SFMTA to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Muni on Market Street This Weekend

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), today announced that the installation of new, red transit only lanes on Market Street will begin Friday, July 25. The durable, new red transit-only lanes consist of a red thermoplastic bonded to the existing lanes and will run between 5thand 12th streets.

“As a Transit First city, we are being smart about how we improve transit to make it an attractive, reliable choice for San Franciscans,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation, Ed Reiskin. “These lanes represent a low-cost, but high-impact measure to decrease travel time by preventing cars from using transit only lanes.”

The “red carpet” lane colorization is part of an ongoing pilot project to identify transit only lanes in red, which improves the safety, reliability and speed on some of Muni’s most heavily used lines. By creating colorful, more visible transit only lanes, motorists are able to avoid lanes designated specifically for public transit and taxis.

This project will improve the customer experience, speed and reliability for the F, 6, 9, 9L, 71, and 71L Muni routes.

The Market street lanes are the latest in a series of red lane installations which also include new red carpet treatments on Church, 3rd, Geary and O’Farrell streets. Experience from the installation on Church Street shows strong improvements in transit speed, reliability and a better customer experience. Installation of the Market Street lane treatment will be done at night on weekends in an effort to minimize the impacts on all users of Market Street.

Red carpet lane projects are a part of Muni Forward, a comprehensive initiative to improve Muni service throughout San Francisco.

Traffic and Transit Impacts

The Market Street red lane installation this weekend will require the following partial street closure from 10:30 p.m., Friday to 5 a.m., Saturday:

• Eastbound transit-only or track lane of Market Street between 5th Street and Mason Street.

Taxis and other buses allowed to use this lane will be diverted to the curb lane.

Cross traffic will be permitted.

All Muni buses will operate in the curb lane and use curb lane bus stops.

The F Market and Wharves line will operate through the installation area.

The installation of red lane treatment on the Market Street transit-only lanes between 5th and 12th streets will be conducted over Friday and Saturday nights through November.