K Ingleside Rapid Project
The K Ingleside Rapid Project will focus improvements on Ocean Avenue between Junipero Serra Boulevard and the Balboa Park BART Station.
The K Ingleside connects the Ingleside district to downtown San Francisco via West Portal Avenue and the Twin Peaks Tunnel. It links residential neighborhoods, the Ocean Avenue commercial corridor, Balboa Park BART and schools, including City College of San Francisco and primary and secondary schools.
Over 13,000 riders board the K Ingleside daily, and ridership is steadily growing as the city recovers from the pandemic. The K Ingleside is identified as a priority for improvement by the Muni Service Equity Strategy, which focuses on improving Muni in neighborhoods with high percentages of households with low incomes, people of color, seniors and people with disabilities.
The K Ingleside Rapid Project aims to:
- Improve capacity. The line currently runs two-car trains, but due to the inadequate size of some train platforms on Ocean Avenue, only one of the train cars is used, and the second car is locked to prevent riders from using it on that portion of the line, reducing capacity. Increasing train capacity is especially important as housing and jobs are added to the corridor.
- Reduce travel times and increase reliability. Average speeds on the K Ingleside are as slow as 5 m.p.h. in the project area. This project aims to improve travel time by 10-20%.
- Enhance traffic safety. Ocean Avenue is one of the city’s most dangerous streets. Portions of Ocean Avenue within the project area are part of the High Injury Network, which is the 12% of city streets where 68% of all severe and fatal traffic collisions occur.
The project is part of the Muni Forward program, which delivers transit priority and reliability improvements across the Muni system, particularly where ridership is the highest and in the most transit-dependent neighborhoods.
District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar on the K Ingleside Rapid Project
“My office launched the Ocean Avenue Mobility Action Plan with the SFCTA in 2021 to prioritize the transportation investments that Ocean Avenue deserves. With District 11 Supervisor Safai, we recruited a task force representing merchants, schools, neighborhood residents and cultural organizations, who led a robust outreach process that evaluated investments that could meet our goals:
• Improve safety and connectivity for people walking and cycling
• Improve transit efficiency, reliability and accessibility
• Manage congestion on streets, particularly at freeways
• Improve livability to support economic vitality and quality of life
The K Ingleside Rapid Project will support every one of these goals and, as result, emerged as a critical project for the corridor. The project proposes smart investments that meet the neighborhood’s growing transportation needs with faster and more reliable transit that can move more people. It will also address traffic safety on one of the city’s most dangerous streets. I’ve asked the SFMTA to work on this project, and I’m excited for it to deliver transit that better connects us to Ocean Avenue and across the city.”
Project Outreach
The K Ingleside Rapid project builds on previous efforts on the corridor to address current and future needs emerging from growth. Most recently, the Ocean Avenue Mobility Action Plan convened a community task force and held online town halls to prioritize and identify funding for improvements to transportation, safety for people walking and bicycling and traffic circulation. Through this process, the K Ingleside Rapid Project advanced as one of its priority projects.
Public outreach led by the SFMTA for the project began in spring 2023. The first phase of outreach included in-person and digital options for community members to share their ideas, experiences and feedback to help shape this project.
In July 2023, the project team shared an updated proposal with detailed proposal drawings. Community members can learn more about the project at in-person events or through online materials and provide feedback through a community survey.
Funding
Construction of the project is primarily funded through a grant from the State of California’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program.
Current Phase or Stage
Public Outreach and Engagement
Other Efforts
The Frida Kahlo Quick-Build Project aims to improve safety for people walking and bicycling on Frida Kahlo Way at the Ocean Avenue intersection and to the section of Frida Kahlo Way north of Ocean Avenue. This project is scheduled to launch in the spring of 2023.