SF Transit Planners Brainstorming With Residents On Subway Map Of The Future
They're finding people very excited about moving faster along Geary Boulevard - and some lesser-known corridors, too.
A heat map showing the public's ideas about where San Francisco ought to have subways has a thick red line along Geary, but Sarah Jones, planning director at the Municipal Transportation Agency, notices plenty of orange and yellow elsewhere.
"We are seeing a lot of interest in connections across the southern part of San Francisco, along the western side, even now before all the development that is proposed there. That need is only going to grow in the future," SFMTA Planning Director Sarah Jones said.
Supervisor Scott Wiener points out San Francisco has not opened a subway line since BART and light rail under Market Street were built in the 1970s.
"Of course the Central Subway will open and be a huge advance, but my concern is that once it opens we might do the same thing we did in the late 1970s, just pat ourselves on the back and stop for another 40 years. Meanwhile the congestion on our streets will just get worse, and our bus system will just get slower and more bogged down," Weiner said.
The SFMTA expects the subway vision to be complete by the end of this year.