Health And Fitness

Have Feedback on the COVID-19 Muni Temporary Service Plan? By Shalon Rogers In March 2020, due to unprecedented constraints on resources brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SFMTA had to make significant transit service reductions. As of January 2021, the agency has been able to restore service to a level where 91% of San Franciscans are within a quarter mile of a transit stop. This is reflected in the SFMTA’s current  COVID-19 Temporary Service Plan .   ' COVID-19 Temporary Service Plan Map The SFMTA is committed to ensuring that our programs and services are  compliant with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  and therefore do not have a discriminatory impact based on race, color or national origin. As part of this work, we conducted a Title VI service equity analysis to evaluate the current COVID-19 Temporary Service Plan. The results of this analysis will be presented to the ...

Permanent Relief for Muni Customers in SoMa? By Erin McMillan Shortly after the pandemic’s onset, the SFMTA implemented Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes to make sure essential trips on Muni wouldn’t get caught in traffic. On Mission Street from 11th to 3rd streets in SoMa , the transit lanes have proven effective at protecting Muni travel times while traffic has increased. Now, with the city’s reopening generating even more traffic, keeping these lanes on the road permanently is as important as ever. Paint Shop Crew Removing Old Pavement Markings for Installation of Temporary Emergency Transit Only Lanes on Mission Street on September 23, 2020 What’s Next? Given that the data shows the lanes are effective, the SFMTA is now pursing making the full-time transit lanes, and their benefits, permanent. Following up on our initial evaluation of the project, we are now inviting the community to learn about next steps for making the lanes permanent. We are hosting a two-week virtual open...

Safer and Easier Parking in Every City-Owned Facility By Pamela Johnson Parking at any of our 22 city-owned facilities is now easier and safer than ever. Late last month we completed the Parking Access Revenue and Control Systems (PARCS) project. This four-year effort replaced aging parking equipment with modern technology and significant operational upgrades. Customer using new PARCS kiosk at North Beach parking garage Patrons will notice enhanced lighting, new wayfinding signs, audible alarms, cameras, gate arms, and payment machines with two-way digital intercoms . Behind the scenes is an all-new parking management system and 24/7 command center, connected to every machine. Can’t find your ticket to pay for parking?  No worries! Thanks to license plate recognition technology, cameras located at every facility’s entrance capture patrons’ plate numbers as they arrive . If a customer loses her ticket, the manager is able to re-issue a ticket based on her license plate...

Celebrate Earth Day by Using Alternate Modes to Get Around San Francisco By Sophia Scherr Happy Earth Day! Established in 1970, Earth Day gave voice to the growing public consciousness concerning the environmental state of our planet, and the collective search for ways to save it. This determined effort for a better environment based on proactive strategies for slowing down the effects of climate change is more urgent than ever. People travel on Market Street in many ways: as pedestrians, on bicycles, scooters, by taxi and by bus. Riding Muni is a great choice for reducing your carbon impact, as the majority of our fleet is powered by hydro-electric power and does not generate CO2 emissions. The SFMTA has also committed to having an all-electric bus fleet by 2035: we will exclusively purchase all-electric buses starting in 2025 to meet that goal. This Earth Day, we’re encouraging riders to get out to explore one of the many alternate modes available for getting around San Francis...

Van Ness Improvement Project Nears Completion By Nehama Rogozen After years of planning and construction, work on the Van Ness Improvement Project is progressing rapidly and the end is in sight! Construction is projected to be finished by the end of this year, with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service running on Van Ness Avenue from Mission to Lombard beginning in early 2022. Work on the red transit lanes between Broadway and Pacific is almost complete. Crews have been busy on Van Ness Avenue. You may have noticed them building new medians and sidewalks, paving the roadway and installing poles that provide lighting and power to the BRT system. Most recently they have installed the red lanes that will allow buses to move Muni and Golden Gate Transit riders quickly along the corridor, without getting stuck in traffic. To ensure durability and reduce fading, these red transit lanes are made from poured red concrete, as opposed to red paint or thermoplastic on top of concrete. We are als...

Bringing Back Muni Better By Julie Kirschbaum Much of Muni service has already been restored since the pandemic-related service reductions at the beginning of the crisis, thanks to the dedication of SFMTA staff. As San Francisco emerges from the pandemic, we continue to increase service by focusing on maximizing citywide Muni access while providing high frequency on the city’s busiest routes. The J Church returned as a surface route from Balboa Park to Duboce Avenue in December 2020 Since January 23, 91% of San Franciscans are within 2-3 blocks of a Muni stop. And this includes 100% of residents in San Francisco’s neighborhoods identified in the Muni Service Equity Strategy . On May 15, Muni Metro service will be restored in the subway , providing subway service at all stations from Embarcadero to West Portal. The K Ingleside and the T Third will once again be “interlined,” operating as one route from Balboa Park to Sunnydale. The N Judah is also returning to rail service, giving...

Welcome Back to the Westside, K Ingleside Trains! By The K Ingleside exiting the subway at West Portal On April 16, the SFMTA, along with Mayor Breed and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, announced that Muni’s K Ingleside trains will return to the westside starting May 15. The return of these trains is happening much earlier than anticipated thanks to the hard work of SFMTA staff to find creative solutions to ramp up Muni service to riders and support the city’s economic recovery.  “This addition of Muni service is a true testament to the collaboration between Muni staff, our labor unions and community partners,” said Julie Kirschbaum, SFMTA Director of Transit. “We know that key transit connections are critical to the city’s economic recovery, and we’re thrilled to re-open the subway and ramp up service.”  The K Ingleside will join the previously-announced N Judah as part of Muni Metro’s reopening, highlighting t...

Muni Emergency Measures Point to Longer Term Transit Goals By The 38 Geary Temporary Emergency Transit Lane Muni is a core part of our community’s urban fabric that, like so much, has been upended by the pandemic. Yet, as hard as the last year has been, the SFMTA is focused on bringing Muni back better than ever. As we shift to focus on recovery, we’re looking closely at the emergency efforts we’ve implemented during the pandemic and how their proven effectiveness can help support San Francisco long-term. This includes promising performance data from our Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes  program and plans for service restoration and future improvements. As part of an emergency response over six miles of temporary emergency transit lanes have been installed, benefitting tens of thousands of Muni customers each day, and helping to protect key Muni corridors from traffic. With the prioritization of temporary emergency transit lanes on routes that serve neighborhoods i...

Bayview Quick Builds: Uplifting Voices and Fostering Community By When it comes to transportation planning in the Bayview, the SFMTA recognizes our involvement in the long history of past racist policies that have led to disinvestment in that community. Rectifying these injustices will take time but begins with near-term efforts like the Bayview Community Based Transportation Plan and the Bayview Quick-Build Transportation Projects . The goal of this work by SFMTA staff is to begin the process of building trust with community members and uplifting their voices. A recent example are the murals painted along the Bayview’s first Vision Zero Quick-Build Project, unveiled by the SFMTA and multiple community partners on Saturday, April 3. Vision Zero Quick-Build Projects are defined by their ability to rapidly install inexpensive, easily adjustable street safety improvements.  For this project, safety improvements required the installation of concrete barriers to delineate space in...

Effective, Equitable, and Resilient Transportation for San Francisco By Lulu Feliciano As we emerge from the current pandemic, what does an effective, equitable, and resilient transportation system for San Francisco’s future look like? Last week, just such a forward-looking vision was published by ConnectSF. ConnectSF is comprised of staff from the SFMTA, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Planning Department. With input from residents, community and business groups, youth organizations, and other stakeholders, the collaborative’s Transit Investment Strategy lays out a vision for reinvesting in the city’s transit system. The Vision ConnectSF is advancing a bold vision for the future of our transportation system. In order to realize this vision, we will need to invest in creating a system that is better than before – faster, more reliable, and more accessible. The investment strategy details the big changes we envision and where we will need f...

Supporting The City's Youngest Residents Returning to In-Person Learning By Erica Kato   Parents: A reminder that Slow Streets are not closed to cars dropping off students or school buses. They are considered local traffic and can use Slow Streets to access drop-off and pick-up areas.     The Agency is eager to support our students returning  back to school ! This is an exciting time for parents and students alike, and we are proud to provide a strong set of mobility options to help facilitate school trips. Recently, we  covered the Muni service  we’ve strategically invested in around key school routes (like the 29 Sunset and 44 O’Shaughnessy) to increase core network frequency around our major corridors that serve many of San Francisco’s schools. In preparation for the phased-in reopening of the schools, we’ve also been hard at work to get kids to school safely b...

Parking Meters Help Keep San Francisco Vibrant By Monica Munowitch Parking Meters Help Keep San Francisco Vibrant In a dense, vibrant, expensive city like San Francisco which is bounded by water on three sides, space is at a premium.  On city streets, which take up about 20% of San Francisco’s land area, there are many different forms of transportation, all competing for that limited space.  As a result, on-street parking for cars is just one of many demands that residents, merchants, visitors and others have for the road network.  And of course when it comes to on-street parking, curb space is a very limited resource. As it’s not possible to build more curbs, the city uses regulations to help ensure that spaces are available when and where they’re needed most. Multi-space Pay Station on McAllister Street In managing these competing demands, parking meters are the most effective tool we have --particularly in commercial districts and other high-demand areas. They c...

The 150 Year History of Muni’s ‘Newest’ Route: The 15 By Jeremy Menzies With the return of Muni’s 15 route earlier this year as the 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express , here’s a quick look back at a line that traces part of its lineage back over 150 years. A 15 3rd & Kearny streetcar picks its way through a crowded downtown scene in this 1910 photo. In the mid-1800s people began travelling San Francisco’s 3rd Street corridor by stagecoach and horse-drawn streetcars. At the turn of the 20th century, horse car service gave way to electric streetcars, with three lines eventually sharing the work of serving 3rd Street from north to south. Operated by the United Railroads Company, the combined service of the 15 Kearny & North Beach, 16 3rd & Kearny, and 29 3rd & Sansome lines ran from North Beach all the way to the county line in Visitacion Valley. A photo from OpenSFHistory.org showing the 15, 16, and 29 Streetcars outside the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot in 1940,...

Muni Subway Gets Green Light and Wi-Fi! By Mariana Maguire The recent wave of major subway repairs is finally wrapping up and customers can expect smoother, more reliable rides when Muni Metro reopens. New wayfinding signs and art projects are in place at Castro and West Portal stations, and – drumroll, please – Wi-Fi availability, thanks to routers being installed in stations and cellular antennas being installed in the tunnels. Safety certification for the subway repairs was approved on March 11, paving the way to reopen the subway and phase in more rail service in May. Soon, you’ll be able to let your loved ones know you’re on your way even when you’re underground. Our staff used this rare extended subway shutdown as an opportunity to accelerate other upgrades and necessary maintenance work, by packaging them with subway repairs to maximize results. During normal service, subway maintenance crews can only work within the few hours a day when trains are not running. SFMTA crew i...

Muni’s Equity Toolkit Helps Essential Employees Get to Work By Mariana Maguire The latest data from SFMTA’s new  Equity Toolkit  shows that Muni service changes are helping people in neighborhoods identified by our  Muni Service Equity Strategy  access more jobs and support the city’s recovery.   In winter 2020, we launched the  SFMTA Equity Toolkit  to understand how service decisions are affecting neighborhoods where there is likely a high prevalence of essential workers who rely predominantly on Muni to get to their essential jobs. Our goal is to make better service decisions based on the trends and impacts we see in the Equity Toolkit.   Recently, the greatest increases in access to jobs via Muni have been in Hunters Point and Western Addition....

SFMTA’s Cable Car Signal Tower Gets a Refresh By Jeremy Menzies At the corner of California and Powell Streets stands a diminutive but important building that has been in use for well over 100 years. This octagonal signal tower controls the crossing of the Powell and California Street cable car lines, and recently underwent a full restoration thanks to the skilled craftspeople at the Cable Car Division. A group photo of Muni craftspeople and shop management who worked to restore the signal tower in 2020-2021. The tower’s history dates to 1888 when the original was built by the Ferries and Cliff House Railroad, which operated cable cars on Powell Street at the time. That tower was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fires that ravaged Nob Hill. In March 1907, it was rebuilt by then-owner United Railroads of San Francisco (URR) and went back into operation. Photo showing signal tower in 1908 with the Fairmont Hotel and passengers waiting for a cable car in the background. Photo c...

Better Connections from Bayview and Hunters Point to Downtown By Enrique Aguilar To better connect southeast San Franciscans with downtown, the SFMTA debuted the 15 Bayview Hunters-Point Express in late January, coinciding with the return of T Third train service. Within weeks, average daily boardings reached 1,000 customers on this new service. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express  We added this route based on community feedback from the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018, which prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. With the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate impacts on communities in the Bayview and Hunters Point, fast-tracking the project became critical to our transit planning. Adding service capacity and a direct connection between these neighborhoods and downtown is a crucial step in supporting the City’s economic recovery and increasing job access for essential workers using transit. Using data from the SFMTA Equ...

Hate is a Virus By As a city we stand united against racism. While violence resulting from racism has been more visible in recent years, many of our colleagues and community members have been surviving the violence resulting from racism for generations. This is especially true for many Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities that have often grappled with the effects of racism in silence or without widespread acknowledgement and support. Hate against Asian American Pacific Islander communities has risen at an alarming rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anti-Asian violence has been fueled by rhetoric baselessly blaming people of Asian descent for the outbreak and spread of COVID-19.  We condemn all forms of racism and xenophobia and stand in support of any marginalized groups who are being targeted. Let’s continue coming together to stop racism in all its forms, including Asian discrimination. We can all do our part to stop bias, hate, and violence by ...

SFMTA Supports San Francisco Small Businesses Through Construction and COVID-19 By Sophia Scherr Local small businesses are what give San Francisco its eclectic and unique charm. Running a small business in San Francisco isn’t an easy feat either, especially over the past year. Therefore, it’s imperative that SFMTA’s projects not only provide resources to businesses that are impacted by construction but are also responsive to COVID-19 concerns as well. Through our partnership with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), we have been able to provide an additional layer of support to businesses along project corridors including the Geary Rapid Project , Van Ness Improvement Project and L Taraval Improvement Project .  The SFMTA project teams have made it a standard practice to include dedicated support as part of every major capital project. OEWD staff undertake door-to-door outreach and provide information and assistance with grant applications and other city re...

Creating a Better Market Street: Car-free Enforcement to Resume By Mariana Maguire It’s been over a year since Market Street went “car-free” on January 29, 2020 , but shortly afterwards, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down our city and changed how people move through San Francisco. As the city begins to reopen and vehicle traffic is increasing, we are stepping up compliance and enforcement efforts to keep Market Street car-free starting March 29, with the help of SFMTA’s Parking Control Officers (PCOs) and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). Under the year-old car-free rules established as a part of Better Market Street , no private vehicles are allowed to travel along Market Street eastbound from 10th to Main streets or westbound from Steuart Street to Van Ness Avenue. Traffic is still allowed to cross Market Street, but there are no turns allowed onto the street in the car-free area. These restrictions apply to all private vehicles, including Uber, Lyf...