Six months after the installation of transit-only lanes on Ingleside’s Ocean Avenue was put on hold, a compromise may be in sight.
About 50 people packed into City College of San Francisco’s Harry Britt Building on Monday evening for an at times chaotic town hall meeting where San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officials presented an update to the K Ingleside Rapid project’s controversial centerpiece: prioritizing transit on two lanes of the 1.1-mile stretch of roadway.
The meeting, the second of two, was organized by District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar and District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen and led by professional facilitator Alfredo Vergara-Lobo.
In their opening remarks, Melgar said the meeting was a testament to democracy and demonstrated that District 7 and District 11 can work together to find solutions that benefit everyone. Chen said safety was paramount and that the meeting’s purpose was to uplift community voices.
In December, the supervisors jointly persuaded the SFMTA to pause the project, which had been formally approved in March 2024, after the Ocean Avenue Association organized an opposition campaign largely made up of the avenue's merchants.
The Monday meeting was designed to allow the SFMTA to present a revised vision for the project with feedback drawn from the first meeting in April. While no consensus was achieved on next steps, SFMTA Project Manager Anna Harkman and Transit Priority Manager Michael Rhodes, with help from Vergara-Lobos, rolled out an update with five parts.
Small Business Needs
Harkman said the agency would work with the Ocean Avenue Association, a nonprofit organization charged by City Hall with cleaning and maintaining the Ocean Avenue Community Benefit District, to conduct a survey of merchant needs around loading zones to reduce double parking, impeding the flow of traffic. Measures could include adding loading zones and adjusting loading zone times.
Harkman noted that the agency had already added 17 loading zones as part of the project as a result of outreach conducted in 2023.
Larry Dorsey, Korean Martial Arts Center instructor and Ocean Avenue Association board member, asked if SFMTA would partner with the police on enforcement of rules.
Rhodes said they aren’t there just yet, but that the agency wants to partner with the association to get the strategy right.
“Sometimes when we first make a change to the street, we can coordinate with, say, the station to at least do some ideally more education-focused enforcement,” Rhodes said. “We don't want to be writing citations.”
More Safety Improvements
Harkman listed the safety improvements that have yet to be completed along the avenue.
Measures included additional railings on boarding islands; flashing beacons at Granada Avenue, Manor Drive and Santa Ana Avenue; painted safety zones on San Benito Way, Westgate Drive, Cerritos Avenue and Manor Drive; and new traffic calming speed cushions on Cerritos Avenue.
Last year, Ocean Avenue was a hot spot for safety concerns following two pedestrians who were killed in crashes near Lee Avenue and Ashton Avenue. The corridor has long been on the city’s list of dangerous streets.
Dashed Red Lanes
The SFMTA officials presented revised transit-only lanes for the avenue. Instead of the solid-color lanes, they would be dashed on Ocean Avenue between Lee and Brighton avenues on the westbound side and would extend past the boarding island into a transition zone to allow drivers time to move to the right-hand lane.
Areas that see significant double parking would also get dashed lanes as a way to signal to drivers that temporarily entering the transit-only lane is permitted to get around stopped vehicles. In areas where left turns are restricted, the transit-only lane would remain solid to avoid confusion.
Harkman said the agency plans to study the intersection and lane design at Junipero Serra Boulevard and Ocean Avenue for the eastbound transit lane.
While many participants expressed fear and outrage over the lanes, Bobby Niers shared a different perspective. He said that with his daughter in the neighborhood, he had been hit by a car, and within the last year, he had witnessed four different accidents on Ocean Avenue.
“These red lanes that we're talking about in practice, that's actually how Ocean Avenue is used today,” Niers said. “People drive in the right-hand lane. Think about when you drive in the neighborhood, when you walk out of here, pay attention to how you use the lanes because we're using them this way now, it's just structuring it to make it more safe for everyone.”
The Father’s House pastor Tim Bittle, whose church recently purchased the El Rey Theatre, said his congregation is 2,000 people and asked if making the transit-only lanes on the weekends or utilizing them during peak hours and making them more accessible at other times.
Rhodes said they don’t usually do part-time transit lanes unless it’s a parking lane to help avoid confusion for drivers.
“Through OAA in general, we'd love to keep talking about anything we can do to help specifically address this destination on Sunday,” Rhodes said. “I understand that's going to be a lot of folks trying to get to one point, and we want to be part of the solution, too.”
Traffic Monitoring
Rhodes said traffic will be monitored around Ocean Avenue at multiple locations before and after the transit-only lanes are installed. Monitoring equipment will be set up around Cerritos Avenue, Jules Avenue and Plymouth Avenue on Ocean Avenue; Santa Clara Avenue on Monterey Boulevard; Plymouth Avenue in Westwood Park, Bright Street, Head Street, Granada Avenue and Plymouth Avenue; and Granada Avenue on Holloway Avenue.
This raised concerns about safety and traffic diversion for many, like Ingleside Terraces Homes Association President John Stacey and Robert H., who said they have already seen congestion and unsafe driving practices during peak hours.
“You make a big deal about $1 million to install these red lanes per mile, and it's very permanent,” Robert H. said. “What are you doing before and after analysis, if you find out that traffic will just flood the neighborhoods and our residential streets?”
Rhodes said they care about safety in areas surrounding the project zones and have extensively examined traffic volumes, speeds and safety figures. The agency can make adjustments, such as changing signal timing and addressing existing safety concerns, like on Cerritos Avenue, where they plan to add safety cushions.
Data Sharing
Harkman shared data from past SFMTA transit-only lane projects on Taraval Street, Geary Street, Mission Street and South Van Ness Avenue.
Traffic on Taraval Street to side streets increased 5% to 16%, depending on time of day and direction. Alternative east-west streets saw an increase of 32% in 2016 to 49% in 2018. Geary Street, excluding side street data, and Mission Street had an overall 5% increase and South Van Ness had a 3% decrease.
Next Steps
Nearly 30 attendees asked clarifying questions, and about a dozen shared concerns. Others urged the agency to conduct additional studies and asked if they could do a pilot run for the transit lanes on a small portion of Ocean Avenue.
Despite being on the agenda, the Ocean Avenue Association did not give a presentation.
Megan Catmull, the association’s executive director, said her organization wants safety and traffic calming measures along Ocean Avenue and plans to follow up with SFMTA to better understand the proposed timeline, scope and any potential phased or pilot approaches that were discussed.
SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte told The Ingleside Light on Wednesday that the agency will be continuing community engagement and analysis.
“We want to have people to be able to have a choice to get here without driving, and if they have to drive, they can have that choice too, but the whole thing is, give us a choice,” Sunnyside Neighborhood Association Vice President Jon Winston said.
