Metro Committee - June 14, 2000 Agenda

Wednesday, June 14, 2000, 6:00 PM at SPUR, 312 Sutter, Fifth Floor

Agenda

6:00 Introductions, Agenda additions and Approval, Minutes Approval,
Announcements
6:10 Status of previous resolutions and clean up of open issues
6:40 Geary Study
7:20 Select future items for discussion.
7:30 Adjournment, Next Metro Committee meeting

Metro Committee Minutes, May 2000
Present: Eric Carlson, Joan Downey, Richard Mlynarik, Howard Strassner, David Vartanoff and Rosie West.

We folded, stapled and stamped Transfers while we completed our work on
the N study. The com-pleted study with Steering Committee final
im-provements is transmitted separately.

Proposed Geary Study -3 - a work in progress for the Metro Committee
because a busway is sug-gested in lieu of an expensive LRV. Implementing
all of the improvements suggested should allow bus running times that are
only a few minutes slower than an LRV running in a subway at a savings of
over Two Billion Dollars. This study doesn't con-sider any route
changes.

The Geary is one of the largest transit bus lines in the world handling
over 50,000 riders each day. The Geary moves rather well west of Van
Ness but there are delays due to double parking, signal lights, right
turning cars and buses catch up to each other. The Geary is thoroughly
bogged down in auto and truck traffic east of Van Ness when it gets close
to downtown. Prop E requires that this be greatly improved. Ridership
will probably increase with improvements in speed and reliability. This
can be handled at little increase in cost by route time re-ductions and
not having all buses go to the end of the end line (not considered). It
is past time that every tool used to speed increased levels of auto
traffic be used to move transit. In addition bus bulbs and signal
priorities must be used to speed transit. Every tool that is suggested
to improve Geary speed has already been implemented some-where in San
Francisco to improve transit and/or auto movement. In addition serious
attention must be given to the delivery of goods. We will deal with
areas of worst traffic first after general signal priorities.

1) Signal Priorities: A) Every Geary line should have absolute priority
24/7 at all signal lights West of Gough that are not a transfer point. B)
Every Geary line should also have limited priority 24/7 at signal lights
east of Gough that are not a transfer point. C) Every Geary line should
also have limited priority at every transfer point and Franklin and Gough
off peak except Mission. Limited priority means if a priority is
implemented in one signal se-quence (red-green-yellow in each direction)
than a priority may not be implemented in the next se-quence. This kind
of controls should be available for signals at moderate cost. Some
more thinking and engineering will be necessary to get transit across
Geary when priorities are in effect. We are not ready at this time to
provide better priorities over peak auto cross traffic. D) Priorities
should reduce running time by two minutes. E) Muni should consider the
relative benefits of priorities of stop location to choose between near
side or far side stops for Local and Limited service.

2) General: A) All bus stops should include adjacent ticket machines to
allow for proof-of-payment and use of all doors. This should reduce
running time by one minute. B) Limiteds and Expresses will be able to
pass a Local bus in a stop by momentarily mov-ing into the mixed flow
lane. C) All bus designa-tions should be clear and normally not changed
mid run. D) Bus schedules should mounted at all stops. E) Locals should
use the same stop as Limiteds. F) The ideal bus would be low floor to
speed boarding. G) All design changes should consider the possibil-ity
for future electrification.

3) East of Leavenworth: A) Run buses in 24/7 dia-mond lane adjacent to
the curb (similar to Third, Fourth, Jefferson and Park Presidio). B)
Allow only commercial delivery parking on this side of the street only
during limited hours of the night. C) Allow only commercial parking on
most of the op-posite side of the street for most of the rest of the day.
Permit some auto parking only well after the peak. D) If necessary for
auto traffic do not allow any parking on the opposite side of the street
during peak hours and direction (similar to countless streets). E) Do not
allow right turns in front of near-side Limited stops (similar to Lombard
and Nine-teenth which have no lefts). F) Locate Locals stops with some
space for a right turn stacking lane (similar to Third). G) This should
reduce running time in this section by at least two minutes (similar to
what Muni claims for bus bulbs on Stockton).

4) Gough to Leavenworth: A) Run buses in 24/7 diamond lane the same as 3)
above or adjacent to the curb parking lane (similar to Mission). B) Allow
sufficient commercial delivery parking on both sides of the street for
limited times. C) Limited stops should be double length bus zones, with
bus bulbs if necessary. D) Do not allow right turns in front of nearside
Limited stops (similar to Lombard with no lefts). E) Locate Locals stops
with some space for a right turn stacking lane. This should re-duce
running time in this section by a minute.

5) Center Bus Way (BW): A) 24/7 diamond lanes should start west of
Twenty-fifth. And run to Gough except for the underpasses at Masonic and
Fillmore (similar to the F tracks on the Embarcadero). The BW should
be adjacent to the median, which should mostly remain for aesthetics,
traffic calming and pedestrian safety. For bus stops the median would
be cut away similar to left turn lanes and a pedes-trian boarding island
(BI) would be located in what was the BW . B) BIs should be wide and
double length at Limited stops from Park Presidio to Gough. C) This
leaves no room for left turn lanes (similar to Nineteenth and Lombard and
part of Geary). D - preferred) Ramps and steps should be provided for
the Limited stops at Fillmore and Pre-sidio in the auto tunnel. D-alt)
These Limited stops can be located at the current location to reduce
capital costs. This will require that parking not be allowed along these
curbs per 3) above because lots of through auto traffic may use Anza
instead outer Geary but may return again at Masonic. F) Running time
should be reduced by a minute a mile for four minutes or three minutes
with the alternate. G) If necessary for auto traffic, do not allow curb
parking during peak hours and direction between Masonic and Gough. This
section is mostly institutional and open space with very little
commercial and residen-tial.

6) Pedestrian Safety: Outer Geary is so wide that it will probably not be
possible for slow walkers to cross from curb to curb without overly
impacting transit, even if auto traffic was: diminished or disre-garded.
Adequate properly designed safety medians must be provided at both sides
of every intersection with walk to center signs and count down timers,
for either lane design. Signal controls must include provisions to
minimize the time people must remain in a safety medians with minimum
impact on tran-sit. The existing medians are mostly wide enough but
should be extended to help protect pedestrians in the crosswalk. The BIs
can also work as safety medians. The sidewalks on O'Farrell and Geary
should be widened to allow rapid curb side bus service.

7) Running Time: Currently the Time Table shows the Geary Limited with a
running time of 25 min-utes from Twenty-fifth to Market for a 4.7 mile
route. The running time for an LRV in the subway from West Portal to
Embarcadero, a 5.4 mile route is 16 minutes. Ideally the improvements
will re-duce the running time by nine minutes, say more practically by
seven minutes. This reduces the run-ning time to Market to 18 minutes
versus about 14 minutes with a full length subway. Four minutes is not
worth an extra Two Billion Dollars even for say an increased ridership to
70,000. But saving seven minutes for even as much as 20 million dollars
without electrification and the Presidio and Fill-more ramps is a good
deal because it will produce most of the additional readers.

Future Items: 4. Increasing Scheduled switchbacks - locations and
frequency 8. Phones/Lights in sta-tions 10. Embarcadero
dispatching/line delays 2. LRV availability a) Review success of MMX and
ATCS. c) Follow up on Maps e) Review and comment on Third Street LRV EIR
f) Expand Proof of Payment g) Printing/ posting of schedules h)
Investigate where Muni is vis a vis construction of further Metro
lines/LRV's k) Fare Gates to Accept other passes.

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