Fast-Tracking Transit Lanes to Help the City's Recovery

Fast-Tracking Transit Lanes to Help the City's Recovery
By Amy Fowler

Map of proposed temporary emergency transit lanes Map of temporary emergency transit lanes being proposed at the June 30 SFMTA Board of Directors meeting

We don’t have a crystal ball to see into San Francisco’s future, but one thing is clear: a citywide economic recovery is dependent in large part on a transportation recovery. And while we work to come back from one crisis, we’re looking to avert another—traffic gridlock.

With hundreds of thousands of people dependent on transit to get around before COVID-19, our city is uniquely vulnerable to increased congestion. Congestion is already on the rise, and some studies are predicting that people may turn increasingly to private vehicles, turning the streets into a “Carmageddon” for both cars and transit. Our city’s streets simply don’t have room for more vehicles.

At the same time, COVID-19 has impacted our ability to provide Muni service. Service levels depend on the availability of operators, car cleaners, maintenance staff and other personnel to operate the system and support expanded cleaning protocols. To support physical distancing, our buses can only carry one-third of the number of passengers as they could before the pandemic. And, severe revenue cuts are also taking a toll. We estimate that we may only be able to provide 70% of pre-COVID-19 Muni service hours next year. If buses get stuck in traffic, that number could be even lower.

We need to ensure that transportation works for those who don’t have the privilege of working from home or using a private vehicle. Now more than ever, Muni is serving those riders who have no other options and are more likely to be people of color or from low-income households. In order to protect people who rely on transit from increased exposure to COVID-19 on slow or crowded buses, we need to act quickly to move more people with fewer resources.

One of the most effective tools we have to improve Muni travel time and reliability are transit lanes. Dedicated transit lanes allow buses to complete trips in less time and return into service more quickly, increasing vehicle frequency and moving more people with more space to physically distance. Emergency vehicles are also able to use the lanes to bypass traffic congestion.

The benefits these transit lanes bring are critically needed for Muni customers who have no other options during this public health emergency. We recently implemented a new transit lane on 4th Street and on June 16 the SFMTA Board of Directors approved new transit lanes as part of the Active Beale Street Project.

At a special meeting on Tuesday, June 30, the SFMTA Board will consider fast-tracking temporary emergency transit lanes that would benefit five Muni routes:

14 Mission and 14R Mission Rapid: Mission Street in SoMa
19 Polk: 7th and 8th Streets in SoMa
43 Masonic and 44 O’Shaughnessy: Locations on Presidio, Masonic, Laguna Honda, Woodside, and Bosworth streets

If approved, these temporary emergency transit lanes would be installed in late summer and striped only with white paint, “Bus/Taxi Only” stenciling and signage. Lanes will automatically be removed within 120 days after the emergency order is lifted, unless there is a public process to make a lane permanent.

These locations were chosen based on where the benefits are greatest, based on current ridership, travel time data and to prioritize routes that serve neighborhoods with high percentages of people of color and low-income households, including Ingleside, Outer Mission, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley, Bayview, Mission, SoMa and the Tenderloin.

On June 30, the Board will also consider delegating authority to the City Traffic Engineer’s Office to streamline the approval process for any future temporary emergency transit lanes. A public hearing would also be required for each corridor. The SFMTA is using travel time data to evaluate additional locations where adding temporary emergency transit lanes would achieve the biggest time savings and provide the greatest benefit. We will work with the community to evaluate and make any adjustments that are needed to the temporary transit lanes in real time based on public feedback and data monitoring.

Map showing Muni travel time savings on several corridors during shelter-in-place

At the beginning of the shelter-in-place, we saw massive time savings on several streets that don’t currently have transit lanes (see map), including the streets where temporary emergency transit lanes are proposed. Those are gains we’ll need to maintain to protect essential workers and our future economic recovery. Meanwhile, on most streets that already have transit lanes, there was no or very little improvement with the decreased traffic—demonstrating just how effective those lanes have been.

Delivering the city we want in the future, with a transit network that seamlessly connects people to jobs and neighborhoods to neighborhoods won’t come without tradeoffs. Temporary transit lanes will require removing some general-purpose lanes or parking in some places. As lanes are implemented we will be closely evaluating and gathering public feedback, and are prepared to make adjustments as we go—or even remove lanes—to ensure we meet the needs of the community and Muni customers.

Learn more about temporary emergency transit lanes.

Published June 27, 2020 at 05:08AM
https://ift.tt/382yjiP

Comments

New top story from Time: How the GameStop Trading Surge Will Transform Wall Street

https://ift.tt/3a6hpB2 For years, professional money managers and hedge funds have tsk-tsked about individual investors. They have dismissed them as “dumb money” and cautioned that so-called “retail” investors lack the acumen and experience to make the right calls and weather the inevitable storms. That has often been the case, but then came the GameStop phenomenon , when a tsunami of that so-called dumb money flooded parts of the stock market, leaving Wall Street professionals not just scratching their heads but a few of them badly wounded . And while this might be an anomaly, it more likely is the first rumbling of what will prove to be radical transformation of money and markets. In less than a week, shares of the company GameStop rose more than seventeen-fold by the end of trading on January 27 after its prospects were touted two weeks ago on a Reddit sub-group called r /wallstreetbets that has several million subscribers. GameStop, a retail chain that started as a hu...

New top story from Time: A COVID Outbreak Sparked by Partying Teens Leads to 5,000 Being Quarantined in Spain

https://ift.tt/2UJaeL7 MADRID — Almost 5,000 people are in quarantine after vacationing high school students triggered a major COVID-19 outbreak on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, a senior official said Monday. Authorities have confirmed almost 1,200 positive cases from the outbreak, Spain’s emergency health response coordinator, Fernando Simón said. The partying teens celebrating the end of their university entrance exams last week created a “perfect breeding ground” for the virus as they mixed with others from around Spain and abroad, Simón told a news conference. Mallorca health authorities carried out mass testing on hundreds of students after the outbreak became clear. It is believed to have spread as hundreds of partying students gathered at a concert and street parties. Officials have so far traced 5,126 travelers to Mallorca. More than 900 COVID-19 cases in eight regions across mainland Spain have been traced back to the outbreak. Scores of infected teens are...

New top story from Time: Police Tighten Congress Security in Era of Rising Threats

https://ift.tt/2MhpNpD WASHINGTON — The House’s chief law enforcement officer is tightening security for traveling lawmakers as Congress reassesses safety in an era when threats against members were surging even before Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol. Capitol Police officers will be stationed at Washington-area airports and the city’s Union Station train depot on busy travel days, the acting House sergeant at arms said in a memo obtained Friday. Timothy P. Blodgett said he’s set up an online portal so lawmakers can notify the agency about travel plans, and he urged them to coordinate trips with local police and airport officials and report suspicious activity to authorities. Capitol Police “will not be available for personal escorts,” said the email, sent late Thursday. “However, they will be in place to monitor as members move through the airport.” The steps underscored political divisions that grew increasingly acrid, even potentially dangerous, during T...

New top story from Time: The Security Perimeter Around the Capitol Starts to Recede — and Washington Feels a Little More Normal

https://ift.tt/3ssgaEo This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday. Washington isn’t a city particularly known for its rationality. We do overreaction better than most, and that talent is rivaled only by underreaction. Passions fuel far too much public policy, personalities dictate what is possible and personal relationships often triumph over pragmatism. It’s something I usually bemoan and curse under my breath — or, increasingly, in this newsletter. So you’ll forgive a moment of indulgent irrationality and some merriment. For, you see, the fencing around the U.S. Capitol has come down. Well, not all of it. And the barriers that remain don’t have an expiration date and may never get one. But at least some of the garish barricades that went up in response to the deadly failed insurrection on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 have been dismantled. The razor-wire on its top is gone, too...

Kejriwal issues directives to reduce price of RT-PCR test in Delhi https://ift.tt/3mphaWP

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said he has issued directives to reduce the price of the RT-PCR test in the national capital, saying it will help those going to private labs for COVID-19 tests. Currently, people have to spend Rs 2,400 for the RT-PCR test at private labs. "I have directed that the rates of RT PCR tests be reduced in Delhi. Whereas tests are being conducted free of cost in govt establishments, however this will help those who get their tests done in pvt labs," Kejriwal tweeted.

New top story from Time: Simone Biles Pulls Out of the Olympic Gymnastics Team Event Final

https://ift.tt/3kWdnT4 After one rotation, defending Olympic all-around champion Simone Biles pulled out of the women’s gymnastics team event final. With Team USA competing on vault in the first rotation, Biles took to the podium and launched herself into the air. Once airborne, however, she seemed to lose her bearings and looked off to the side on the way down. Instead of completing two and a half twists, in a vault named after her , she was only able to complete one and a half. That lowered her start value and execution score, and she immediately spoke to a trainer after coming off the podium. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] After consulting with the trainer for a few minutes, the two left the arena, but rushed back minutes later before the next rotation on uneven bars while her coach, Cecile Landi, consulted with officials. Biles removed her hand and wrist grips, a sign that she would not be performing on uneven bars. After hugging her teammates, she put on her warm u...

New top story from Time: Thinking About Buying a New Car? It May Be Smarter to Wait a Year—Or Longer

https://ift.tt/3zeivWQ Before the pandemic, Earl Stewart could count over 300 new cars sitting on the lot of his family’s Toyota dealership in South Florida on any single day. The high inventory meant customers could find the exact model and color they wanted for well below sticker price. But now, Stewart’s lot has just a fraction of the cars he had before, with inventory down to 31 as of Friday. That’s because a global shortage of semiconductor chips supplied primarily from Southeast Asia—where COVID-19 cases are among the highest in the world—has forced automakers to cut production. Nearly 20 auto factories have stopped or reduced production in recent weeks due to supply chain issues, affecting plants across the globe. At Ford’s Kansas City assembly plant, which builds the F-150 pickup and Transit van, employees were temporarily laid off for one week as they continue to wait for back-ordered chips to become available. General Motors announced it will temporarily stop produc...

New top story from Time: Corky Lee, Photographer Who Spent His Career Spotlighting Asian and Pacific Islander-Americans, Dies at 73

https://ift.tt/2Ymu9yf Corky Lee, a photojournalist who spent five decades spotlighting the often ignored Asian and Pacific Islander American communities, has died. He was 73. Lee died Wednesday in New York City’s Queens borough of complications from COVID-19, his family said in a statement. “His passion was to rediscover, document and champion through his images the plight of all Americans but most especially that of Asian and Pacific Islanders,” his family said. The self-described “undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate,” Lee used his eye to pursue what he saw as “photographic justice.” Almost always sporting a camera around his neck, he was present at many seminal moments impacting Asian America over a 50-year career. He was born Young Kwok Lee in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents. He was the first child in his family to go to college, graduating from City University of New York’s Queens College. A self-taught freelance photographer, Lee...

New top story from Time: In a New Lifetime Documentary, Olympic Gymnast Aly Raisman Finds a Path to Healing After Her Experience With Sexual Abuse

https://ift.tt/2Zp83yI In Aly Raisman: From Darkness to Light , the former Olympian confronts her most challenging task yet: recovering from the sexual abuse she experienced while training as an elite gymnast. Raisman is one of more than 200 survivors of sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics’ team doctor Larry Nassar ; in the documentary, which airs tonight on the Lifetime channel, she sits down with other survivors who were sexually abused by trusted members of the community as children, and breaks through the walls of fear, intimidation, ignorance and prejudice that keep such abuse in the dark. The journey she chronicles is both theirs and her own, and part of what makes the documentary so powerful is Raisman’s vulnerability and her transparency regarding her own struggles to process what she went through. In the special, Raisman says that she still finds hearing about other people’s experiences “triggering;” and in one scene, we see her quietly leaving the courtroom as a...

New top story from Time: R. Kelly Found Guilty in Sex Trafficking Trial

https://ift.tt/3kMSmKc (NEW YORK) — The R&B superstar R. Kelly was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children. A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly guilty of racketeering on their second day of deliberations. The charges were based on an argument that the entourage of managers and aides who helped the singer meet girls—and keep them obedient and quiet—amounted to a criminal enterprise. Read more: A Full Timeline of Sexual Abuse Allegations Against R. Kelly [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage. For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliya...

My precise view

Search This Blog