Three Rapid Projects for Muni

After several months of outreach on the street, at workshops, and at community meetings, we are ready to push for Rapid service on three lines: riders want the 22 Fillmore and the 29 Sunset to have overlaid Rapid service (a 22R and a 29R). The T Third is supposed to be Rapid, but is slow and unreliable. Riders want to see it arrive frequently and reliably, and take somewhat less than an hour to get to Civic Center.

The 16th Street Improvement Project is about to give the east-west portion of the 22 Fillmore a face lift from Church Street to 3rd Street. The route will be straightened out to run smoother and faster and better connect to Mission Bay. (The 55 16th Street will be re-routed to better connect Potrero Hill and the Caltrain Station at 22nd Street.) Fortunately, the current plans take into account possible eventual Rapid service. So once the construction is done, it would just take some paint, signage, schedule updates, and of course vehicles and operators to make a 22 Rapid a reality on that section.

Our group looking at making a 22 Rapid happen discussed the various constituencies impacted by the 22 Fillmore route, including UCSF Mt. Zion and Mission Bay, Japantown, the Fillmore, the African American Art & Culture Complex, and various senior centers.

Since the 16th Street portion of the route is practically Rapid-ready, the main tactics to make it actually happen would center around building public support by:

Constituencies along the 29 Sunset route include a ton of students (City College, Lick Wilmerding High, SF State, Balboa High, St. Ignatius, Gianini Middle School, Burton High, and Lowell), as well as merchant corridors (Irving St., Geary Blvd, Stonestown, Ocean Ave, San Bruno, Mission/Excelsior). The 29 Sunset connects riders to BART, to Bayshore and Caltrain, runs through quiet residential areas (including mixed-income and public developments), and connects key outdoor areas (McLaren Park, Golden Gate Park, Lake Merced, and Baker Beach).

The 29 Sunset is a very long, somewhat crooked line. It runs through areas with no traffic lights but a lot of stop signs and pedestrian crossings. It runs on narrow streets, making it a challenge to figure out where a Rapid bus can pass a local bus. On and around 19th Ave., the route deals with heavy traffic and delays related to left turns. There are a lot of different pedestrian crossings. The off-peak bus frequencies are very erratic.

Some proposed solutions:

There’s an opportunity now to push for real change to the T Third. No one is really happy with the T Third design and performance. Too many compromises were made during the original design, and the result is investments in track, train, and platforms that don’t deliver what they could and should. The current supervisor, Shamann Walton, is a vocal advocate for improvement, and the route travels through a major development and fast-growing neighborhood. A lot of eyes are on this corridor, and now is the time to make it work as it should.

We are focusing our attention on the stretch from King Street to Sunnydale, as the rest of the line will be subject to other changes with the opening of the Central Subway, hopefully within a year.

In this southern stretch, stops are too close together along much of the route. Traffic signals and the priority signal system need upgrading. Signal priority is currently dependent on fixed sensors buried in the track to detect a train and provide signal priority, rather than a real-time responsive wireless signal. Basically, the fixed sensors don’t know there’s a train until it’s at an intersection, likely already stopped at a red light.

Trains operate in mixed traffic, there are many left turns allowed across the tracks, slowing trains down in traffic congestion and causing collisions, so in addition to very real injuries to people and damage to vehicles, service ends up being very unreliable. This past Friday, service was stopped for almost an hour when a collision trapped an adult and two children in their car. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But these all too regular crashes are avoidable with better street design and separating cars from the trackway.

Some proposed solutions:

For more context, see our story on Making Muni Rapid.

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