Visitacion Valley & Portola Community Based Transportation Plan

Learn about the Final Plan here

Project Introduction

Visitacion Valley and Portola are robust and unique San Francisco neighborhoods that deserve better transportation service and infrastructure. The Visitacion Valley and Portola Community-Based Transportation Plan (CBTP) is a community-fueled planning and engagement effort led by the SFMTA with District 9 Supervisor Ronen, District 10 Supervisor Walton, and strong local stakeholder partnerships.

The CBTP’s intention is to create a transportation vision for these neighborhoods by:

Repairing past harms and centering community needs throughout the CBTP process
Leveraging previous planning studies to understand the community’s ongoing and evolving needs that have already been expressed
Working directly with the community to identify specific transportation challenges and locations and appropriate solutions to address these challenges
Ensuring community engagement uses culturally competent outreach methods and approaches
Supporting the community-prioritized challenges and solutions with relevant data
Laying the groundwork for early implementation of select desired improvements
Prioritizing CBTP-identified improvements for local funding and advocating for regional and state funding for additional implementation.

The SFMTA acknowledges the traditional lack of investment and historical harms that have fallen on these communities. Because of this history and the need to do better, we seek to repair past harms and uplift the community throughout the CBTP process.

Commitment to the Community

Respect: Understand our role as a government agency and how that impacts dynamics with the community
Accountability: Develop a community-centered transportation plan that results in on-the-ground changes within 5 years of adoption
Transparency: Document and share what we hear in community conversations and what our approaches are towards decision-making
(Build) Trust: Listen to the community and deliver actions that reflect community desires
Centering: Value lived experiences of the community, especially those not often heard in traditional decision-making venues

photo of avenue theater on san bruno green colored entrance to Visitacion Valley Middle School welcome sign to Portola Neighborhood

Project Area

The project includes Visitacion Valley and portions of the Portola District in southeastern San Francisco, adjacent to the Bayview to the east, Highway 280 to the north, John McLaren Park to the west, and Daly City to the south. Visitacion Valley is an Equity neighborhood and Portola is served by multiple Equity routes, as identified in the Muni Service Equity Strategy.

Vis Valley Portola project area map. Project area includes parts of Portola & Visitacion Valley neighborhoods, bounded on the east San Bruno, west by McLaren Park, north by Felton Street, south by the San Francisco county line.

Outreach Phases

The SFMTA will partner directly with community-based organizations to build legitimate neighborhood relationships and conduct a robust engagement process with youth, seniors, residents, merchants, faith organizations, people of color, and more. Outreach will start in Fall 2021 and last for one year, with three distinct phases.

Phase 1: identify and prioritize transportation challenges/needs and problem locations

Phase 2: confirm Phase 1 results and identify range of solutions tailored to named locations

Phase 3: confirm location-specific solutions

After Phase 3, the project team will formalize community-approved transportation challenges and solutions into a final report. The report will go to the SFMTA Board of Directors for adoption in 2023. Some recommendations may be constructed early as part of a quick-build project, similar to ones in the Bayview Quick Build Projects.

grid streetscape of Visitaction Valley neighborhood streets from walking path along Vis Valley Middle School photo of San Francisco Public Library-- Vis Valley branch.