A Step Forward for San Francisco BRT

[marmar]

A Step Forward for San Francisco BRT

San Francisco | 05/22/2012 7:42am |
Egon Terplan | SPUR





After more than six years of planning, and six months after the release of a draft environmental impact report, we now have a clearer picture of what bus rapid transit on Van Ness Avenue, a north-south San Francisco thoroughfare, might look like. This past Tuesday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) unanimously approved a combination of two out of the four designs under consideration.

Bus rapid transit (BRT) is similar to light rail in efficiency, but it uses buses instead of trains on tracks, which makes for lower costs and greater flexibility. Systems typically feature three ingredients:

• Dedicated lanes, usually in the center of the street

• Unique branding to make buses highly visible

• All-door boarding and proof-of-payment systems, often with payment required to be in the station area ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://americancity.org/daily/entry/a-step-forward-for-san-francisco-brt

[KamaAina]

1. About time!

Van Ness, like most of central SF's north-south streets, has frequent intersections -- and red lights -- at the narrowly spaced east-west streets. Throw in stops every couple of blocks, and you have a transit nightmare unparalleled elsewhere except for Manhattan's notoriously pokey crosstown buses.

[marmar]

2. Manhattan buses are a cruel joke.....It would be quicker to crawl.

nt

[Gormy Cuss]

3. I shudder to think of the new risks to pedestrians trying to cross to the center island for BRT.

I'm sure the transportation engineers have it all worked out on paper but I do so hope that they keep in mind that Van Ness is already a daunting road for slower pedestrians and that BRT will increase the number of pedestrians crossing and will increase the number of jaywalkers trying to make it to the platform when the bus is coming.

I also wish that the Geary BRT plan was moving forward sooner. Geary should have had light rail installed at least 30 years ago.