The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing to convert two out of the four lanes on a 1.1-mile stretch of Ocean Avenue to transit-only lanes, officials told the 100 or so residents who packed a Monday night meeting at City College.
The transit-only lanes, they promised, would allow the K-Ingleside Muni trains, and possibly two bus routes, the 29 and the 49, to run free of car traffic.
But many in the neighborhood were not happy with the plan. Especially upset? Business owners.
Nearly all the merchants who spoke at the meeting said the proposal would likely slow car traffic and push drivers to avoid Ocean Avenue altogether. The proposal concerns the stretch on Ocean Avenue between Lee Avenue and Junipero Serra Boulevard.
Customers who drive to her shop from the East Bay and south of the city depend on nearby parking and a fast commute, according to Cindy, who has owned a hair salon on Ocean Avenue for 30 years.
“Without them (commuters) coming to support us, I think I have to close down my business,” said Cindy who feared she would have fewer customers.
District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose district includes the corridor, however, said she is supportive of the MTA’s proposal and that residents in the area “need to have better transit.”
Melgar pointed to the Balboa Reservoir housing project that is currently under construction right next to City College along Ocean Avenue. It will add 1,200 units and welcome thousands of new residents into the district.
“So in the next two years, all those people will come,” Melgar said.
Facing merchants’ concerns, Michael Rhodes, a transit priority manager at the MTA, used sales tax data to showcase the economic impact on the business corridors that have implemented the red transit-only lanes. In recent years, these have included Mission Street, Van Ness Avenue, Geary Boulevard and Taraval Street.
“Sales tax did perform better than the city or better than it had before,” Rhodes said. “I don’t really want our projects taking credit for that. I just think the point is more that it didn’t cause them to go down in those corridors.”
The SFMTA reported that the red transit-only lanes, combined with other upgrades such as expanded boarding platforms and signal timing changes, would cut 15 to 20 percent off travel time for transit riders. That, said Anna Harkman, the project manager, means shaving off roughly two minutes in each direction for the K.
The number may sound modest, but transit officials argue that the project is about more than just speed. Ocean Avenue is designated a High Injury Network street in the city, where speeding has led to collisions and injuries. The MTA says the lanes, combined with flashing beacons and speed cushions, would make the corridor safer to travel on.
Some attendees of the Monday meeting who walk and bike the corridor said they welcomed the change, arguing that calmer car traffic would make Ocean Avenue feel less dangerous and more inviting for people who don’t drive.
Still, concerns from merchants abounded. Double parking, some said, is already causing backups and some locals want better loading zones and enforcement before any lane changes happen.
Beyond businesses, residents want more traffic calming on Ocean Avenue itself — particularly at crossings like Granada and Lee avenues — while also worrying that squeezing cars into fewer lanes will push traffic onto residential side streets like Cerrios, Grafton and Granada, where speeding is already a problem.
The concerns are backed by SFMTA’s own data from other corridors: After the red lanes were installed on Taraval Street, between five and 16 percent of the corridor’s total traffic shifted to side streets. On Mission Street, southbound traffic volumes increased by 5 percent overall, and on Geary Boulevard traffic increased by 5 percent as well.
Melgar added that the neighborhoods near Ocean Avenue, such as Ingleside Terrace, are not on a grid, unlike the straight streets in the Sunset, making it harder for drivers to simply veer into the residential areas for an alternative route.
“You can’t just easily go around and get to where you need to go,” Melgar said. “You would have to go all the way to Holloway, or you’d have to go all the way to Monterey…. so it’s not so easy.”
District 11 Supervisor Chyann Chen, who also attended the Monday meeting and whose district includes part of the corridor, did not offer a stance on whether she supports the red lanes plan or not.
Chen said she appreciates SFMTA’s “data-driven approach” combined with stakeholders’ lived experience.
“At the end of the day, we must ensure that we can save lives by improving traffic safety,” Chen said in a statement. “We should follow a principle of doing no harm, and that means that we ensure that our merchants can continue to thrive, and we can strengthen the corridor for all of us.”
Megan Catmull, the executive director of Ocean Avenue Association, a local nonprofit supporting small businesses and the corridor’s improvements, came away from the meeting a “little disappointed.”
Catmull, like many participants, hopes to see more data from SFMTA to showcase “how many collisions have such plans reduced,” if it is really a plan about traffic safety improvements. Catmull, whose organization has been advocating for local business owners, said she also wishes the SFMTA would pilot the plan on certain sections of the corridor to see how it works out, or to add speed cameras on the corridor.
“Balancing safety and how this corridor actually works [is important],” Catmull said. “People are still concerned about safety, and the trade-offs.”