The first step in reimagining Muni is to look at Market Street, the city’s first major transit corridor, which it remains to this day. More than any other street in San Francisco, Market Street is full of unrealized potential. This applies particularly strongly to transit. We can barely keep up with the potential that exists today, to say nothing of the potential in 30 years. Our city has major building projects throughout Central Market, but exactly zero tangible plans regarding how to manage this influx of residential and business capacity.

Our trains are over capacity, both on BART and Muni, and we deal with constant congestion on Muni both above and below ground. 16 bus lines run along Market Street above ground in 4 lanes of traffic, with 6 metro lines below ground. Transit rules market street like nothing else today, yet we can’t handle even today’s capacity. In fact, traffic backups in the tunnel are so common that Muni doesn’t even bother to announce them — they literally build them into the schedule.

So what can we do today?

Introducing M-Market

San Francisco’s first true urban subway.

Running 5.5 miles in 13 minutes from Embarcadero to West Portal, the M-Market removes the variability: no traffic, no stop lights, no merging, no inconsistent train spacing, just pure automated subways running below Market Street. With longer 4 – 5 car trains running every 2 minutes (or less), we quadruple the capacity of the Muni Metro almost overnight.

Step 1: Simplify to 5 Lines

Efficient urban subway lines of this train length can carry upwards of 750,000 passengers per day. That’s almost 6 times the ridership of the entire Muni rail system today, leaving plenty of room for the M-Market to grow.

And here’s the craziest part: we could do most of this today.

Let’s have a real urban subway every two minutes down Market Street, all day.

What’s more, simulations show that these benefits aren’t restricted to the M-Market line. My organization Nextransit analyzed real-time locations for every Muni vehicle, every 30 seconds, for 6 months during operational hours. Using this real-world positional data in our M-Market simulation models, what we found was even more surprising than we originally thought. Not only did we see an over 80% improvement in reliability across the system, above-ground frequencies improved up to 2x.

The model doubles the frequency of the N-Judah, halves wait times, increases reliability by up to 80%, and doesn’t require a single new driver.

Diversification

We hear often about diversity when it comes to culture, race, and economy. A similar principle applies to physical space, particularly important in the country’s second-densest city, where space is at a premium. Diversifying space means spreading out residential and commercial, reducing access deserts (areas where you’re stuck traveling large distances for daily goods or services), and improving methods of access.

In San Francisco, we’ve packed the vast majority of our jobs in one corner of the city, leaving the opposite side largely residential. This is a microcosm of the suburban condition — one that inherently relies on larger distance transportation. It turns out, we’re not a suburb at all, and living the suburban dream isn’t exactly a dream in San Francisco.

Not only does diversification of space mean improving San Francisco’s mix of residential and commercial across the city, it also means providing ways to get places that aren’t just downtown. A world-class transit system doesn’t exist solely to shuttle people to and from work, it enables people from every part of the city, every background, and at every income level to move throughout the city for school, to visit a friend, to get food, or to go for a hike.

Expanding on the initial New Muni Metro Vision

M-Market allows us to look at each Muni rail line independently, ultimately expanding the reach of our rail network. For example, we could continue the N-Judah eastbound along Duboce, connecting the Sunset to the Mission, Duboce Triangle to Mission Bay. The J-Church could continue northbound, connecting Castro to Japantown, Noe Valley to the Fillmore, ultimately intersecting with a Geary rapid transit line or even the E-Embarcadero at Fort Mason. The K-Ingleside could continue northbound along 19th Avenue to Golden Gate Park and eastbound to Excelsior and Caltrain’s Bayshore Station.

Starting with a simple step like the M-Market, we can begin to entirely re-evaluate how transportation works in San Francisco. Building on this initial vision, combined with a bold regional plan, embracing a truly multi-modal urban network, and evaluating new ideas like on-demand Muni (more on that later), we begin to see a real opportunity to create the greatest modern urban transportation network in the world.

We have a real opportunity to create the greatest modern urban transportation network in the world.

Politicians have been talking for decades about “fixing Muni,” yet Muni remains one of the slowest systems in the nation with poor reliability, overcrowded vehicles, and infrequent service. Incremental changes alone can’t build the system we desperately need. It’s time for a real vision to connect the city — and our region — with high-speed, high-frequency, reliable transit service for everyone.

Learn more about New Muni Metro at http://newmunimetro.com

As part of my Grand San Francisco mayoral campaign, this is part one of a three-part series on transportation, helping fundamentally reinvent the transportation landscape in San Francisco. Stay tuned for a regional transportation vision, a cohesive urban multi-modal network, and a model for Muni on-demand.

Join my campaign for Mayor of San Francisco, and help shape the incredible opportunity we have ahead of us at http://mayorgrandsf.org