Good News for Mission Street

Posted by Eric ⋅ 3 February 2008 ⋅ 4 Comments

Good news for Mission Street. At long last, Muni’s Transit Effectiveness Project may bear some fruit on Mission Street, one of San Francisco’s most popular and crowded transit corridors. With over 65,000 daily riders, the 49 and the different versions of the 14 fight through congested city streets, dodging traffic and double-parked vehicles with nothing to aid their passage. Local buses stop on just about every block, making the ride frustratingly slow. The TEP is Muni’s first attempt in a couple decades to collect hard data on the way its riders are using the system. While the data is sure to come with some unpopular recommendations, particularly when it comes to moving and removing bus stops, I would wholeheartedly urge the MTA to stand strong by its data and remove lightly used stops, for the health of the greater system. The proposed changes — including rear-boarding, ticket machines at the busiest stops, more bus-only lanes, signal preemption, and more frequent limited service — represent at least a partial implementation of bus rapid transit; they are overdue and could not come a moment too soon. Without any specific details, all there is to say now is that the MTA is on the right track, and we’ll be following this story as it develops.
[San Francisco Chronicle]

Discussion

4 thoughts on “Good News for Mission Street”

This is good–now let’s see if we can move on to the hard stuff, like signal preemption and enforcement of double parking laws.

Posted by Nick/295bus | 4 February 2008, 8:30 am
Nick: enforcement of double parking is also at least partly on the way (hopefully), thanks to this pilot program.

Posted by Eric | 4 February 2008, 8:44 am
Eric,

Are these improvements (beyond service) being reveled one line at a time?

When I personally read the initial report and service changes proposed for the J line I was disappointed. Basically with no signal preemption and reduced stops and with the idea of running the J to SFSU our service was going to be much worse

Is there more to come? I am getting very tired of sitting at stop lights and stopping at stop signs

Posted by Zig | 20 September 2008, 12:07 pm
An idea of how to manage Mission Street could come from Seattle

Cars should be forced to make right turns off of Mission St every two blocks which could be coordinated with bus stops

Along with signal preemption this could really speed things up and discourage cruising Mission Street by cars and reduce to some current conflicts with parkers

Buses would no longer get stuck in their current bus stops

Conceivably stops could even be in the middle lanes in this arrangement if you really wanted to take the street for buses. All cars are forced to make a right turn, the bus cleans the intersection and the stop is in the middle of the street blocked from traffic

Posted by Zig | 20 September 2008, 12:14 pm