City of San Francisco Releases Draft Environmental Report for the SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which manages all surface transportation including the Municipal Railway (Muni), today announced the release of the Transit Effectiveness Project’s (TEP) Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). The TEP is a joint effort by the SFMTA and the City Controller’s Office that aims to transform Muni so that people can get where they want to go more quickly, reliably and safely.
Initiatives under the TEP Draft Implementation Strategy include: travel time reduction proposals, service changes and associated systemwide infrastructure, terminal and transfer points improvements, overhead wire expansion, and long-term studies. Taken together, the TEP proposals anticipate up to a 20 percent travel time reduction along eight project corridors and propose a 10 percent increase in service for the system overall.
“The TEP is a crucial yet enormous undertaking that we must commit to in order to improve Muni,” said Tom Nolan, Chairman of the Board of Directors. “The Board is grateful for the thousands of Muni customers, community members, SFMTA employees and other stakeholders who contributed to the initial planning phase. We look forward to implementing improvements that truly transforms Muni.”
The TEP Draft Environmental Impact Report is an objective analysis conducted by the San Francisco Planning Department and is designed to disclose impacts associated with a broad range of Muni project proposals, including traffic and parking changes, as well as other environmental effects. However, the report is not an implementation plan, so not every proposal will be part of the final project. In the fall, the SFMTA will engage the community to refine the projects described in the Draft EIR to come up with the final implementation plan.
“This milestone represents an important step to improve Muni service and San Francisco’s overall transportation goals,” said Edward D. Reiskin, SFMTA Director of Transportation. “The good work underlying the TEP provides us with the first opportunity in a generation to systematically improve Muni service and to make it a more attractive and reliable choice for San Franciscans.”
The TEP Draft Environmental Impact Report will be open to public comment from July 11 to August 26, 2013. The public comment period provides decision-makers and the general public with an opportunity to provide feedback specifically on the environmental impacts of the TEP. The TEP DEIR can be found online at: http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=2970.
A final EIR is expected in early 2014 with Planning Commission certification to follow.