Muni Proposes Cutting, Changing Bus Lines

By Jonathan Farrell

More than 200 people were in attendance at Dianne Feinstein Elementary School to learn more about Muni's Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) April 26.

The project has been eager to get public comment regarding preliminary proposals for Muni service changes and reliability improvements. As part of a series of 11 community meetings being held throughout San Francisco, Muni is seeking public suggestions to revitalize the Muni system.

Some of the proposed route changes that Muni wants to review for District 4 (which includes the Outer Sunset and Parkside districts) are:

• The 66-Quintara line would be discontinued;

• Increasing service on the N-Judah and L-Taraval streetcar lines;

• Operating the 71L-Haight/Noriega Limited all day;

• Extending the 28L-19th Avenue Limited through the Marina District to Van Ness Avenue and to the Balboa Park BART station and Mission Street. (This option could be extended further to Visitacion Valley in the enhanced resource scenario.);

• Serving Ocean Beach all day with the 48-Quintara/24th Street line;

• Combining the 18-46th Avenue and 23-Monterey lines to improve connections between the Outer Sunset and Glen Park BART;

• Combining the 16AX and 16BX Noriega Expresses into a single route, running twice as often, and extended to the financial district.

Muni hopes these efforts will not only benefit current transit customers, but will improve mobility for everyone who lives, works or visits San Francisco.

Most of the feedback at the meeting was positive.

"People talked about a variety of issues regarding Muni," said TEP Manager Julie Kirschbaum. "People were very pleased that more service will be added to the N-Judah and L-Taraval rail lines."

There were some concerns expressed about the potential loss of the Quintara #66 line, which runs along a portion of Quintara Street into the Golden Gate Heights.

"People value that bus route, but it has few riders," Kirschbaum said.

The Muni #48 bus line has a stronger ridership so Muni would like to merge a portion of the #66 route with the #48.

Yet, Kirschbaum pointed out that all proposed changes are "simply proposals, no decisions have been made."

She noted that some erroneous signs and flyers with misinformation were posted in the area.

"Those signs and flyers were illegally posted and were not put up by Muni ," she said. The signs said Muni would be discontinuing the #6-Parnassus and #71 Noriega lines.

"This was false," said Judson True, a media relations manager for the SF Municipal Transportation Authority.

Muni is working to design all proposals and drafts to transform the transit system into a world-class, reliable and rider-friendly system. It is working with various groups, including the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) and Rescue Muni.

"It's about time the City updated its service plan to provide great transit for 21st century conditions," said Dave Snyder, a policy director with SPUR. "TEP recognizes that we need to make some pretty drastic changes to speed up the buses on streets with unprecedented levels of traffic, so it concentrates those changes on the routes that carry the most people."

For more information about the date, location and time of the next TEP meeting, go to the Web site at www.sftep.com or call the city's customer service information line at 311. There are Cantonese and Spanish language speakers available and there is a Fast Pass raffle at each meeting.