers compost, recycling, and landfill collection and disposal services for the Financial District, SoMa, the Marina, and North Beach.
• Bessie Carmichael School, Five Keys Charter School, and Marshall Elementary School. These schools can serve as shelters in the event of a natural disaster or emergency. 
• Fifth Street Homeless Shelter, San Francisco’s largest and most extensive homeless facility and the largest homeless shelter in Northern California, supporting over 340 homeless men and women in addition to drop-in shelter to another 70 people. 
• Public Defender’s Office, which provides legal representation to over 25,000 people who are charged with a crime and unable to afford an attorney each year. 
• Women’s Resource Center, a safe space for anyone identifying as a woman. The Center also provides a domestic violence crisis unit, individual therapy by appointment, and services for women-identified transitional-aged youth.

Click on the red dots to learn more about the city’s critical facilities located in and near Mission Creek. 

Mission Creek has an important history. Before its shores were filled, Mission Creek ran from approximately Mission Dolores in the Mission District to a 500-acre tidal lagoon and salt marsh. The area now known as Mission Bay was home to the Costanoan people and a large number of aquatic species. During the middle of the 1800s, the area was transformed by clam and oyster harvesting, shipbuilding, and meat production. After the 1906 earthquake, Mission Bay was filled with debris, which provided the foundation for the landforms we know today.

Landmarks within the Mission Creek subarea that speak to San Francisco’s long and diverse history along the waterfront include the:

• Lefty O’Doul Third Street Bridge and Peter R. Maloney Fourth Street Bridge, both designed by the Strauss Company that designed the Golden Gate Bridge. The Lefty O’Doul Third Street Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Peter R. Maloney Fourth Street bridge, built in 1917, is eligible for registration. 
• Jackson Brewing Company Historic District, which covers eight acres and six different buildings. Its significance traces back to early commercial brewing as one of San Francisco’s major historical industries. Many early breweries were family-owned and operated, either established or promoted by immigrants of northern European descent.  
• National Carbon Company Building, built in 1917 and a primary example of reinforced concrete industrial structures built in San Francisco in the early 20th century during the Beautiful Movement popular in the city.  
• Saint Joseph’s Church, a Romanesque Revival, that was damaged during the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 and remained vacant afterward until 2018. 

Click on the orange dots to learn more about the historical and cultural sites found in and near the subarea. 

After assessing community priorities and specific seismic and flood risk in this subarea, the Port and its partners, including the City, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other key stakeholders, are currently reviewing potential strategies for addressing these challenges and adapting the waterfront to reduce risks and meet the needs, priorities, and visions of the community over time. The Port has begun to identify measures, or specific strategies for adapting San Francisco's waterfront in the face of earthquakes, flooding, and future sea level rise. Visit the  Measures Explorer  to learn more.

A preliminary seismic assessment for the subareas between Mission Creek and  Heron’s Head  will be completed as part of the Initial Southern Waterfront Seismic Study. 

Thank you for reviewing the Mission Creek Waterfront Resilience Story Map. To view more detailed information about this subarea, click on the technical documents below.

•  Subarea Profile 
•  Flood Risk Profile 
•  Problems, Opportunities, Objectives, Constraints, and Considerations (POOCC) Fact Sheet