Improvements for Five of Muni’s Busiest Bus Lines

Improvements for Five of Muni’s Busiest Bus Lines
By Bonnie Jean von Krogh

With nearly 40 buses per hour at peak times, 4th Street is one of San Francisco’s major transit corridors. The 4th Street Transit Improvement Project is planning improvements on the corridor to benefit five of Muni’s busiest bus lines. These routes, including the 8 Bayshore, 8AX and 8BX Bayshore Express, 30 Stockton and 45 Union/Stockton, provide connections for an average of nearly 70,000 weekday customers to Caltrain and the Chinatown, SoMa and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods, among others. 

The 4th Street Transit Improvement Project is part of Muni Forward’s system-wide approach to transit priority improvements and complements changes being implemented on 3rd Street as part of the 3rd Street Transit and Safety Project. Taken together, these projects should substantially reduce transit delay on 3rd and 4th streets in SoMa for thousands of daily customers.

For more than six years, 4th Street has been temporarily reconfigured to accommodate construction of the SFMTA Central Subway project under the street. With construction equipment removed from the roadway in late August, 4th Street is now ready for improvements. 

The 4th Street Transit Improvement Project proposes upgrades to reduce bus delays and improve pedestrian safety on the corridor.

• Dedicated, full-time, red transit-only lane, separate from turning traffic

• Combine Howard and Folsom's bus stops at future Central Subway station to improve connectivity

• Increase passenger and commercial loading

• Reduce the number of through lanes of traffic to two, improving pedestrian safety

See the diagram below for the proposed design of 4th Street approaching Howard.

Learn more project details at SFMTA.com/4thStreet.

SFMTA Board Review

The project proposal received feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders including Muni customers, community organizations, citywide advocacy organizations, local merchants, hotels, institutional stakeholders, and residents of senior communities.

The 4th Street Transit Improvement Project will be presented to the SFMTA Board of Directors for approval on Tuesday, October 1, 2019. If you would like to comment on the proposed changes, you may attend the SFMTA Board Meeting or file your comments in writing before the hearing.

• Attend the SFMTA Board Meeting on October 1, 2019 at 1:00 p.m.,  Room 400 City Hall, San Francisco. (Note that the actual time the item will be heard may be considerably later than 1:00 p.m.)

• Email comment to: MTABoard@SFMTA.com with subject line “4th Street Transit Improvement Project”. (Submit comments before the hearing.)

• Mail comment to: Board of Directors, One South Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103-5417. (Submit comments before the hearing.)

Published September 27, 2019 at 01:26PM
https://ift.tt/2ngr4k1