Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is intended as an affordable approach to creating rapid transit along Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco’s major north-south transit route, for two miles between Mission and Lombard streets.

The San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency is analyzing the environmental impact of three BRT build alternatives and one design variation. They include:

• Dedicated bus lanes, helping reduce transit travel time by 32%.
• Transit signal priority, giving buses more green lights and helping increase transit reliability by up to 50%.
• Faster, level boarding through all doors to reduce transit delays by more than 40%.
• These benefits are estimated to contribute to a 35% increase in transit ridership along the corridor.
• While undergoing planning and design, the project received the FTA’s highest rating for cost-effectiveness several years in a row, an indication of its high benefit-to-cost ratio.

A Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) is available for public review and comment for 45 days, with all comments due December 19 (see How to Read and Comment on the EIS/EIR). The document compares BRT alternatives to conditions without BRT and documents how the BRT alternatives would affect a range of issues.

A formal public hearing for the EIS/EIR will take place on November 30 and an online webinar will take place on December 5 (see details below).

• The public hearing will be held on November 30, 2011, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, 1500 Van Ness Ave. The event will include an open house from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. with staff available to answer questions, followed by a short presentation. A court reporter will be available during the public hearing to take verbal comments on the EIS/EIR.
• A webinar will be held on December 5, 2011, at noon. Register here.
• The next meeting of the Van Ness Avenue BRT Citizens Advisory Committee, open to the public, will be held on Tuesday, November 15, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the SFCTA offices, 100 Van Ness Ave., 26th floor.

Maps are an integral aspect of daily life in our society, conveying essential information about the world we live in. Having access to that information is necessary to participate in society and gives people the ability to do what they couldn’t do before.

If someone is newly blind or learning a neighborhood from scratch, having access to maps is a real asset. But for blind people, obtaining maps has been difficult and expensive.

The LightHouse is making significant change in this area by developing accessible transit maps to enhance the ability of blind and visually impaired individuals to effectively use public transit in the Bay Area.

We are developing, and will distribute, “strip maps,” which will present concise information about selected transit routes in Braille and large print. The strip maps will be developed for BART, Muni, SamTrans and Caltrain routes.

We need your help to select additional transit routes for which we may produce strip maps in the future. Currently, our highest priority will be to make strip maps for additional Muni and Samtrans routes, particularly routes serving the Market Street corridor or routes linking to BART or Caltrain, but your recommendations about routes throughout the Bay Area are welcome.

Click here to take the survey

For more information about this project please call Frank Welte at 415-694-7363 or send email to fwelte@old.lighthouse-sf.org.