San Francisco Municipal Railway - System Expansion

System Expansion

Construction on a sixth light rail line from Caltrain Depot in Mission Bay to Visitacion Valley and Bayview/Hunters Point was completed in December 2006. The new line, named the T Third Street, consists of 19 new high-platform stations at street-level, including at least one within walking distance of Candlestick Park.

A further underground expansion for the T line is being planned. Dubbed the Central Subway, four proposed new underground stations at Moscone Center, Market and Stockton Streets, Union Square, and Chinatown are being studied for a possible target date of 2016. A future extension into North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf or to the Marina District and The Presidio may be built in a third phase. This project is expected to cost about $1.4 billion. A critical problem with the proposed subway is that the stations will be much narrower and shorter in comparison to existing Muni Metro stations on Market Street; ridership projections reveal that the line will run at near capacity from the start of operations with little or no ability to increase capacity. Some activists have criticized these long-term plans as catering to the needs of visitors at the expense of city residents, asserting that Muni's resources would be better spent on a seventh light rail line running along (or under) Geary Boulevard into the densely populated Richmond District. Currently, a bus rapid transit ("BRT") line is being planned for Geary Boulevard, possibly as a precursor to a light rail line.

Expected smaller changes to service include rerouting the 22-Fillmore and extending either the 30-Stockton or 45-Union-Stockton into Mission Bay when the area becomes developed, and a new E Embarcadero historic streetcar line is expected to begin operation along the Embarcadero from Fisherman's Wharf to the Caltrain station at 4th and King Streets, with a possible future extension into Mission Bay.

Additionally, there are plans to expand trolleybus service in several parts of the city. Several extensions to existing trolleybus lines are planned, including 14-Mission service to the Daly City BART station, 6-Parnassus service to West Portal Station, 33-Stanyan service across Potrero Hill to Third Street, 45-Union-Stockton service to the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio and 24-Divisadero service into the former Hunters Point shipyard. Other expansion plans include electrification of some diesel bus lines, with the most likely lines for conversion being the 9-San Bruno, 10-Townsend and 47-Van Ness. Electrification of the 10-Townsend line would likely be joined by an extension of the line across Potrero Hill to San Francisco General Hospital. Other lines that may be electrified are the 2-Clement, 27-Bryant, 43-Masonic and 71-Haight-Noriega.

However, the average speed of Muni vehicles has been slowly declining over the years due to increasing vehicular congestion and is now merely 8 miles (13 km) per hour. In response, Muni has launched plans to make its transit vehicles move faster through the city. The Transit Effectiveness Project was launched in May 2006 to take a comprehensive look at the entire Muni system and to see where service can be improved or streamlined to provide faster and more reliable service. Twenty-five years have passed since the last comprehensive review, and travel patterns have changed, traffic congestion has increased, operating costs have risen and on-time performance has dropped since then. Automatic passenger counters will help to provide an accurate picture of where riders get on and off. In addition, bus rapid transit is currently being proposed on the Geary and Van Ness corridors.