Muni floats plan to pull hundreds of S.F. stops SAN FRANCISCO

Muni bus Muni bus Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Muni floats plan to pull hundreds of S.F. stops 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Hundreds of bus and street car stops could be eliminated in San Francisco under a proposal unveiled Wednesday by Municipal Railway officials to speed transit travel.

"This will be controversial," said Muni chief Nathaniel Ford.

It also would be one of the cheapest ways to improve Muni's on-time performance, which hit a record-high 74.5 percent in the latest reporting period that covered the first three months of the year but still fell far short of the 85 percent on-time performance mark mandated by city voters 10 years ago.

Buses on the most heavily used routes, among them the 14-Mission, 30-Stockton, 38-Geary and the 1-California, now spend about 20 percent of their running time at stops picking up and dropping off passengers, officials report.

More time is wasted pulling buses in and out of stops in traffic.

Muni has more than 4,000 stops citywide, sometimes two on the same block.

"Changing our bus-stop spacing will have a significant impact in terms of speeding up service and making us more efficient and cost-effective," Ford said.

The proposal is the next step in Muni's efforts to overhaul the transit system. Plans already are under way to steer more service to the most popular lines.

Spacing stops further apart - in some cases every four blocks - may make a lot of sense on paper but will be a hard sell to Muni regulars reluctant to give up the convenience.

Christie Martinez, 39, who commutes on the 14-Mission between Bernal Heights and her retail job downtown, said one of the main reasons she takes Muni is because it's handy. "If the plan is to make it better without adding to the hassle, then I'm all for it. But don't make it harder."

Muni already has a policy for transit-stop spacing, based on how hilly an area is. Bus stops on streets with grades at 10 degrees or less should be 800 to 1,000 feet apart; grades greater than 10 degrees should be 300 to 600 feet apart. Above-ground rail stops should be separated by 1,000 to 1,200 feet. However, those guidelines are adhered to in less than 18 percent of the cases.

Under the proposed guidelines, bus stops should be 900 to 1,400 feet apart in relatively flat areas and 500 feet apart in hilly areas. Above-ground rail stops should be placed every 1,000 to 1,500 feet.

The typical block length in the northeast neighborhoods, such as Chinatown and North Beach, are 480 feet running east-west and 340 feet north-south. In the western Sunset and Richmond neighborhoods, they're 310 feet east-west and 680 feet north-south.

As Muni proceeds with plans to remove stops, flexibility will be paramount, said Cameron Beach, who serves on the Municipal Transportation Agency governing board. "There are a lot of reasons, not the least of which are the differing lengths of blocks, the fact that we're a city with lots of hills and we have a lot of transit riders used to a lot of transit coverage," he said.

Agency staff said that when crafting the plan they will take into account not just the steepness of hills, but also a stop's proximity to a hospital, school, senior center and transfer points.

Muni doesn't expect to have a detailed proposal available for public review until October. No changes would be made until sometime next year after ample outreach, Ford said.