Supporting The City's Youngest Residents Returning to In-Person Learning

Supporting The City's Youngest Residents Returning to In-Person Learning
By Erica Kato

 

Parents: A reminder that Slow Streets are not closed to cars dropping off students or school buses. They are considered local traffic and can use Slow Streets to access drop-off and pick-up areas.   

The Agency is eager to support our students returning back to school! This is an exciting time for parents and students alike, and we are proud to provide a strong set of mobility options to help facilitate school trips. Recently, we covered the Muni service we’ve strategically invested in around key school routes (like the 29 Sunset and 44 O’Shaughnessy) to increase core network frequency around our major corridors that serve many of San Francisco’s schools. In preparation for the phased-in reopening of the schools, we’ve also been hard at work to get kids to school safely by foot, bike, and car:   

• Our beloved crossing guards are coming back to help the kids get to school safely! Over 30 crossing guards will be deployed starting Monday, covering 17 schools around the city.  

• Any missing or faded white paint at loading zone curbs has been refreshed for all elementary schools reopening. We’re asking everyone that has been parking in the white zones during the pandemic to comply with the parking regulations and move their cars before school starts to allow for safe drop-offs.   

• We will be deploying additional parking control officers to areas where schools are reopening to address any issues, if they arise.   

• In partnership with SF Bicycle Coalition, our SF Safe Routes to School Program will launch Bike and Roll to School Week from May 10-14th as a citywide celebration to encourage students and caregivers to bike or roll to school. 

• We’re also encouraging parents to utilize our Slow Streets network as a good way to introduce your children to walking and biking to school. 

We hope parents, students, and teachers heading back to the classroom enjoy the improvements we’ve made during the shelter-in-place order. We also want to remind folks that Slow Streets are not closed to cars dropping off students or school buses. They are considered local traffic and can use Slow Streets to access drop-off and pick-up areas. School traffic IS local traffic. Staff reviewed the location of all the schools in their proximity to our network of Slow Streets. We are in the process of evaluating how Slow Streets affect access and school circulation. In certain cases, we may initially remove barricades and assess how school access and queueing during drop-off is working. As schools reopen through April, we look forward to working with individual schools to best meet their transportation access needs. 

 

Whether your family finds a new route to school on two wheels, six wheels, by walking or by vehicle, we think you’ll find transportation is recovering from the pandemic healthier than what you may remember. Whether it's a school crossing guard at a nearby intersection or our Free Muni for Youth Program, the SFMTA plays a role in getting students to and from the classroom. No matter how your family chooses to get to school as in-person instruction reopens, SFMTA is committed to helping you to school safely and sustainably. We will train students and caregivers on the four fun ways to get to school (biking, walking, taking transit, or carpooling). We look forward to supporting the city’s youngest residents, and will continue to work with schools on their transportation needs to help everyone involved breathe (and move about!) a little easier after a challenging year.  

Published April 11, 2021 at 02:44AM
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Parking Meters Help Keep San Francisco Vibrant

Parking Meters Help Keep San Francisco Vibrant
By Monica Munowitch

Parking Meters Help Keep San Francisco Vibrant

In a dense, vibrant, expensive city like San Francisco which is bounded by water on three sides, space is at a premium.  On city streets, which take up about 20% of San Francisco’s land area, there are many different forms of transportation, all competing for that limited space.  As a result, on-street parking for cars is just one of many demands that residents, merchants, visitors and others have for the road network.  And of course when it comes to on-street parking, curb space is a very limited resource. As it’s not possible to build more curbs, the city uses regulations to help ensure that spaces are available when and where they’re needed most.

Multi-space Pay Station on McAllister Street

In managing these competing demands, parking meters are the most effective tool we have --particularly in commercial districts and other high-demand areas. They create availability by encouraging people to park only for the length of time they need.  This helps to keep spaces available for people whose only option is to drive and park.  Without parking meters, the availability of parking in high-demand areas would drop considerably—many spaces could, for example, be taken for days or weeks by people at work, at home or on vacation.

Additionally, when parking is hard to find, people in cars circle the area looking for spaces or double-park while they wait for a space. This leads to congestion for everyone on the street, slows down Muni, creates safety hazards for people walking and biking, and negatively impacts merchants, businesses, and residents. Successful parking management in San Francisco not only increases the availability of parking for people who need to drive, it makes transit more reliable, manages congestion, helps the economy, and creates safer streets.

While parking meters do generate significant revenue for the city, they also have substantial costs.  Single-space meters, which make up the majority of meters in San Francisco, cost over $600 apiece; each multi-space paystation (serving 10 or more spaces) costs $6,000.  Other costs that the city pays for this valuable tool add up to millions of dollars per year, including labor for installation and maintenance, battery replacement, coin collection, data/communications fees, credit card fees, vendor fees and enforcement staffing.

San Francisco’s City Charter mandates that parking revenues in excess of management costs be directed toward supporting transit —a progressive and forward-looking system that voters approved when they supported the creation of the SFMTA in 1999.  So in San Francisco, paid parking and transit are inextricably linked and create a virtuous cycle: paid parking keeps the streets clear of double parkers and cars circling in search of a space and helps transit move faster and more reliably; more reliable transit is more appealing for people and leads to more transit trips, which opens up more parking spaces for the people who need to drive. And when drivers pay for parking, their contributions help fund the transit service that in turn reduces the need for driving. A well-managed parking policy prevents congestion, reduces pollution, makes the streets safer, and provides a transportation lifeline to the hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans who do not have a car. This encourages the type of density and walkability that make San Francisco an appealing place to live, work, and visit.

 

Published April 09, 2021 at 02:56AM
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The 150 Year History of Muni’s ‘Newest’ Route: The 15

The 150 Year History of Muni’s ‘Newest’ Route: The 15
By Jeremy Menzies

With the return of Muni’s 15 route earlier this year as the 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express, here’s a quick look back at a line that traces part of its lineage back over 150 years.

A 15 3rd & Kearny streetcar picks its way through a crowded downtown scene in this 1910 photo.

In the mid-1800s people began travelling San Francisco’s 3rd Street corridor by stagecoach and horse-drawn streetcars. At the turn of the 20th century, horse car service gave way to electric streetcars, with three lines eventually sharing the work of serving 3rd Street from north to south. Operated by the United Railroads Company, the combined service of the 15 Kearny & North Beach, 16 3rd & Kearny, and 29 3rd & Sansome lines ran from North Beach all the way to the county line in Visitacion Valley.

A photo from OpenSFHistory.org showing the 15, 16, and 29 Streetcars outside the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot in 1940, shortly before streetcar service would be replaced with buses.

In the 1940s, streetcar service was replaced by buses that combined multiple lines into one route.  Like their streetcar predecessors, the buses stopped at key locations along 3rd Street, including the factories in Dogpatch, Southern Pacific Railroad Depot (now 4th & King Caltrain), downtown commercial district, Market Street transit lines and the docks in the North Beach area. 

A Muni 15 3rd & Kearny bus makes a lane change on San Bruno & Harkness avenues in this 1957 photo.

As the years passed and the city changed, the 15 changed with it, serving different terminals depending on where passengers need to go.  Eventually this expansion led it to become one of Muni’s longest routes, running 11 miles from North Beach all the way to City College. The 15 Third was discontinued in 2007,  after over 60 years of service, when it was replaced by the T Third rail line on Third Street and by a rerouting of the 9x and 9AX routes north of Market Street.

A 15 Third Street coach passes Torino Market at 3rd and Palou on its way out to City College in 2002.

Rapid growth in Mission Bay in recent years has resulted in changing needs for people who travel to and through this corridor. So San Francisco residents began advocating for additional service, particularly through the Southeast Muni Expansion Project in 2018.  Based on public input, that project prioritized a more direct trip to downtown from the Bayview. Responding to these concerns, we established the “new” 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express in January 2021.

A 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express coach passes a city vista along Jerrold Ave in the Hunter’s Point neighborhood on January 25, 2021.

Starting out in Hunter’s Point and traveling to the transit hub at 3rd and Palou, the “new” 15 takes riders to locations within the neighborhood and then makes limited express stops to downtown and regional transit connections. The 15 Bayview Hunters Point Express route provides some of the same north-south connections as the original stagecoach and horse car lines back in the mid-1800s.  Just like its predecessors, it builds on a core 3rd Street service and offers a transportation option that seeks to meet the needs of today’s residents. 

 

Published April 08, 2021 at 07:18AM
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Muni Subway Gets Green Light and Wi-Fi!

Muni Subway Gets Green Light and Wi-Fi!
By Mariana Maguire

The recent wave of major subway repairs is finally wrapping up and customers can expect smoother, more reliable rides when Muni Metro reopens. New wayfinding signs and art projects are in place at Castro and West Portal stations, and – drumroll, please – Wi-Fi availability, thanks to routers being installed in stations and cellular antennas being installed in the tunnels. Safety certification for the subway repairs was approved on March 11, paving the way to reopen the subway and phase in more rail service in May. Soon, you’ll be able to let your loved ones know you’re on your way even when you’re underground.

Our staff used this rare extended subway shutdown as an opportunity to accelerate other upgrades and necessary maintenance work, by packaging them with subway repairs to maximize results. During normal service, subway maintenance crews can only work within the few hours a day when trains are not running.

SFMTA crew installing new overhead wire in the subway tunnel

The work we completed during the pandemic provides significant customer improvements, including a quicker ride, the convenience of Wi-Fi and fewer breakdowns in the tunnel. This work represents an important downpayment on a larger set of deferred capital needs including replacement of the train control system, track replacement between Castro and Embarcadero and upgrades to the subway and station support systems, such as station electrical panels and fan systems. We’ve also been able to train additional crew members in tunnel operations and maintenance.

One of the last and key steps in finishing repairs and reopening the subway is safety testing and certification. The SFMTA is testing the track, signal system and overhead wires to ensure they are functioning properly and meet safety standards. We’re also tested our train control system to ensure it is in proper working order. The train control system is a crucial part of subway safety and operation, overseeing all of our trains in the tunnel and directing them to the right places.

Other important repairs and improvements included:

Track grinding: Just as it sounds, our track maintenance crews grind the track to smooth it out. Like a freshly repaved roadway, track grinding provides a smoother, quieter ride with less wear and tear to vehicles. This work had been in the queue for a while but was deferred because it requires service to be shut down and takes many hours. We were able to take advantage of the extended shut down to finally undertake this vital improvement.

Tunnel lighting: Our subway maintenance staff replaced the lights inside the tunnels between Castro and Van Ness stations and are completing installation of new tunnel lighting between Embarcadero and Montgomery stations. These lights are vital for train operators to see potential hazards. They are also necessary for visibility in emergencies. The previous lights were 50 years old and dim, creating safety concerns. While customers might not notice these new tunnel lights, this important safety upgrade will nevertheless make their trips safer.

Signs: We are also installing new wayfinding and directional signs at Castro and Church stations--part of a larger effort to improve wayfinding throughout the Muni Metro system. This includes upgrading the wayfinding signs inside stations that point customers to stairwells, elevators and escalators, and indicate where they lead. New station identification signs will also let you know where you are when your train pulls into one of these stations. All these new signs will be brighter and more visible with LED technology.

With this new signage, we are moving away from the confusing and outdated use of “inbound” and “outbound” wording in the subway. Instead, we will use a combination of route end points and cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), that are easier for customers to navigate and consistent with rail systems and stations in most major cities worldwide. As an example, that means if you are taking the N Judah at Powell Station and your destination is in the Sunset, you will look for signs for trains going to “Ocean Beach/Westbound” because Ocean Beach is the final destination west on the route.

Public art: When entering or exiting Muni Metro at Castro or West Portal, you will also see brand new, beautiful artwork on our accessible bus platforms at street level.

With the reopening of the subway, we will continue to gradually phase back Muni Metro rail by extending the T Third Metro to West Portal and bringing back the N Judah Metro rail between Ocean Beach and 4th and King. We expect these service changes to take place in May and we will share additional details as they become available.

 

 

Published April 06, 2021 at 02:26AM
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