Suit to block rapid bus lanes on Geary fails

A San Francisco Superior Court judge on Monday shot down a petition by opponents of rapid bus lanes on Geary Boulevard who sought to torpedo the project by alleging flaws in its environmental review and public approval process.

Saying that bus service along the busy corridor has long been “unreliable, slow and crowded,” Judge Cynthia Ming-mei Lee defended the transit project and the exhaustive analyses conducted by San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and other city officials.

“The court finds that substantial evidence supports the (environmental impact report for) Geary BRT (bus rapid transit system) and its analysis of the project,” Lee wrote in an order that dismissed every claim made by the merchant advocacy group San Franciscans for Sensible Transit, whose members filed the lawsuit last year. They claimed the city had inappropriately rushed the environmental review without sufficiently examining the “biological, historical, safety and noise impacts” of major infrastructure work in the Richmond District.

In its suit, the group argued that work to add the new bus lanes — which intend to cut travel time for riders — would burden Richmond residents by reducing parking, requiring trees to be uprooted from sidewalks and eliminating the street’s concrete median. Skeptics also feared that businesses would wilt during construction, the way they have on Van Ness Avenue, where a similar street and bus lane overhaul is under way.

Construction began earlier this month on the eastern segment of the route, along Geary between Market and Stanyan streets. Crews are painting red bus lanes along that 2-mile stretch and widening curbs near stops, and the SFMTA is installing new software to sync traffic lights with bus arrivals. The next phase, scheduled to start in 2021, will extend the red lanes westward from Stanyan Street to 34th Avenue, widen sidewalks and add medians for people who can’t cross Geary in one traffic signal.

Those improvements would have faced substantial delays and may have been derailed altogether had the lawsuit succeeded. Fifty-four thousand people ride the 38 Geary and 38 Geary Rapid lines each day, and they often get marooned in traffic or delayed when passengers have to board in the middle of the street.

The city and SFMTA worried that jam-packed, sluggish buses would lead people to choose Uber and Lyft instead, causing the city’s public transportation to hemorrhage riders. Transit officials began studying plans for a better bus route on Geary in 2004 — the year after voters approved a half-cent sales tax for transit projects — and the work inched along for 14 years.

With the lawsuit tossed out, those long-gestating plans can proceed.

“We appreciate the court’s thoughtful and detailed ruling,” said John Coté, a spokesman for San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

“As we’ve said from the start, the environmental review for this project was complete and accurate,” he continued. “The petition to stymie this project was misguided, and it was denied in its entirety. The court found that the laundry list of accusations from the opponents were all lacking.”

The director of San Franciscans for Sensible Transit seemed perplexed by the judge’s decision.

“Frankly, I can’t understand what happened,” said Robert Starzel, who heads the group. “Maybe the judge thought the planning for this project has been going on for so long, she didn’t want to interfere with it.”