citymaus

DIY bus stop seating, san francisco. 

help a neighbor out! when the city can’t provide...

a bus stop in alpine meadows in the lake tahoe region, california, during record snowpack. 10.03.2023. 

oakland, ca. 1970s. by raymond cooper. 

via sfgate/eastbayyesterday, 09.10.22 

muni line 18, san francisco. 

union square, san francisco. in 1951 and 2022.

muni & golden gate transit testing out van ness BRT.

photo-enforced bus lane on olive transitway, seattle. 

“This year alone, we’ve suffered 30 traffic fatalities, just one less than the total for 2014. That’s not to say the streets haven’t changed. 

One approach that has been especially successful is the SFMTA’s Quick Build program: simple, reversible, and fast improvements (such as putting down plastic bollards and coats of paint) to address safety issues on city streets. In fact, such projects have increased reliability for Muni lines including the 19 Polk, the 38 Geary, and the T Third light rail, and decreased speeding on Taylor, Seventh, and Eighth streets, according to SFMTA spokesperson Erica Kato.

“SFMTA transportation director Jeffrey Tumlin tells The Frisc that the agency can complete a Quick Build project in six months that otherwise would take five to 10 years via the conventional planning process. 

What’s more, it’s not a huge commitment: “Because the Quick Build projects are so cheap and reversible, we can take any feedback and make adjustments,” he says. “If it really doesn’t work, then we can rip it out, no harm no foul, and it will have cost us less than the environmental documents on a bigger project.” 

In early 2019, Mayor London Breed directed the SFMTA to speed up traffic improvements. The agency rolled out Quick Build later that year, just months before COVID hit and sent the city into lockdown. Since then, San Francisco has introduced a slew of street changes that would have seemed impossible beforehand: Slow Streets, Shared Spaces, safe sleep sites, and more. SFMTA director Manny Yekutiel said in Monday’s board meeting that these changes prove the city can do the impossible in two years: “I don’t want us to need a tragedy to do something truly transformational to our city.”

The board unanimously adopted a resolution to endorse the updated Vision Zero strategy, which includes a commitment to 20 Quick Build projects per year on the High Injury Network.

crews painting the mission street bus lane in 2016. flickr/eviloars 

“The main reason Quick Build works is because the projects are not subject to the city’s typical plodding bureaucracy. As of February 2020, the city traffic engineer can unilaterally authorize Quick Builds. A public hearing is still required, but most community engagement takes place after the project is complete. 

“For almost all of our Quick Build projects, our intention is to tinker around until we get it right,” Tumlin says. “Then that becomes the blueprint for a later, much more expensive construction project that will involve concrete and curb work and streetscaping.””

read more: thefrisc, 04.11.2021. 

san francisco van ness busway. jeffrey tumlin.

“the 21 hayes is back in service, no ghost busses here!”  –whoofi goldberg 

map of zero-transfer transit connections to golden gate park, showing restored service on the 18 and 28 lines. by mack.

related: “after epic battles, SF poised to make JFK drive in golden gate park car-free for good.” sfchronicle, 22.09.2021. 

buses about to start. kichijoji, tokyo.

muni at sacramento/joice street, 1917 vs 2021. 

“In San Francisco, not all bus stops are created equal. That’s based on data soon to be published in the Journal of Public Transportation and garnered by in-person visits to nearly 3,000 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) bus stops from May to June 2020.

Finding gaps in public data and wanting to understand why bus stops in his own San Francisco neighborhood at the time exhibited such wide-ranging differences, Marcel Moran, an avid Muni rider and PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, conducted an inventory of benches, bus shelters and signage at every street-level bus stop in SFMTA’s system. (He excluded those under construction or part of other transit agencies such as SamTrans and AC Transit).

The results of his study or “census” found that two-thirds of SFMTA bus stops in San Francisco lack seating or shelter, about one-third of stops were obstructed by on-street parking and more than 1 in 10 stops lacked legible route signage of any kind. 

“Moran also found that routes with the most frequent service, or shorter “headways” (10 minutes or less between arrivals), had the highest share of seating and shelters (51% respectively) and unobstructed curbs (88%). In contrast, routes with the least frequent service (20 to 30 minutes between bus arrivals or the longest headways) had the lowest percentage of stops with seating (17%), shelters (15%) and clear, unobstructed curbs (44%).   

““The routes in which riders need to wait the longest for the bus, the least frequent buses, have the least amenities with which to wait,” he says. “Another way to think about it is depending on what route you’re taking, you’re basically using a different bus system.”

Moran says that his counterintuitive finding on headways could be explained by a well-observed trend in transportation literature: transit authorities often determine amenities based on ridership rates—the logic being that more frequently used bus stops or routes should be serviced with more features to serve more riders. However, Moran believes that logic creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“The problem that I’m trying to identify with that logic… is that the quality of the stop itself influences the ridership,” says Moran. “[People] may not ride there, board there, enter there because of the quality of the stop.””

read more: heresay, 23.07.2021.  the study: “are shelters in place?: mapping the distribution of transit amenities via a bus-stop census of san francisco.” ucb its, 07.2021.

“Anyone 18 years old or under can ride Muni for free starting Aug. 15, just in time for the start of the school year.

There will be no application process, and those who meet the age requirement are eligible regardless of financial status.

Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Myrna Melgar proposed the temporary program, which will last one year at a cost of $2 million, as part of the budget proposal for the current fiscal year. It’s seen by some transit advocates as a watered-down alternative to the larger pilot passed and funded by the Board of Supervisors in June that would have allowed all riders to travel fare-free this summer. Breed vetoed the program shortly after its approval at the board, citing potential impacts to service, reliability and overcrowding should the system be suddenly overwhelmed by riders traveling for free.

Supporters of Free Muni for Youth say it guarantees mobility to The City’s youngest residents, and they estimate it will allow more than 100,000 people to ride for free. According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, studies show that exposure to transit while young leads to continued usage as an adult, as well as a lower likelihood of purchasing a car.

“It goes a little to show the system is listening to youth,” said Alexander Hirji, a 17-year-old member of SFMTA’s Youth Transportation Advisory Board. “It’s a more equitable way of aiding those who cannot pay for the fare and increasing familiarity with youth with the system.”

The program comes at a time when The City is wrestling with issues around frequency of transit service and whether existing fare discount programs make Muni accessible to those who rely on public transportation the most.

“The City has a recurring issue where they have really great existing programs but they don’t invest in making sure they’re known,” said Arsema Asfaw, 16, who serves on the Youth Commission. “Having it be a universal thing is a push in the right direction in making public transportation for all people.”

Participants in the new program won’t need to carry a Clipper Card, and fare inspectors will be directed not to request proof of payment from anyone who looks to be eligible. That said, SFMTA does recommend older teenagers carry identification just in case.

If they want to ride the cable cars, though, they’ll need to obtain a pass from the SFMTA.

Additionally, public transit officials plan to launch a massive informational campaign that will reach SFUSD schools and private schools through classrooms, social media outreach, direct mail and more.

The prospect of running into fare inspectors became much less daunting for Asfaw once Muni was covered.

“They don’t usually arrest kids, but you never know what might happen,” Asfaw said. Under a broad youth program with no registration, she added, “It’s less of a chance that SFMTA police talk to me.””

read more: sfexaminer, 12.07.2021.

the edward grant highway busway in the bronx. 

new red bus lane for geary rapid 38R, san francisco. 

read more: sfmtablog, 16.07.2021.