Metro Committee Agenda
RESCUE MUNI - METRO COMMITTEE
Wednesday, August 9, 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 (M and
N Lines)
6:40 Geary Study
7:20 Select future items for discussion.
7:30 Adjournment, Next Metro Committee meeting: Wed Sept. 13, 2000
Metro Committee Minutes, July 2000
Present: Eric Carlson, David Vartarnoff Howard Strassner, Stephan
Weliner and Rosie West.
1. We started work on Geary improvements and decided that we preferred
LRV construction but would recom-mend low cost temporary improvements
while we wait for the many political, financial, merchant and downtown
problems to be solved. We will deal with the interim right-of-way
improvements next month.
2) Immediate Geary Improvements: A) Extend Next Bus to Geary. B) Post
schedules at all bus stops.
3) Signal Priorities: A) As part of the SF Transit First Policy, Every
Geary bus should have traffic light prior-ity. Computer controls should
be used to provide bal-anced priority for buses crossing Geary. B)
Priorities should reduce running time by two minutes. C) 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.
4) General: A) Optimally bus stops should include adja-cent 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 moving into the mixed flow
lane. C) All bus designations should be clear and normally not changed
mid run. D) Locals should use the same stop as Limiteds. E) The ideal
bus would be low floor to speed boarding. F) All design changes should
consider the possibility for future electrification.
5) We need more work on status of past items.
Proposed Geary Right-of-way Improvements:
It is past time, and an important part of Prop ŚE‚ 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
im-plemented somewhere in San Francisco to improve tran-sit and/or auto
movement. In addition serious attention must be given to the delivery of
goods.
1) 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 ŚF‚ tracks on the Embarcadero). The BW should
be ad-jacent 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 pedestrian boarding island
(BI) would be lo-cated in what was the BW. Most of the BW should be
separated from the remainder of the roadway by a high curb. B) BIs
should be wide and double length at Lim-ited 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) The bus stops at Fill-more and Masonic
should be located at the current loca-tion to reduce capital costs. This
may require that parking not be allowed along these curbs because lots
of through auto traffic may use Anza instead outer Geary but may return
again at Masonic. E) Running time should be re-duced by a minute a mile
for four minutes or three min-utes with the alternate. F) 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 residential.
2) Gough to Leavenworth: A) Run buses in 24/7 dia-mond lane adjacent to
parking lane or adjacent to the curb parking lane (similar to Mission).
B) Allow suffi-cient commercial delivery parking on both sides of the
street for limited times. C) Limited stops should be dou-ble 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
Local stops with some space for a right turn stacking lane. This should
reduce running time in this section by a minute.
3) East of Leavenworth: A) Run buses in 24/7 diamond lane adjacent to the
curb (similar to Third, Fourth, Jeffer-son and Park Presidio). B) Allow
only commercial deliv-ery parking on this side of the street only during
limited hours of the night. C) Allow only commercial parking on most of
the opposite 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 nearside Limited stops (similar to Lombard
and Nineteenth 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) Alternative Downtown: Transit only two way Geary with auto traffic
eastbound on O‚Farrell and westbound on Post.
5) 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 disregarded.
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 transit. The existing medians are mostly wide enough but
should be extended to help protect pedestri-ans 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.
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