Rescue Muni

The 14L-Mission Limited buses that used to stop tantalizingly close to the Daly City BART station finally will take people the rest of the way during AM and PM commute hours.  Temporarily, the morning runs will be connected by a shuttle between Daly City BART and the 14L at Goethe Street, though eventually the 14L will make morning and evening runs available both ways.  Free transfers will be available inside the paid area of the BART station.

Muni is also promising better maintenance and supervision of the 14L buses.

62% of all trips in the city are made with cars, a factor that the MTA would like to see shrink to 50% by the end of the decade, reports the Chronicle. This is one of the goals of the agency’s 6 year strategic plan, adopted on Tuesday. The cost of the changes will set the agency back $87m, a gap that is yet to find funding. “To have a world-class transportation system that people want to use, we have to be resourced adequately,” said SFMTA’s Ed Reiskin. This will be a challenging goal for the MTA, with a budget gap of $28 million this fiscal year, $34 million next year and $46 million after that.

Want faster transit on Van Ness? Take a look at the EIS-EIR for Bus Rapid Transit on Van Ness, which is now available for public review. Rescue Muni is a long-time supporter of this project, which could speed service by many minutes per trip on this important transit corridor. Please review and comment on this important study! Details are at the project webpage, and we hope to hold a general meeting to provide an update on this project soon.

Update: SPUR is holding a lunchtime forum on this today, November 7.

On June 13th, the SFMTA will begin express service for the N-Judah to supplement existing street car service during rush hour. During our May 23rd board meeting, we decided that while we applaud the MTA’s attempt to address over-crowding and early turn-backs, the $1.8m annual cost to run the express bus service is not the best use of money during a fiscal crisis.

We voted to recommend that instead of using the funds for additional service, Muni couple 3 car trains along the N-Judah line and run the existing service, which would increase capacity for a trivial additional cost. With the $1.8m that would have gone to the Nx bus, Muni could install and implement signal priority between Duboce & Church all the way to Carl & Cole, along with a signal at the UCSF garage and 19th Ave. All these changes could be made for less than $1.8m, and provide a long-term solution to the N’s on-time rate and capacity issues.

While Muni is going ahead with the Nx bus, SFMTA’s Transit Director John Haley will go ahead and pilot 3 car trains, which could be a small future victory for N-Judah riders.

Riders on the 6 and 71 know how slow the inbound Haight Street commute is now, thanks to the multi-block detour inbound to avoid the one-way section of Haight. Today, the SFMTA is holding a community meeting (at 6pm-7:30pm at Caffe Trieste, 1667 Market) to discuss an obvious fix: restore two-way traffic on Haight, and bring the inbound buses back to that street. Details here. This is a no-brainer for improved transit – please express your support if you attend the meeting!

One suggested improvement: make the intersection at Haight and Octavia no turns from Haight in either direction. This would eliminate conflicts between freeway traffic and the buses.