New Red Zone In Effect for Mission Street Bus Traffic

/ Todd_Lappin

redzone2

redzone1

Well, that was fast.

As the transit oracles prophesied, the SFMTA has implemented new routing for the 14 and 49 bus lines along Mission Street, with a new transit-only red lane and consolidated stops to speed up the pace of travel. Be advised:

Heading toward downtown, stops will be removed on Mission at 29th, Fair, Precita, 23rd, 21st, 19th and 15th, and a new stop will be established at Powers. Towards Daly City, stops will be removed at 15th, 19th, 21st, 23rd, Precita, and 29th.

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on the flow of traffic along the Bernal/La Lengua stretch of Mission Street. Personally, I’m already noticing one unfortunate side-effect: Whenever I see the new red lanes, that curbside airport scene from “Airplane!” pops into my head.

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

45 thoughts on “New Red Zone In Effect for Mission Street Bus Traffic”

  1. The car traffic on that section of Mission already doesn’t flow. Car traffic flow seems to be the enemy of the city government. Before they took away this lane for cars, people already drove onto our neighborhood streets. Now, they’ll be coming in our neighborhood even more. And I don’t blame them. Sometimes, I’ll drive on a side street rather than sitting immobile on a main artery sewing gas fumes.

    • I think there’ll be legitimate complaints about the impact on traffic on Shotwell and Bartlett. Once they impose the northbound diversions and southbound no left turn changes in the Mission proper, the side streets parallel to Mission will be a mess.

      But I don’t see much if any impact on Bernal side streets. The use of Coleridge to get past Mission Street sluggishness will be mostly unchanged by all this.

      • Bartlett doesn’t go all the way through and Shotwell is one after South Van Ness. I think cars will just head towards S Van Ness which for the most part, through traffic already does. The cars on Mission are there for a couple of blocks, either looking for parking or they are picking up/dropping off passengers.

      • …which is why I refer to “the Mission proper” as opposed to Mission street south of Cesar Chavez. But I misspoke about Shotwell being impacted, I meant to say Capp. The small streets parallel to Mission will suffer between Division and Cesar Chavez.

        The plan to divert northbound traffic off of Mission street at 26, 22, 20, 18, and 16th streets will definitely increase the traffic on Capp as cars circle the block looking for parking. Likewise, cars that want to take a left off of southbound Mission will now have to take 3 rights, which will put more cars on Bartlett in some blocks.

    • The goal of this initiative is too increase the speed/reliability of the bus routes. In the same vein, the goal of traffic calming efforts such as the one on Caesar Chavez is to reduce accidents involving cars with bikes or pedestrians.

      Improving traffic flow for autos is not a goal of these projects. If there is a negative impact, it is not viewed as a project failure.

      • Another stupid idea San Francisco ported from Europe where cities are getting more congested because of these stupid lanes and public transportation does not increase with these measures

  2. Seems they should not allow left turns on the blocks that have the red zones. It often takes a whole light to turn left from Mission, and now the whole row of cars will have to wait that light out if the front car is turning. Now I will avoid Mission Street even more than I did before this change.

  3. So far, this has been a giant clusterf*ck. No one apparently took into account that cars want to take a left on Valencia and there’s no way around without crossing into the MUNI/Taxi lane (and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the cops start nailing people with tickets for doing that). The other day, it took me almost 20 minutes to go from Slow-way to Caser Chavez because of the Valencia left-turners and that was around noon. When I walked past there around 5 the other night, traffic was backed up to 30th Street. This was poorly thought out and I’d love to know if SFMTA had given any time for resident and business input (if they did, I certainly didn’t get the memo). I agree with Linda, this is going to increase traffic along the side streets (Coleridge in particular). What a mess…

  4. The left-hand turns have to be worked out for sure. As I entered the red zone to get around a turning car at 29th Street I was afraid of getting pulled over.

  5. They don’t care what the local residents think because you are being replaced. They also don’t give a Damn about regional arterial access let alone local traffic flow. It’s all about their friends the developers and their Cayman island accounts.
    It’s easy pickings to get rid of renters. Eminent domain can and will be applied for private projects as well. It’s not just for schools or roads.

    • Its been great! I love it!! Once they fix the bus stop bulb-outs and finally repave from 29th to Powers it will be even better.

      • Agree. Wish they’d do some sort of signage + bike box at Fair/Valencia—something to clarify the Valencia bike lane connection, and extend the Mission bike lane to connect with Ceasar Chavez. Whatever it takes to make it better for bikes will have the benefit of keeping them off the sidewalk on that stretch and discourage bicyclists from riding down Mission street.

  7. I have no idea why anyone would think this is a good idea. As others have pointed out, north bound traffic on Mission grinds to a halt if one person needs to turn onto Valencia; I’ve seen it backed up for blocks. They’ve removed valuable parking spaces for a new stop when there’s a bus cutout now unused a few feet away. Deliveries for businesses on Mission are now almost impossible, I know because I’m in the process of opening an office next to one of the red zones and getting furniture in has been a nightmare. At the now discontinued Mission and Precita stop the city just finished laying down concrete in front of the stop so heavy busses wouldn’t tear up the asphalt, that’s now a total waste of money.

    The thing is, this seems to have been implemented on the whim of one idiot working at MTA. The MTA folks who were directing transit riders to the new stops told me that no-one knew about this until a few weeks ago, and a bus driver said that he hadn’t been informed about the changes and only knew the stops had moved when passengers told him. It seems there were no public hearing or notices about this until the decision had been made, at least I didn’t get a notice. I’d write Campos, but we all know he doesn’t give a damn. The incompetence and total lack of commonsense in this decision is mind boggling.

  9. It’s not illegal to drive in the new bus lane until the signs go up, so enjoy the express lanes whilst you can!

  11. Oh Jesus people it’s not that bad. The double-parkers already ground this stretch of Mission to a halt. Certain times of day it actually flows a little better now, and the chances of you getting a moving violation for passing a left-turning car are next to nothing.

    • I haven’t been on the newly repainted street yet, but I regularly drove the old version during the morning rush hour and have to agree with this – there was so much double-parking and other bad driving behavior going on that it was like being in a hellish video game.

  12. Something changed! It’s the end of the world! For heaven’s sake get a grip.

    WAAAAAY more people are riding those buses up and down the street than driving. About time something like this was implemented IMO.

  13. I think the news ones are prettier than the ones on other streets. Better shade of red. I drove down Mission earlier today and didn’t see much change in speed.

  14. I just experienced it for the first time in my car. People are being pretty selfish and ungracious, already. They’re gunning it, swerving into the red lane, and passing the cars ahead of them which are stopped because of a left turning car at the light ahead. It happened twice consecutively. So I’ll bet that’s gonna be a thing. If you’re a cyclist and you think you’ve got that lane to yourself be very careful. There may be a selfish, impatient motorist who just floored it to save 25 seconds of his/her life running up behind you, fast.

  15. Another stupid idea San Francisco ported from Europe where cities are getting more congested because of these stupid lanes and public transportation does not increase with these measures

  16. I wish they would have re-paved before they painted some stretches red. Now there are lots of red painted pot holes.

    • There’s a strong liklihood that if you ride your bike along that section of Mission you’ll bend the frame. OK; slight exaggeration, but I was really sad when I realised they’d painted it without resurfacing it first. It barely qualifies as paved. Then I was really sad again when I got to 30th street and my ass was bruised.

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  19. This made me actually just skip shopping in the Mission yesterday. Didn’t let me go where I needed – forced me to turn to Cesar Chavez traffic going towards the highway, got forced in a direction difficult to turn out of and said screw it – no more shopping in this neighborhood ‘n I’m outta here. Not so good for the shops or the neighbors living on the side streets with confused drivers trying to figure the hilly side streets out. Frightening for an out of town-er not knowing where to go when forced to turn in super hilly small neighborhood, so they will just skip it too.
    Nope won’t be any more traffic problems because Just won’t go there now. I don’t go near San Jose Ave. now ever anymore. Side streets all the way. Some of our changes do good, but removing so many sf streets – were exactly are they going to go? Your block next?

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