Expanding the Bicycle Network and Making New Connections

Expanding the Bicycle Network and Making New Connections
By Benjamin Barnett

With the challenges we all have faced over the past six months, we wanted to take a minute to shine some light on the accomplishments we made this summer in improving our ever-expanding bicycle network. Our crews worked all over the city making improvements, adding infrastructure and creating a more robust network.

Biking is more important than ever, both as a means of transportation with Muni service limited and as a way to get some exercise while sheltering-in-place. Where people feel safe and comfortable bicycling, more people ride bicycles. When these bike rides replace car trips, it creates more room on our crowded roadways, reducing traffic congestion. As such, expanding the bicycle network where people can travel comfortably has been a key priority of the SFMTA’s Transportation Recovery Plan.

Fell Street

The new parking-protected bikeway on Fell Street between Baker and Shrader streets provides relief to over-crowding and supports physical distancing efforts for the popular Panhandle Pathway. The number of bikes observed on the pathway shows a huge jump in users over the last few months, and this new bikeway will benefit people on bikes as well as the walkers and joggers that frequent the area.

On the street, the protected bike lane reduced mixed travel lanes from four to three while simultaneously preserving most of the parking. You now can ride from the Wiggle all the way past the Panhandle without having to navigate around anyone going the opposite way.

Embarcadero

The Embarcadero is one of San Francisco’s most iconic destinations and landmarks. It is a thriving business corridor, a key transportation artery and a popular recreational route.  Improving this vital city resource is something the Port of San Francisco and SFMTA have been in constant collaboration for years. As part of the Embarcadero Enhancement Project, new bike lanes are being installed this week between Folsom and Mission streets. This new improvement is a great step in improving a critical part of the High Injury Network that is a major focus for achieving the Vision Zero goals for the city.

Third Street Bridge

The Third Street Bridge quick build has completed a new two-way bikeway across the Lefty O’Doul (Third Street) Bridge to connect the Promenade/King Street and Terry Francois Boulevard. The protected bikeway has provided dedicated space for people on bicycles and reduced the risk of conflicts with vehicles. This connection closed a critical gap in our bike network by connecting the Embarcadero to the San Francisco Bay Trail.

And Just in case you didn’t know, the Third Street Bridge is rather famous: Lefty O'Doul has been in quite a few movies. The bridge was used for the 1973 Clint Eastwood movie Magnum Force and the 2015 movie San Andreas starring Dwayne Johnson and Alexandra Daddario. Want to watch Roger Moore jump a fire truck over Lefty O’Doul in a chase sequence in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill? Here you go, enjoy!

Pedaling Forward

The need for more bicycling infrastructure has become increasingly important as the way we move around the city continues to evolve. We want to ensure our commitment to expanding this network and connecting our city through the many new programs like Slow Streets, Shared Spaces and neighborhood ways. Let us know how we can improve your commute further in the comments section below.

Published August 28, 2020 at 04:13AM
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Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones

Reimagine Potrero Yard with Us – Summer Milestones
By Adrienne Heim

A potential rendering of the future modernized Potrero Yard

The Potrero Yard Modernization Project will rebuild the existing Potrero bus yard to ensure we maintain our bus fleet as efficiently as possible and enhance the facility’s resilience to climate change and other natural disasters. The Project will also ensure our staff is able to perform their work in a safe and efficient way and address the City’s broader goals for new housing and affordable housing.  The Project has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ), an important step for modernizing the yard.

The Project Concept

The modern yard will be able to store 213 buses, increasing capacity by approximately 50%.

In addition, the facility will include the following features:

• LEED Gold Certification
• An elevated structural and seismic building standard
• Infrastructure for battery-electric buses
• Centralized location for Street Operations - Muni’s “first responders”
• Centralized, modern space for Muni operator training
• Active ground floor uses on Bryant, and possibly 17th streets

“This exciting project will help fix two of the city's most pressing issues: lack of affordable housing and unreliable transit service,” said Alexander Hirji, Potrero Yard Neighborhood Working Group member and San Francisco Youth Commissioner. “The yard portion of the Project allows the SFMTA to maintain buses effectively, send them out to the riders, and it allows for future bus technology innovations in years to come. Up top, the affordable housing portion allows this city to make strides toward its goals for providing quality affordable housing to residents. This project will shape the Agency for many decades, and in a good, sustainable, and equitable way.”

A modernized Potrero Yard would have multiple uses.

Housing on Top of the Yard

Potrero Yard is home to much of Muni's trolleybus fleet

The SFMTA is proposing up to 575 rental units of housing with an initial affordability target of 50%. The city’s committed to addressing the shortage of affordable housing and is therefore challenging potential developers to seek additional funds to maximize the affordability percentage, up to as much as 100% affordable. Many factors informed the proposed project’s size and unit count, such as building height, massing, financial feasibility and shadows on Franklin Square.

Two months ago, virtual community conversations were hosted to provide a refresher about the project and discuss where we are in the process. If you were unable to attend, please listen to the June 6 conversation to hear the project team and members of the community discuss the project. 

We’re excited to announce that we’ve achieved three major milestones last week:

1. The Project’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) was issued to begin the developer procurement process followed by a press release. 

The RFQ is the first of a two-step process to bring a developer partner under contract with the city. This stage is to pre-qualify a group of professionals who have the experience and financial backing to successfully complete this project. Ideally, we will end up with three qualified developer teams. 

The second step is to ask those pre-qualified teams for project proposals as part of the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage, which will end up in the selection of a single developer partner.

2. Special legislation was introduced by the Board of Supervisors last Tuesday, August 18, to set rules for a long-term agreement with a developer team that would design, build, finance, operate and maintain the new yard.

The legislation obligates the project to prevailing wages, a Local Business Enterprise (LBE) program, the city’s local hire policy and first source hiring ordinance. The ordinance also allows payment of a design stipend for up to two unsuccessful respondent development teams. This special legislation will first be heard by the Budget and Finance Committee consisting of Supervisors Walton, Fewer and Mandelman.

3. A meeting to introduce all the topic areas that will be covered in the environmental impact document (referred collectively as the “project scope”) will be held by the San Francisco Planning Department on Wednesday, September 2, beginning at 6:00 p.m. 

You may also view a video presentation by SF Planning for the project and provide comments to cpc.PotreroYardEIR@sfgov.org concerning the scope of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) until 5:00 p.m., September 18.

The meeting event will take place on Zoom: https://swca.zoom.us/s/92577630432/ Meeting ID: 925 7763 0432, or join by phone at 1.888.475.4499.

The purpose of the meeting is to collect comments from other regulatory agencies and the public on the draft scope. This is an opportunity for the public to add topic areas that SF Planning may not have included in their initial scoping process. More information can be found at the Planning Environmental Review Documents page under Potrero Yard Modernization Project – 2019-021884ENV.

Community Outreach

We will be tabling on Labor Day weekend, September 5 and 6, from noon to 5:00 p.m. at John O’Connell High School (Harrison Street between 18th and 20th streets) for the Carnaval San Francisco Latino COVID-19 Healing & Recovery – Salud es Poder event hosted by CANA-Carnaval San Francisco in partnership with the San Francisco Latino Task Force, community based organizations, health providers, and San Francisco City Departments.

We’re also planning to host English- and Spanish-language virtual community events to discuss the second step of the developer procurement process, the RFP, which we hope to issue in early 2021.

Learn more about the project by visiting www.sfmta.com/PotreroYard.

For more information, please email PotreroYard@sfmta.com or call us at 415.646.2223.

 

Published August 27, 2020 at 07:23AM
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Muni Metro Service is Temporarily Suspended

Muni Metro Service is Temporarily Suspended
By Bradley Dunn

After weeks of planning to restart our Muni Metro service, we unfortunately were forced to resume all bus service starting today. We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this may cause. 

Our need to temporarily suspend train service for about 8several weeks is based on two problems that emerged yesterday: 

• An employee in our Transportation Management Center (TMC) – the nerve center of our rail system – tested positive for COVID-19. We wish them a speedy and full recovery. By doing thorough contract tracing, we now know that more of our vital team members need to be quarantined. This leaves us short-staffed in positions central to operating Muni Metro service safely and effectively. 

• A critical component of the overhead infrastructure that power our trains has failed twice in the last few days. After a problem with new equipment recently installed caused service disruptions twice in the past two days, staff worked quickly to provide a fix that we must implement before bringing the Metro back fully again. This is frustrating because our crews worked tirelessly over the last few months to address deferred maintenance in the tunnels. 

For these reasons, we will be using our buses for all train service starting Tuesday, August 25, and working hard to get train back on track as soon as we can. Shutting down the subway for quarantine will also allow for the replacement of the critical equipment in the subway. 

We will keep you informed about our efforts to bring rail back at SFMTA.com/RailRecovery and you can get more information about our response to COVID-19 at SFMTA.com/COVID. You can also find provides real-time alerts about Muni service disruptions at the SFMTA’s Twitter account, @sfmta_muni.

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Muni地鐵服務臨時取消 

  經過數周的準備，Muni地鐵服務得以恢復，遺憾的是我們從今天起不得不重新回到用巴士代替地鐵的狀態。對給你帶來的困擾和不便，我們深表歉意。 

地鐵需要停運數八周主要是基於昨天發生的兩個事件時間： 

• 在被視爲神經中樞的交通管制中心（TMC）有一位雇員被確診染上COVID-19,其他同事需要隔離。希望他們儘快康復。根據跟蹤調查，可以確定有幾位關鍵崗位上的職員需要隔離。由於人手不足，運作起來會影響地鐵系統的安全性和可靠性。 

• 在過去兩天内，為列車供電的上方電纜系統的關鍵部件兩次失靈。上方電纜系統的問題引發了客運停頓。目前我們正在與不同的廠商尋求替代產品。這令我們倍感不安，因爲我們的工作人員幾個月來夜以繼日地工作排除隧道内可能發生的問題。 

• 在過去兩天内，為列車供電的上方電纜系統的關鍵部件兩次失靈。最近安裝的部件在過去兩天兩次引發客運停頓后，工作人員快速反應，他們將在地鐵再次恢復運行前排除障礙。這令我們倍感不安，因爲我們員工幾個月來夜以繼日地工作排除隧道内可能發生的問題。 

基於上述原因，我們將從周二起用巴士代替地鐵列車，同時努力儘快恢復地鐵服務。在地鐵隧道關閉過程中我們將利用這個機會完成其它維修工作。 

我們將爲您提供最新信息，讓您瞭解恢復地鐵工作的進展SFMTA.com/RailRecovery 。您也可以瞭解我們對COVID-19的防疫工作SFMTA.com/COVID.。獲得Muni服務警訊可以使用交通局的推特賬號@sfmta_muni.  

  儘管我們面臨悲劇，交通局的全體職工努力利用所有可以利用的時間為我們的城市服務。 

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Después de varias semanas de preparación para el reinicio del servicio de Metro de Muni, hoy desafortunadamente tenemos que regresar al servicio sustituto por autobús. Nos disculpamos por cualquier confusión e inconveniencia que esto ocasione.   

La necesidad de suspender el servicio de tren temporalmente por aproximadamente 8 semanas es debido a dos problemas inesperados que surgieron ayer:  

• Un empleado de nuestro Centro de Gestión de Transporte (TMC por sus siglas en inglés), el centro de operaciones de nuestro sistema ferroviario- dio positivo por COVID-19. Le deseamos una recuperación rápida a esta persona. Como precaución, otros miembros vitales del equipo deben estar en cuarentena.  Esto nos deja con poco personal en puestos centrales para operar el servicio de Metro de Muni de manera segura y efectiva.  

• Un componente crítico de la infraestructura aérea que alimenta a nuestros trenes ha fallado dos veces en los últimos días. Un problema de equipo con nuestro sistema aéreo está causando interrupciones en el servicio. Estamos trabajando con un proveedor diferente para encontrar un reemplazo. Esto es frustrante porque nuestros equipos trabajaron incansablemente durante los últimos meses para completar mantenimiento en los túneles. 

Debido a esto, estaremos usando buses para reemplazar el servicio de tren a partir del martes, y trabajando duro para poder regresar a servicio por tren apenas se puede. El cierre del subterráneo también permitirá el reemplazo de equipo crítico.  

Manténgase informado sobre labores hacia el restablecimiento del servicio de tren en la página SFMTA.com/RailRecovery. Para conocer las últimas actualizaciones de Muni y de COVID-19 visite SFMTA.com/COVID. También puede acceder alertas sobre el servicio de Muni en la cuenta de Twitter de la SFMTA, @sfmta_muni.    

A pesar de estas tragedias, el personal de la SFMTA sigue trabajando duro para proporcionar lo mejor que pueden en cuanto a horas de servicio de transporte público para la ciudad.

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Paksa: Ang serbisyo ng Muni Metro ay pansamantalang nasuspinde 

Matapos ang buwanang pagpaplano upang ma-isimula ang serbisyo ng Muni Metro, sa kasamaang palad ay napilitan kaming ipagpatuloy ang lahat ng serbisyo sa bus simula ngayon. Humihingi kami ng tawad sa pagkalito at abala na maaaring sanhi nito. 

     Ang aming pangangailangan upang pansamantalang suspindihin ang serbisyo sa tren ay batay sa dalawang mga problema na lumitaw kahapon:      

• Ang isang empleyado sa aming Transportation Management Center (TMC) - ang sentro ng aming sistema ng tren - nasubok na positibo para sa COVID-19. Nais namin sa kanila ang isang mabilis at buong paggaling. Sa pamamagitan ng paggawa ng masusing pagsubaybay sa kontrata, alam natin ngayon na marami sa aming mga mahahalagang kasapi ng koponan ay kailangang ma-quarantine. Nag-iwan ito sa amin ng pagkukulang sa mga posisyon na sentro sa pagpapatakbo ng serbisyo ng Muni Metro nang ligtas at epektibo.  

•  Ang isang kritikal na sangkap ng overhead na imprastraktura na kapangyarihan ng aming mga tren ay nabigo nang dalawang beses sa mga huling araw. Matapos ang isang problema sa mga bagong kagamitan na kamakailan-install na nagdulot ng mga pagkagambala sa serbisyo ng dalawang beses sa nakaraang dalawang araw, ang mga kawani ay mabilis na nagtrabaho upang magbigay ng isang pag-aayos na dapat nating ipatupad bago ibalik muli ang Metro. Ito ay nabigo dahil ang aming mga tauhan ay walang tigil na nagtrabaho sa nakaraang ilang buwan upang matugunan ang ipinagpaliban na pagpapanatili sa mga lagusan.     

 Para sa mga kadahilanang ito, gagamitin namin ang aming mga bus para sa lahat ng serbisyo ng tren simula Martes, Agosto 25, at nagsusumikap upang makabalik ang mga tren sa lalong madaling panahon. Ang pag-shut down ng subway para sa quarantine ay magpapahintulot din sa pagpapalit ng mga kritikal na kagamitan sa subway.      

Ipapaalam namin sa iyo ang tungkol sa aming mga pagsisikap na ibalik ang riles sa SFMTA.com/RailRecovery at makakakuha ka ng karagdagang impormasyon tungkol sa aming tugon sa COVID-19 sa SFMTA.com/COVID. Maaari ka ring makahanap ng mga pagkagambala sa serbisyo ng alerto ng real-time na pag-alerto sa serbisyo sa MSSMMTA, @ sfmta_muni.      

Sa kabila ng mga trahedya na kinakaharap nila, ang mga kawani ng SFMTA ay nagsusumikap upang gumawa ng pinakamahusay, mas mahusay na paggamit ng bawat magagamit na oras ng serbisyo upang makapagtrabaho sila para sa lungsod.    

 

 

Published August 26, 2020 at 01:59AM
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Ride with Care –COVID-19 Requirements for Muni Customers

Ride with Care –COVID-19 Requirements for Muni Customers
By Sophia Scherr

COVID-19 has changed the way that we conduct our day-to-day lives, including how we ride Muni. The SFMTA is excited that we brought back much needed rail and bus service on August 22, 2020. We ask that you ride with care for fellow passengers and our operators by doing the following when riding Muni.

• Wear a face covering - Face coverings are mandatory for individuals 2-years and older when waiting for and riding Muni. Face masks must cover both your nose and mouth.
• Physically distance yourself from other riders when possible – Give others space when riding and do not attempt to board vehicles that are at capacity.
• Use contactless payment - Please consider using your Clipper Card or MuniMobile® to pay your fare. Doing so will help minimize risk to both yourself and our operators. Using your Clipper Card or MuniMobile® will also save you $0.50 off your adult fare.
• Make it a quiet ride - Onboard, customers are discouraged from talking, singing or other verbal activities that can cause droplets to be expelled as this has been known to contribute to virus spread.
• Keep your hands clean – Wash your hands before and after riding Muni and keep hand sanitizer handy.
• Don’t ride if you are feeling ill – Please refrain from riding Muni if you are feeling sick or feel you have been exposed to COVID-19. Testing sites and more information can be found here.
• Consider other modes of transit - While staying home is the best way to stop the spread of COVID-19, we understand that many people need to take trips outside their home. Help save space on Muni for essential workers and transit-dependent San Franciscans by considering if you can take a bicycle, shared mobility, walk or travel at less busy times before getting on Muni.

Together, we can continue to keep San Francisco moving. Visit SFMTA.com/COVID-19 for up-to-date information.

Published August 25, 2020 at 04:26AM
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