What was the study about?

The study was a joint effort of five transit operators: BART, Muni, AC Transit, Caltrain, and the Water Emergency Transportation Authority, in coordination with the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).

Every day, transit operators move hundreds of thousands of people into and out of San Francisco’s Core, which includes portions of the Financial District, South of Market (SoMa), Mid-Market and Mission Bay neighborhoods. Facing increasingly crowded conditions as the region and transit ridership continues to grow, our transit system is challenged to deliver quality service to riders both now and in the future.

The five transit operators are all committed to identifying investments and improvements to increase transit capacity to the San Francisco Core. All of these operators are independently considering various improvements and investments to their respective systems (see the full list of prerequisite projects), and this study is the first to date to bring the major transit operators together to address this regional issue in a comprehensive, coordinated manner.

The study’s findings and recommendations will support sustainable economic growth and improve the quality of life for the region’s residents, visitors and workforce.

Study Area and Networks of Focus

The CCTS Study Area included two primary transit corridors: the Transbay Corridor and the San Francisco Metro Corridor.

The Transbay Corridor focused on investments to transport commuters on BART, AC Transit and WETA from the East Bay, and it explored potential new connections across the Bay. The San Francisco Metro Corridor focused on Muni’s light rail and bus network, Caltrain’s peninsula service to San Francisco, and BART service through the southern neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Planning Horizons

The study looks at short-, medium-, and long-term investments that could help steadily upgrade the overall transportation system and keep pace with anticipated population growth for the next quarter century. As an important step toward funding and implementation, the projects developed and prioritized through the Core Capacity Transit Study have been incorporated into the full list of priorities for the nine-county region in Plan Bay Area 2040, the region’s long-term transportation and land-use plan.