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 of San Francisco.
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.
Cindy, who has owned a hair salon on Ocean Avenue for 30 years, said customers who drive to her shop from the East Bay and south of the city depend on nearby parking and a fast commute.
“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 effects 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 . But they also worry 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 Chyanne 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.
Chen said she appreciates SFMTA’s “data-driven approach” combined with stakeholders’ lived experiences.
“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.”
People drive from thirty or forty miles to a barber shop on Ocean Avenue? That is so far beyond ridiculous that … well, if there’s no parking when they get there, they should just learn the lesson and go to a local barber.
But if it’s worth it to drive for an hour each way for a haircut, we can wonder about the following:
– Such customers must be immune to the price of gas (or electricity, if they’re modern) and the Strait of Hormuz can stay blockaded forever;
– Those customers have way too much time on their hands;
– Corollary to the previous: an extra twenty minutes of driving around to find a parking space within “walking distance” of the barber shop can’t really matter to them;
– The nonchalant customers with so much time and money that the drive “makes sense” or just a fun activity, can afford the occasional double parking ticket or towing, either outright or by using some of their abundant spare time to work a second job or gig economy thing.
Whenever you see this complaints like this from an SF small business owner, it should usually be read as “*I* don’t want to have to look slightly longer for a parking space.” Many of them don’t live in the neighborhood, even when most of their customers actually do.
@Bernaltron 3000 – A deep dive into the bike lane controversy on Polk Street so many years ago showed that a whopping 85% of customers did not arrive by car. The people arriving earliest by car and grabbing the nearest parking spaces (and feeding the meter all day) away from the remaining 15% tended to be the merchants themselves.
“ Balancing safety and how this corridor actually works [is important]”
Translated: “we must sacrifice our children and elderly to the wealthy land owners that run businesses in our city”
I’ve always thought it was ridiculous to spend millions on trains & tracks & operators and then have them stuck in traffic behind a handful of cars with one or two people.
I’m always skeptical of the value of “lived experience” over data, as what is purportedly “lived” is often skewed by biases and beliefs that are impervious to facts. But this sounds even worse. It’s not “lived experience” at all, it’s speculation. “My customers will stop coming” is a fear, not an experience.
The 1800-seat church that’s going to start soon at the El Rey and the thousands of new residents from the new Balboa Reservoir neighborhood will be walking, not driving, to spend their money at the Ocean Ave businesses.
I shouldn’t be surprised by Chen’s response, but it’s still crazy that she calls herself a “progressive” while failing to endorse green transportation improvements. Somehow in San Francisco, “progressive” means defending the status quo and opposing progress on transportation and housing. See Chan, Peskin, and Walton for other examples.
It’d be worthwhile to look more closely at the roll of the Ocean Avenue Association, aka the Ocean Avenue Community Benefits District, in all of this. That organization isn’t simply a “local nonprofit.” It is mostly funded through a special tax assessment on properties located along Ocean Avenue, including residential properties. For a taxpayer funded organization that’s supposed to be focused on things like street beautification to be leading the charge in opposition to transit-only lanes seems highly questionable, at best.
This article should note that outreach for this project started in 2022, it was approved by the MTA Board in 2024, and the only reason this meeting happened at all is because Melgar and Chen took a semi-private meeting with merchants in January and personally intervened to halt the project at the 11th hour for MORE outreach.
The K is ridiculously slow. The merchants are being short-sighted: improving transit for those who can switch to it will take cars off the road, improving traffic for drivers who can’t. This needs to get done yesterday.
I’m confused by this paragraph. In 2 of the 3 examples cited, traffic did not drop on the street in question and actually increased, but the paragraph insinuates that traffic drops on streets that get transit lanes. Please clarify!
“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.”
The neighborhood is a part of a city and, with thousands of new homes in the pipeline, it is destined to be a lot more urban in the future. The train has left the station! The geometry of the streets will never be able to absorb the new residents (who will be spending their money on Ocean) if everyone drives. This is a small step towards offering people a viable choice of taking transit to get around.
Love to see all the comments supporting the transit lanes. Y’all are doing the lord’s work. Check out the Guardian article that ran today lamenting how far behind the US is in transit infrastructure. Gee, I wonder why???
Just a minor correction on the routes effected by this change. The 49 ends its route at the turn around at Harold and Ocean so won’t be involved in the red lane changes. This needs to happen already and it’s shameful of our supervisors for agreeing to take this meeting which basically boils down to a business owner gripe session. Paint it now.
Data shows that I am infinitely more likely to continue spending money along the Ocean Ave corridor if I don’t get killed by a car going 50mph in a 20 on it’s way to 280.
The fact that MTA presented the economic data should give us all pause. Controllers office and OEWD have experts on this type of data, what is their “independent” analysis?
Given the fact that they are getting ready to cut service, and are asking the voters to pony up more money for MUNI as they raise MUNI fares, I would say the city authorities who are calling the shots is on the wrong track. The more they demand from drivers to supplement the MUNI the more they need them. And what they have now is not working and has not since they decided to “force people out of their cars” using any means possible. I think it is called “biting the hand that feeds you.”
Businesses on Ocean Ave depend on parking for customers. Lack of parking will impact businesses and risk of closure. To avoid traffic on Ocean Ave. drivers will cut through nearby neighborhoods, increase risks for pedestrians n children. Lack of clear mitigation. Mta does not provide enough discussion about how businesses will be supported during and after implementation.
Ya think? After witnessing the fiascos of Van Ness & Valencia who would want to go there.
What is ironic is this effort will be done and Ocean Ave will become empty like Geary and Mission Streets and for that matter Downtown. If the City is willing to constrict traffic for whatever reason, people from outside the city will not want to travel to the city and spend money.
If San Francisco is willing to forgo sales tax revenue for safety, faster public transit or parks (Great Highway), then San Francisco is making a choice that will impact the amount of people willing to visit the city. This translates directly into reduced sales tax collection.
Furthermore, speed cameras ($100) and the projected higher parking ticket fees to fund a dying public transit system will continue to discourage out of city visitors. The City is too expensive, too unpleasant and it just isn’t fun anymore. This means the City isn’t cool anymore.
I know the anti-car people will howl and that’s fine. Just stop howling about contracting budgets, and realize that anti-car/transit first/vision zero policies are directly connected to collapsing budgets by discouraging people from visiting or working in the City and spending money like they have in the past.
@Chris S – Neither Geary nor Mission are empty. Even with all the odd changes and backing out of changes on Valencia, the sales tax revenue for the district (as measured by zip code) wasn’t hurt at all.
so leave
Bingo.
The anti-car people want to imagine that SF is not a cog in the bay area but treat it is a standalone place. I guess if you move here and don’t have a reason to get out of the city limits (and let other people deal with traffic to deliver your stuff) I get why you want to keep out outsiders.
I am a transit rider who lives near Ocean. I genuinely do not understand how SFMTA thinks this will work. Traffic on Ocean is already impossible with two lanes each way. Side streets are thin and can fit only one car each way at a time. Very worried that this hasn’t been thought out.
Agreeded.
Cars are not why traffic slows buses so much. Its because the frequency of buses are that great. Just look at Church street (near Market) where there is rarely buses in the bus lanes and they just remain empty. Transit lanes are a horrible use of space for moving the most people.
The bus lanes look empty because the buses and all the people on them are moving quickly, hope that helps
You picked a terrible example. The 22 is always packed, and most of the cars have one person in them. Transit moves more people per hour on that street and shouldn’t be slowed by the cars.
You no read well, the LANES are mostly empty, not the buses. Hello bot, is this you?
The point of the lane is to be empty. If the have we’re filled with vehicles it would be pointless. There should be a speedy, open, clear lane for buses to zip down when they come by.
Do you think cars are people? Do you understand geometry?
I don’t think you get how the lanes work.
Just plain ignorant comment. Muni Metro is supposed to run at 10 minute headways at peak. It doesn’t on Ocean because drivers cause delays. Anyone with eyes can see that.