Transit

After months of apparent weather delays, the SF Muncipal Transportation Agency said today that it will implement red-colored transit-only lanes on Church Street between Duboce Avenue and 16th Street this Saturday and Sunday.

By the end of the month, Muni plans to roll out the first of 62 new low-floor hybrid buses, SF Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin said at a board of directors meeting last week.

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.

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.

San Francisco's scarce transportation funds should be used to make streets safer for walking and biking, and to make existing Muni service more reliable before expanding it, according to city residents who were asked to choose how to prioritize public spending.

Advocates for San Francisco's low-income communities have issued a new report calling for policy changes intended to improve Muni service, increase mobility for transit-dependent San Franciscans, reduce pollution from driving, and improve the city's economy.