Muni

A provision in the new zoning plan for the western South of Market District has come under scrutiny by city supervisors because it would direct a larger share of developer fees for some projects to go towards affordable housing at the expense of transit and street improvements.

Updated 2/23

San Francisco has two new faces on the Board of Supervisors: London Breed, representing District 5, and Norman Yee, representing District 7, both inaugurated last month after winning election in November. At a meeting of the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors last week, Streetsblog asked the two San Francisco natives to talk about their priorities for improving streets and transportation, both in the neighborhoods they represent and throughout the city.

A Muni bus driver ran over and killed Eileen Barrett, a 72-year-old woman from Daly City, in a crosswalk on Lake Merced Boulevard at John Muir Drive this Saturday.

With an influx of residents and students anticipated in the coming years, the city is looking at ways to improve rail service along the southern stretch of 19th Avenue by the Stonestown Mall and SF State University. A new study underway will consider putting Muni's M-Ocean View on a trackway running above or below the highway to separate it from traffic crossings and route the line into Parkmerced.

Every Muni bus will be fitted with a front-facing camera to enforce transit-only lanes by spring of next year, according to the SF Municipal Transportation Agency [PDF]. Three hundred of the 800 buses in the system will receive them by this fall, and all of the new buses being purchased by the SFMTA will get them as well, the agency says.

Seven months since Muni changed its policy to allow all-door boarding on all of its vehicles, the agency is reporting continued improvements in service and a drop in fare evasion.

Bus Rapid Transit on Geary Boulevard was originally slated to open last year. But today, planners are looking at a launch in 2020 -- an eight-year setback for a project that was supposed to take advantage of low costs to get off the ground quickly.

The corporate shuttles that whisk tech workers from the highly-valued urban habitat of San Francisco down to the burgeoning suburban campus job centers of Silicon Valley are the newest additions to San Francisco's streets. But while it's become convenient for critics to point the finger at this increasingly-visible symbol of gentrification as the cause of everything from skyrocketing rents to blocked Muni stops, that anger is misdirected.