Geary transit options eyed
By: Joshua Sabatini
Examiner Staff Writer
May 4, 2009
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| Easing congestion: A Bus Rapid Transit system would provide buses with their own dedicated lanes in the middle of Geary Boulevard. (Courtesy Photo) |
SAN FRANCISCO — A pair of dedicated bus lanes running down the center of Geary Boulevard is looking like the best way to ease congestion on the busy corridor.
That’s the conclusion of a new report issued by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.
The proposal, long in the making, comes after transit officials vetted a number of different options to improve the flow of pedestrians, vehicles and transit along Geary Boulevard, including dedicated bus lanes on either side of the street and above-ground and underground rail systems.
The option favored by the report’s authors, two dedicated bus lanes that would run up and down the middle of Geary Boulevard, is also known as bus rapid transit.
BRT would “eliminate bus and auto conflicts by physically separating the BRT lanes from mixed-traffic lanes,” according to the report. “With full-featured BRT, pedestrian safety would be improved and bicycle and pedestrian access would be enhanced.”
At an estimated cost of between $157 million and $212 million, the BRT option would also be the easiest on the public purse.
The costs for either railroad option would run into the billions.
“Surface light rail capital costs are in excess of $100 million per mile, and a subway project would cost over $500 million per mile,” the report said. “Current analysis projects a cost of approximately $5 billion for a surface-to-subway Geary light rail project and a cost of approximately $2.5 billion for an all-surface light rail alignment.”
BRT also seems to be an easier sell, although it’s not without opponents. The Geary corridor has “vocal stake holders” who have advocated a “‘do-nothing’ or do-minimum approach,” the report said.
Two BRT lanes running through the center of the roadway are expected to cause impacts “to automobile capacity and traffic circulation,” the report said, but those impacts could be mitigated with “traffic signal management and traffic calming measures on adjacent streets.”
The authority’s Board of Commissioners, made up of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, is scheduled to vote May 19 on which proposals should be studied further to determine their specific impacts, designs and costs.
The corridor plan is on schedule, with a final environmental impact report expected by mid-2010 and project completion in 2013.
jsabatini@sfexaminer.com
