Lane will speed buses along Mission
Buses on Mission Street will now be able to go faster.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has completed the first part of its temporary emergency transit lanes project on Mission Street that will allow the 14Mission and 14RMission Rapid buses traveling from 11th to Third streets to stay out of traffic, reduce travel times and — ideally — avoid more accidents.
“Our data has proven that Muni trips are completed more quickly when we have a transit lane available,” said Kristen Holland, an SFMTA spokeswoman. “We learned what a powerful tool they can be to help Muni operate better in the city, help keep travel moving and help customers keep their trips as quick as they can be.”
The emergency transit lanes, which will be striped with white paint and stenciled with “bus/ taxi only” marks, are temporary. They’ll be removed within 120 days unless there’s a public process to make them permanent, SFMTA outlined in a post. Three buses are now needed to move the same number of people as one bus did before the pandemic because of physicaldistancing requirements. That’s why transit planTransit
“We need to protect those buses and keep them moving fast and efficiently — this helps our essential workers who depend on transit.” Cat Carter, San Francisco Transit Riders Union
ners argue temporary emergency transitonly lanes are crucial. First responders will also be able to use the transit lanes to respond more quickly to emergencies.
Mission Street’s narrow transit lanes, which in the past five years have contributed to more than 225 collisions involving Muni buses, were also widened for safety, officials wrote in the blog post.
The SFMTA Board of Directors approved an initial group of temporary emergency transit lanes on June 30, which included the Mission Street lanes, as well as lanes for the 19Polk on Seventh and Eighth streets in SoMa, and lanes for the 43Masonic and 44O’Shaughnessy with locations on Presidio, Masonic, Laguna
Honda, Woodside and Bosworth streets. The project had been in the works for quite some time.
A decision is still pending for the 38Geary and 38RGeary Rapid on Geary Boulevard, which had a public hearing on Sept. 24 and is still being considered for approval.
“We’re really excited to see this project go forward,” said Cat Carter of the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. “We can see the traffic is basically back to preCOVID levels, almost, and that’s going to start slowing down business. We need to protect those buses and keep them moving fast and efficiently — this helps our essential workers who depend on transit to get to their jobs.”
In the initial months of shelterinplace, Muni lines saw a 15% reduction in travel time on average as traffic disappeared.
Now, the 14Mission and 14RMission Rapid — both buses integral for those traveling downtown for work — are prone to delays because of crowding and congestion.
Carter said the emergency transit lanes — not just on Mission Street, but everywhere in the city — will be paramount.
“The transit lanes are a really necessary response to the emergency that we’re in,” she said. “If a small fraction of people who used to ride Muni decide to take their cars, we’re going to be in gridlock again, in no time at all.”