Bus Stop Spacing

Update: See photos of the Fulton road diet between Stanyan and Baker Streets at the end of the article.

The 5-Fulton could get less crowded this fall after Muni launches a package of speed improvements [PDF] in a pilot of the Transit Effectiveness Project.

The 76-Marin Headlands, a lightly-used route that has the lowest on-time performance of any Muni line, will be converted into a new route starting tomorrow that is expected to improve reliability, run more frequently, and better serve popular destinations. The revamped line, dubbed the 76x-Marin Headlands Express, will also run on Saturdays in addition to the old schedule of Sundays and holidays.

The SFMTA is aiming to implement its plans to speed up Muni service under the Transit Effectiveness Project by 2017, beginning with eight priority routes.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency continues to work with Mayor Gavin Newsom and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu to identify strategies for restoring the remaining 40 percent of service that was cut in May, part of a political negotiation that is expected to cost the agency $20 million.

The SFMTA has released a much-anticipated bus stop consolidation plan [pdf] and while it is only in the planning stages and will take a concerted outreach effort to pass, the agency is finally publicly embracing a measure long pushed by transit advocates as an inexpensive way to speed up the system and make it more reliable.

An SFMTA task force charged with figuring out how to fully restore last May's Muni service cuts is narrowing its list of actions and strategies to reduce travel time on the system, and bus stop consolidation, or "optimization," is likely to be adopted as a recommendation. As Streetsblog has reported, stop optimization could greatly improve service, a move long pushed by transit advocates and SFMTA staff as one of the quickest and cheapest ways to speed Muni.

One of the central criticisms of Muni's objective to consolidate bus stops is that it hasn't conducted thorough demographic analysis of the people who use each stop, particularly seniors and the disabled. Rather than rely solely on the distance between stops and the incline of the streets, say critics, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) should make nuanced decisions about each stop based on the amenities near the stops and the people who use them.