Fifteen years after voters approved Prop K, which includes funding for Geary Bus Rapid Transit and was co-authored by several Rescue Muni board members (and endorsed by the organization), red lanes are going in on Geary from Stanyan to Gough. This is a major step towards building the full Geary Rapid Project. While it took over a decade to get the approvals, we are pleased to see that the actual implementation is moving quickly.
The always useful Curbed SF blog has a detailed discussion up today on the Geary Bus Rapid Transit project, which we have supported since time immemorial (well, almost). As the progress proceeds at a glacial pace, Matt of Curbed points out that the concerns about higher density and transit oriented development were much less of a problem when actual transit oriented development was happening, almost a century ago when the Municipal Railway first opened the A and B lines up Geary in 1912. So it really does not make sense to oppose restoring a small subset of the service that was available a century ago on the grounds that it will somehow make Geary less livable.
One concern, however – in the design of the BRT project, why are high quality shelters with NextBus proposed for “most” stops? The whole point of BRT is to upgrade the service at ALL stops.
SFist had an excellent blog post yesterday about the SFCTA’s study of the proposed Geary Bus Rapid Transit project. In brief, the project team agrees with us that the dedicated bus lanes should run down the center of the street, in dedicated right of way, as most of SF’s light rail lines do (e.g. T-Third). The SFCTA also backed our call for a “rail ready” project that can be easily upgraded to light rail in the future, as funds become available.
Want to influence the proposed Bus Rapid Transit project for Geary Boulevard? The SFCTA and MTA are holding meetings this week to get your input. Attend one and voice your support for this project – and for a rail-ready plan! This is part of the EIS/EIR “scoping comment period” required for environmental review.
Thursday, December 4, 2008, 6-8 pm: Self Help for the Elderly / Jackie Chan Activity Center, 408 22nd Avenue (at Geary)
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 10 am – 12 noon: Tenderloin Community School, 627 Turk Street (at Polk)
Both locations are served by the (non-rapid) 38 Geary bus.
Some miscellaneous Muni related news:
