Aug. 8, 2023
Dear Mayor Breed:
I’m disappointed to learn that after all the pleading from our small businesses and community members along Geary Boulevard, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Director Jeff Tumlin is moving forward with the flawed Geary Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) “quick build” project, ignoring the concerns strongly expressed by the merchants and community members.
As you know, the pandemic negatively impacted local businesses and essential workers citywide. Although many neighborhood commercial corridors in the Richmond District have been resilient and thrived, central Geary continues to see vacant storefronts and less foot traffic, not to mention the deteriorating Alexandria Theatre. With the impending recession, and with transit service levels below pre-pandemic levels, we need to ensure we are doing everything we can to support our local merchants and workers during these difficult times.
Similar to Van Ness BRT, the Geary BRT was initially approved with center-running transit-only lanes, combined with water and sewer system upgrades. But during the pandemic, the SFMTA installed temporary emergency transit-only lanes along the Geary Boulevard corridor for service efficiency. As a result, data found that side-running transit-only lanes produce similar service efficiencies with less construction and funding required. So, in December 2021, I asked for funding from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority in order to shift the project to side-running transit-only lanes, with pedestrian and traffic safety improvements.
With Geary BRT at its last stages of installation of transit-only lanes on Geary from Stanyan Street to 34th Avenue, my office worked closely with local merchants to identify ways to mitigate the impact of the project on our small businesses, especially those located between Park Presidio to 28th Avenue. In addition to the concerns of our Geary Boulevard merchants, we also heard from many transit riders about their needs to have the 38-Geary bus lines fully restored.
This is why I have been asking Director Tumlin and his team to prioritize the existing needs of our transit riders and to restore the 38-Geary to full service before implementing the Geary BRT project. I also asked for the project to prioritize the most critical pedestrian and traffic safety improvements, with the water and sewage system upgrade construction starting later in 2025, after the full restoration of 38-Geary and recovery of the local economy. This would also include postponing the conversion of angled parking along Geary Boulevard to ease of access to our small businesses, merchants, and churches and assess if the change is actually necessary.
San Francisco can achieve an equitable local economy that supports local businesses while also improving and building mixed-use housing development along our transit corridors. We can start with Geary BRT so the Richmond can become a model for the rest of the City. We can do that by ensuring that the Geary BRT supports our local merchants, while improving pedestrian safety, delivering transit reliability and paving the way for a robust transit corridor to serve tens of thousands of riders daily.
This is why I urge you to do right by our constituents in District 1, they are not only my constituents, they are yours too. So please stand with our small business owners, our church community, essential workers and not let them suffer the mismanagement of our transit agency by ideologue bureaucrats.
Sincerely,
Connie Chan District 1 Supervisor
CC:
President Aaron Peskin, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Chair Rafael Mandelman, San Francisco County Transportation Authority
Vice Chair Myrna Melgar, San Francisco County Transportation Authority Jeffrey Tumlin, Director, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors
Tilly Chang, Executive Director, San Francisco County Transportation Authority
Categories: Press Release
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
Connie. I am extremely pleased that SFMTA will not be swayed by the protests of merchants and vehicle owners. People who refuse to acknowledge the dangers of Climate Change and accept the reality. Cars are destroying the Planet. This thirst for profit first must stop.
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Mayor Breed just came out in no uncertain terms for the SFMTA Geary Boulevard transit project. In a letter to the Chair of the SFMTA The Mayor did not equivocate one iota. She, in no uncertain terms, told the SFMTA Board this project must proceed immediately.
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Wow Lee.
No one is refusing to acknowledge the dangers of Climate Change. But why does this have to be placed upon the backs of people who have no choice but to rely on cars and car traffic in order to make economic ends meet. Are you really that ideologically blind?
Subtracting 5.5 minutes from a Geary 38 bus line is not going to make any dent in the Climate Crisis. Do you really think people can just stop driving cars tomorrow? Get real man.
I ride my electric scooter as often as possible, but not driving my car is not an option when going to work, or would you want me to take 3 different buses and take 2 hours times 2 instead of 35 minutes times 2 per day? Spending 3 more hours a day on a commute to “save” the planet that won’t be “saved” in my lifetime. Really?
The problem can only be solved top down. The bottom up delusion is a ruse that enables systemic continuity. If we don’t build options, if we don’t create options, then people gotta do what they gotta do, and someone arrogantly guilt-tripping people trying to make ends meet is … frankly … insulting.
Business establishments make life in a city worth it. When they go under and become empty, it won’t matter if Muni transit shaves 5.5 minutes off the time it takes to commute on a bus.
Oh but maybe Black Rock private equity firms will buy up all the vacant properties and install large corporate factory outlet shops and we’ll get suburban strip mall America replacing cozy parochial San Francisco.
When that happens there will be no places you can ride your bike to Lee that aren’t McDonalds or Arbys or Panda Express or AppleBees or fill-in-the-blan LTD.
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Gino. The SFMTA just voted UNANIMOUSLY to approve the Geary Boulevard project. Work is scheduled to begin soon. Fortunately, a large number of citizens are not swayed by the now tired complaints of motorists and their handmaiden merchants. The project is going forward. Finally!!! Regarding Connie Car. Her “IDEOLOGUE BUREAUCRATS” comment is a Classic. At least it provided me with a good laugh and something to keep on the shelf for next year’s election season.
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Gino. Ideologically “blind”? How sad, frustrating, and disappointing to see ableism language used to hit back at the dad of a Blind person. Were it not for San Francisco’s marvelous public transit, our Blind son would not have grown up to be independent and the strong adult he is today. In a town without good public transportation, where everyone depends on cars, like San Antonio, the town where our Blind son bought his first house, it’s a “given” you depend on someone else to drive you where you want to go. But here, in his hometown, our son was able to get anywhere independently when he lived here. In fact, as soon as he had his first mobility lesson on using the N-Judah, around the age of ten, he played hooky from school, coming home alone and getting suspended like any normal kid. Using “blind” to convey a lack of knowledge or willful ignorance is an outworn notion. Attitudes about Blindness are the real disability, and the future demands we let go of our negative stereotypes about what Blindness means.
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