SFMTA completes new transit lanes in San Francisco

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority (SFMTA) has announced the completion of nearly three miles of new transit lanes to serve the 1 California bus route in the city.

The SFMTA says the transit improvements are part of the 1 California Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes project that was approved last April to help maintain travel time and reliability for the over 10,000 daily customers who depend on this vital east-west connector. 

In April 2020, when traffic levels were reduced during California’s shelter-in-place order, the operator claims it saved so much time on the 1 California that it was able to provide the same service frequency while reducing the number of buses on the line—requiring two to three fewer buses per day.

Nearly two-thirds of households along the 1 California route in Chinatown and Nob Hill do not own cars, and therefore prioritising transit is critical to their daily transportation needs.

SFMTA says the new temporary emergency transit lanes on Clay and Sacramento streets downtown and on California Street west of Steiner help lock these service improvements in place by protecting the bus from delays as the city reaches pre-pandemic traffic congestion levels.

Ridership on the 1 California has begun to increase as public health orders ease and the city moves into greater levels of economic reopening. This makes it all the more important to continue assisting those customers whose primary mode of transportation is Muni.

On Clay and Sacramento streets, SFMTA says it made part-time transit lane hours more consistent and focused on expanding lanes at locations where the data has demonstrated the greatest potential benefit. Transit lanes on California Street from Steiner to Presidio have been implemented without removing parking.