With Our Members, We Won Transit Lanes!

Thanks to all our members who stayed late to call in to Tuesday's SFTMA Board meeting, we won more transit priority lanes! We had an excellent show of strength for transit riders and for transit priority. All our members spoke well and with effective talking points - SFMTA staff and the SFMTA board absolutely took notice. 

• Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes on the 1 California. Despite the incredibly low rate of car ownership in the area, this TETL project carefully considered exactly how many parking spots would be affected and worked to minimize that impact. Two blocks in the middle of the project are exempted from the transit-only lanes in part because of pushback and in part because of trees in the way. We'll keep an eye on the how the lanes perform, and will work to make the lanes continuous in a final project.
• Temporary high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes on Park Presidio and Lombard. This is the first project of its kind in California, and could be a model for many other places state highways travel through cities and towns (including other places in San Francisco). Some SFMTA board members echoed concerns they heard from public comment, including that there hasn't been sufficient outreach, and concern that the HOV lane should be for 3+ people (not just 2+). We'll work to make sure riders get their say in the outreach portion.

Tonight: Win More for Transit! Telling the Story of Self, Us and Now

Matching Donor: Christina Castro

Christina is a former SFTR board member who has dedicated many hours of her life to grow our organization and power. Her generous gift for this Membership Month is all about inviting YOU to join her, and keep us growing!

Next Week: Member Happy Hour!

Meet our board members, and other SFTR members. Learn more about our mission and meet other passionate, fun folks committed to a better transit system for all.

Wednesday, April 28, 5:30pm

Our First Ever Member Summit

Our first Member Summit was a great success - thank you all who joined us, shared your thoughts, gave us solid feedback, and asked excellent questions! We really appreciate you. You inspire us to do more and do better. We look forward to holding more summits in the future.

Federal Update: Senator Padilla Takes Action on Highways

As part of our growing advocacy on the national stage, one of our members met with Senator Padilla, along with other transit advocates from across California. We're excited by the opportunity to join the national conversation about increasing mobility in an equitable and sustainable way.

One result of our discussion is that Senator Padilla is now championing equitable transportation infrastructure, starting with the Reconnecting Communities Act, aimed at helping address how highways (and other infrastructure) have hurt mobility and opportunity in vulnerable communities.

"As we work to rebuild our economy and our infrastructure, we must do so equitably. The Reconnecting Communities Act will play an important role in making sure that we don’t return to the status quo, but that we repair the harm and injustice these communities have faced,” said Padilla.

Our Brief Statement on Earth Day

According to San Francisco Department of the Environment's 2017 Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emmisions, 46% came from transportation. (The next highest contributers, at 22% each, were residential and commercial buildings.) As you can see in the chart, all public transit only contributes 4% of that 46%, with cars and truck contributing the vast majority.

While other modes of transportation are also sustainable (like walking and bicylcing), before the pandemic, public transit served about six times as many trips as bicycles. So one of the biggest impacts we can have on our greenhouse gas emmissions is to shift from car usage to public transit. This means making public transit useful and easy to use - it needs to be fast, frequent, reliable, safe, accessible, and easy to figure out. 

And with that, we'll get back to work. Happy Earth Day!

News & Surveys

Transit and high-occupancy vehicle lanes coming to some of The City’s busiest streets (SF Examiner)
ConnectSF's Look At Effective, Equitable, and Resilient Transportation for San Francisco (SFMTA)
ConnectSF Storymap and Survey on Transit
Route to Recovery: Public Transit and the Road Back to Normal (Panel discussion video)
The Best Way to ‘Lure’ People to Public Transit Is to Make It Work (Vice)
New Yorkers are using public transit at their highest rates in over a year (MarketWatch)
BART to emphasize increased service and cleaning in next fiscal year’s budget (SF Examiner)

John- Your last donation was recorded on and is good for a full year. Thanks for being a current member!