4th Street Transit Lane Offers Muni a Path Forward

4th Street Transit Lane Offers Muni a Path Forward
By Bonnie Jean von Krogh

Work crews paint transit lane on 4th Street

A new transit lane was installed last week on 4th Street in SoMA as part of the previously approved 4th Street Transit Improvement Project. As the first transit lane put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, this change will help protect Muni passengers as congestion returns to city streets.

Transit lanes allow buses to complete trips in less time and turn around back into service more quickly. That means with our limited resources, we can provide more Muni service with the same number of buses, reducing crowding and maintaining better physical distancing onboard.

The benefits that transit lanes provide – saving time and avoiding congestion – have become critically important during COVID-19 to protect the health of Muni passengers. Physical distancing requirements mean that Muni’s passenger capacity is cut in a third from pre-COVID levels. When buses take longer to complete their routes, customers increase their possible exposure to COVID-19.

The 4th Street transit lane can be used as a model for how this proven tool can benefit Muni customers throughout the city. The SFMTA is using travel time data to evaluate additional locations where adding new transit lanes would achieve the biggest time savings and provide the greatest benefit.

4th Street Transit Lane: A Model for a Broader Return of Muni Service

The new transit lane is the primary feature of the 4th Street Transit Improvement Project approved in October 2019 following months of community engagement. Other key elements of the project include additional passenger and commercial loading, as well as improved safety for people walking. The dedicated transit lane runs from Market to Folsom streets. It is currently identified with white “Bus/Taxi Only” stenciling and will later be painted red. The 4th Street lane complements the recently updated transit lane on 3rd Street as part of the 3rd Street Transit and Safety Project. Taken together, these transit lanes can substantially reduce transit delay, minimizing health risks for Muni passengers.

See the diagram below for the new design of 4th Street approaching Howard.

Diagram of cross section of 4th Street with transit lane approaching Howard.

The 4th Street corridor is a major transit and traffic corridor, providing connections to Caltrain, 101 South and the Bay Bridge and is anticipated to have high levels of traffic congestion moving forward. Typically, it is used by five of Muni’s busiest bus lines, including the 8 Bayshore, 8AX and 8BX Bayshore Expresses, 30 Stockton, 45 Union/Stockton and 91 OWL lines. During COVID Core Muni service, it supports the 8 Bayshore and 91 Owl lines.

As economic activity gradually resumes, we know that if just a fraction of the people riding Muni before the crisis switch to driving, congestion will be so severe that it will cripple San Francisco’s economic recovery. Simply put, without transit there is no recovery. Transit lanes are a proven success that allow Muni to avoid traffic congestion, improve travel times and increase frequency. If buses are less frequent, customers will have to wait longer and more people will need to use the same bus, increasing crowding or pass-ups when buses are full.

SFMTA has the task of meeting changing mobility needs in real time. But our challenge is that much greater with the immense loss of revenues the SFMTA is experiencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With limited resources, Muni’s number one goal is to keep transit moving while protecting the health and safety of our passengers and operators as we recover.

The 4th Street transit lane can help reduce the current crowding on the 8 Bayshore and ensure that when additional Muni routes return, they too can avoid traffic congestion. Given the critical importance of this corridor to local and regional transit, it will serve as an example to look to for similar treatments on other corridors.

Published June 09, 2020 at 06:03AM
https://ift.tt/3dKHfvl

Comments

New top story from Time: Hurricane Ida Winds Hit 150 MPH Ahead of Louisiana Strike

https://ift.tt/3jmdoyl NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida rapidly grew in strength early Sunday, becoming a dangerous Category 4 hurricane just hours before hitting the Louisiana coast while emergency officials in the region grappled with opening shelters for displaced evacuees despite the risks of spreading the coronavirus. As Ida moved through some of the warmest ocean water in the world in the northern Gulf of Mexico, its top winds grew by 45 mph (72 kph) to 150 mph (230 kph) in five hours. The system was expected to make landfall Sunday afternoon, set to arrive on the exact date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The hurricane center said Ida is forecast to hit at 155 mph (250 kph), just 1 mph shy of a Category 5 hurricane. Only four Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the United States: Michael in 2018, Andrew in 1992, Camille in 1969 and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. Both Michael and Andrew were u...

New top story from Time: John le Carré’s Silverview Is Not the Defining Final Chapter of a Literary Career

https://ift.tt/3BMuXOI When John le Carré died last December, his obituarists struck a common theme: here was a master spy novelist who, despite selling millions of books and having his work adapted for television and film , never received the recognition he deserved as a literary giant. Over six decades, le Carré drew upon his brief career in British intelligence to chronicle the decline of the U.K. as a global power and critique what he saw as an arrogant and corrupt Western neo-imperialism, typically through the perspective of those in the “secret world” of spying. His archetypal heroes were not James Bonds or Jack Reachers but often disillusioned men driven by moral values they are not certain they still believe in. What compels people to serve their country, or betray it, was a consistent theme in his work. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But just as Graham Greene —another former spy turned novelist—divided his work into “entertainments” and serious fare, so can one...

New top story from Time: Google’s Employee Vaccine Mandate Could Influence Other Companies to Do the Same

https://ift.tt/3BQnXRv (SAN RAMON, Calif.) — Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened in an attempt to fight the spreading Delta variant. In a Wednesday email sent to Google’s more than 130,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it,” Pichai wrote. And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Goog...

FOX NEWS: College student sheds 100 pounds after years of dedication: 'The greatest accomplishment' Lori Odegaard, 24, from Fargo, North Dakota, tells Fox News about her incredible weight loss journey.

College student sheds 100 pounds after years of dedication: 'The greatest accomplishment' Lori Odegaard, 24, from Fargo, North Dakota, tells Fox News about her incredible weight loss journey. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/6S8knsb

New top story from Time: The Overlooked American Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

https://ift.tt/3CRBisk More than 75 years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, roughly 136,000 people are living with the memories—and effects—of the disasters . In the U.S., specifically, there are believed to be just under 1,000 survivors. Many of these men and women ended up in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as children or young adults on those fateful days because they were visiting extended family, or had been sent to study in the country during a time of rising anti-Asian sentiments in the U.S. (It was not uncommon for families of Japanese descent in America to send their children to Japanese schools for a few years so that they would have the option to work in the country as adults.) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Hoping to raise awareness of this community, historian Naoko Wake conducted 86 interviews with members of this community for her recently published book American Survivors: Trans-P...

New top story from Time: What to Know About the Real-Life Inspiration Behind Netflix’s Things Heard & Seen

https://ift.tt/3t2nRRk Within the first few minutes of the new Netflix film Things Heard & Seen , it’s clear something has gone very wrong. A man (James Norton) is seen pulling into the garage of an old home in the countryside. As he cuts the ignition on his car, a red droplet appears from above, falling onto his dashboard. He exits the car, looks up, sees liquid seeping through the floorboards and rushes inside the house, where a young girl is expectantly waiting for him. He scoops her up in his arms, and begins to run. What happened in that house? That question is at the center of Things Heard & Seen , which then rewinds to the previous spring and unpacks all that led up to this mysterious moment. The ‘80s-set thriller, which drops on the streaming platform on April 29, follows a young family—Catherine Clare ( Amanda Seyfried ), her husband George (Norton) and their daughter Franny (Ana Sophia Heger)—as they relocate from Manhattan to the Hudson Valley north of...

New top story from Time: ‘This Is Hell.’ Prime Minister Modi’s Failure to Lead Is Deepening India’s COVID-19 Crisis

https://ift.tt/3tXIM9v Dr. Jalil Parkar , one of India’s leading pulmonologists, wears his exhaustion on his face. In between treating patients at the COVID-19 intensive care unit of Mumbai’s prestigious Lilavati Hospital, Parkar appears regularly on TV to give updates on the current, devastating second wave of the pandemic that is killing thousands of Indians. He himself spent time in the ICU last year and almost died after suffering multiple COVID-complications. Now, he confesses to losing his calm over what he is seeing unfold every day. “Our healthcare system has collapsed. We have let down our own people in the country,” he says. “What can doctors do when our infrastructure is unable to take the patients, when there are no hospital beds or oxygen cylinders?” On Friday, April 23, India recorded 332,730 coronavirus cases , the highest single-day total of cases recorded globally so far. It had broken that record the day before, too. Since the pandemic began, India h...

Delegation of 60 farmers meet Narendra Singh Tomar, extend support to farm laws https://ift.tt/37Py5x3

A delegation of 60 farmers belonging to Kisaan Majdoor Sangh, Baghpat on Thursday met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar at Krishi Bhawan in Delhi. These farmers also submitted memorandum wherein they extended support to the new farm laws.

Rakesh Tikait viral video shows him asking farmers to enter Delhi with lathis - Watch https://ift.tt/3cdtQh8

An undated video of Bhartiya Kisan Union spokesperson Rakesh Tikait has gone viral, wherein he is seen asking and appealing to his supporters to be armed with lathis for the Republic Day tractor rally, and be prepared to save their land. In the video, Tikait could be heard saying "The government is not listening. Come with your sticks and flags." After a pause, Tikait is asking his supporters to 'understand his words, come along with tiranga atop lathis'.

New top story from Time: Jhumpa Lahiri on Her New Novel Whereabouts and the Power of Translation

https://ift.tt/32WjMDi In 2012, Pulitzer Prize -winning author Jhumpa Lahiri and her family moved to Rome , where they lived for several years as the novelist dedicated herself to intimately understanding the Italian language. Lahiri had loved Italian for decades, ever since taking a trip to Florence in her 20s. Now, she’s releasing the English version of her new novel Whereabouts , which she first wrote and published in Italian, in 2018, as Dove Mi Trovo. The novel is centered on a woman and her observations about an unnamed European city. While Lahiri has worked in Italian for years now (she recently edited The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories ), this is the first book she wrote in Italian and translated to English herself. Lahiri, the author of The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth , began Whereabouts in 2015 before returning to the United States, and would work on the book during the frequent trips she made back to Rome. “Speaking in a large array of contexts t...

My precise view

Search This Blog