'I don't know if any of these changes altogether are going to deliver the service people living in Noe Valley, Glen Park, and the Castro deserve,' said Mandelman.Īnything to improve his commutes on the J-Church would be welcomed by Keith Kunkel, a gay man who lives on Liberty Hill and takes public transit to his job at a hardware store in Oakland. he feels 'generally positive' about the proposed changes and expressed his gratitude to the SFMTA for coming up with a plan to improve J-Church service, which he called 'abysmal.' But he questioned how much of an impact the changes would have in the near term.

'The ultimate decision will be made by the SFMTA board.' 'The J Church Project will be reviewing community feedback regarding all project proposals and will assess whether there is a need to make refinements to the existing proposal,' she wrote in an emailed reply to questions. The current plan is for SFMTA to hold a public hearing on the proposals, said Kato, then present a final list of proposed changes to the SFMTA board sometime in February or March for approval. This travel time savings would be invested into providing more leeway in the schedule, which will improve reliability,' SFMTA spokeswoman Erica Kato told the B.A.R. 'The near-term improvements could reduce travel time between 30th and Market Street by about 5%. And it is reviewing if J-Church trains can travel faster than the current 25 miles per hour along San Jose Avenue enroute to and from the Glen Park BART station stop.Ī number of safety improvements are also under consideration, such as improved buffer zones at stops and removing parking spaces at certain stops, which the SFMTA refers to as 'daylighting.' It is looking to remove the inbound stop at 30th and Church streets - which is roundly opposed by residents in the area - since there are several other stops a short walk away. It has proposed timing several traffic signals along Church Street to benefit the trains and turning a four-way stop at Cesar Chavez and Church Street into a traffic light stop.

'These may be good improvements - I think many or all of them are - but we are still looking for the game-changer.'Īs part of its J-Church Improvement Project, SFMTA plans to approve a slew of quick fixes next year. 'When we started down this process, I was hoping to see some game-changing solutions that would make the J work,' said Mandelman. It then runs along the surface street through the Castro and Noe Valley before heading to Glen Park and its terminus at the Balboa Park BART and Muni station. Since being elected in June 2018, Mandelman has been meeting with SFMTA staff to discuss ways to address the lackluster performance of the J-Church, which leaves the underground subway tunnel behind the Safeway shopping center on upper Market Street to turn left onto Church Street. But J trains are adhering to the schedule only 75% of the time. J-Church trains, which carry 17,000 riders on weekdays, should arrive every nine to 10 minutes on weekdays and less frequently on weeknights - every 15-20 minutes - and every 12 minutes on weekends. 'It is not functioning anywhere near close to how it could be functioning,' Mandelman told the Bay Area Reporter. They expressed their frustrations in text messages to District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who represents most of the neighborhoods that the subway line traverses through on its route. Yet those downtown trying to make it to the meeting, held at a recreation center a short walk from a J-Church stop, left work that night to discover the next J-Church trains wouldn't arrive for 28 to 30 minutes. Monday night the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency held a meeting in Noe Valley to present to the public its proposal for speeding up service on Muni's notoriously slow J-Church subway line.

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