M Ocean View Muni riders now have a safer, easier connection to Balboa Park BART thanks to a new boarding island. This island is one of the first quick-build elements of the M Ocean View Transit and Safety Project. Read more in a blog post.
The M Ocean View connects the Ocean View district to downtown San Francisco via the Twin Peaks Tunnel and the Balboa Park BART station. It also provides the Ocean View district with access to educational institutions including San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco.
The M Ocean View had a ridership of over 30,000 people per day before the pandemic, which is recovering steadily. The line serves a high percentage of people from households with low incomes and people of color. As a result, the Muni Service Equity Strategy identified the line as a priority for improvements in the Ocean View neighborhood.
The M Ocean View Transit and Safety Project focuses on improvements along the M Ocean View between Junipero Serra Boulevard and Balboa Park BART Station. Our goals are to:
- Improve reliability for M Ocean View riders
- Enhance accessibility for people with disabilities along the corridor as many stops do not have fully accessible boarding areas
- Improve safety for people walking
The project is part of the Muni Forward program, which is delivering transit priority and reliability improvements across the Muni system.
The project proposals were approved by the SFMTA Board at their February 6, 2024 meeting.
Project Outreach
The project team worked closely with the Ocean View community to shape the project’s proposals.
In early 2022, the team held a “listening tour” to understand improvement priorities from transit riders, neighborhood residents, community-based organizations and area merchants. That fall, we shared initial proposals for community feedback that included designs that improve on the top priorities that we heard from the community. These priorities included reducing wait and travel times and improving safety for people walking to stops. Considering the community’s feedback on these proposals, we refined our designs and shared updated proposals in spring 2023. We received feedback from hundreds of community members through an open house, self-guided open houses, pop-up events and meetings with community groups and residents. We further refined and updated our proposals and held a two-week virtual public hearing in the summer before proposing the project to the SFMTA Board for their unanimous approval at the February 6, 2024 meeting.
- Detailed Design
- Implementation / Construction
Other Efforts
While this project focuses on street-level transit improvements in the Ocean View neighborhood, it complements a long-range study called the Muni Metro Modernization Core Capacity Planning Study. This Planning study will develop concepts for providing subway-quality service on the M Ocean View outside the tunnel between West Portal and San Francisco State University as a part of a package of capacity-increasing and State of Good Repair improvements funded by a federal Capital Improvements Program (CIG) Grant.
Separately, a study of different design approaches for extending the M Ocean View from SF State to Parkmerced and developing infrastructure in this segment for running longer train cars is underway. While these other studies are on longer timelines and focus on different segments of the M Ocean View line than the M Ocean View Transit and Safety Project, our project team is coordinating with these various ongoing efforts as appropriate.