[Fingersp]

I've photographed every Bay to Breakers since 1999. I noticed the decline after 2009 and if you look at the raw clicks on my camera you can see the decline: 2009 - 1800; 2010 - 975; 2011 - 900; 2012 - 880; 2013 - 1400; 2014 - 500; 2015 - 760; 2016 - 670. Also, in more recent years I've moved my burst mode from 3 shots a second to 6, so the count should have gone up.
I think that the reduction has happened for a variety of reasons (not in any order)

1 - Social media
2 - The San Francisco Nudity Ban
3 - Elimination of floats / crackdown on alcohol / backpack ban / complaints from the panhandle

I've always noticed three types of nudity: 1) the serious runners who run nude (few and far between, but there were two nude women near the front of the pack this year. 2) the middle of the pack, and this would include all the Bare to Breakers crowd and nudists. There were NO nude runners with the bright green Bare 2 Breakers caps on this year (although I did see a few of their members). 3) the partiers at the back of the pack. These are those who typically were a little inebriated and less inhibited.

(1) I get in the middle of the street and ask people if I can take their pictures. In the 2000's I'd sometimes get asked it it was going on a website. A few years back I'd get asked if I was posting to facebook or social media. Now nobody asks, they assume, and I think that has reduced the nudity.

(2) A group of men would hang around The Castro naked all year (which I can't fathom as SF is typically in the 50's). The Castro's supervisor and the mayor pushed for a nudity ban which was passed. Public event organizers such as The Folsom Street Fair, B2B and the Pride Festival can ask for an exemption to the ban. Bay to Breakers did NOT ask for this exemption, and some runners were asked to put on clothes in 2015 and a few were cited. I din't know if that happened this year. It's always been illegal to be nude in Golden Gate Park. The ordinance prohibits genitals, so women can be topless, but that is not well understood.

(3) Old timers will remember the infamous "Tiki Hut", a rolling bar pushed through the seven miles of the route with a large Parrot Head type crowd hanging around. Shopping carts with beer kegs were pushed through the route. The back of the pack party crowd would get wild, and sometimes naked. The party would roll on into Golden Gate park, but around 2010 the party in the panhandle section (at the park entrance) became the spot this group would stop and hang out at. Some residents complained and that began the beginning of the crackdown on alcohol. Now there are several checkpoints on the route where security confiscates any alcohol.

(4) I think in this age of sexting being naked in public is just not as big of a deal.

Meanwhile - here are a few of my shots from this year - enjoy!