Dear Neighbors,

 

In our current October/November newsletter, which is live online and will soon be on your doorsteps, the Streets and Circulation article on page 3 references SFMTA's Church Street Transit Plaza Project. Since this article was drafted, the Streets and Circulation Committee and the DTNA Board have unanimously opposed the project as currently designed. The issue is not limited to Church Street itself. Residents have repeatedly raised concerns about heavy vehicle traffic on Sanchez and Steiner, while ordinary southbound through traffic on Church remains restricted. We do not wish for SFMTA to abandon the project entirely; we are working with the City to improve it so it addresses today's foremost transportation challenges.

 

The original project design reflects pandemic-era changes, when the J line stopped at Church Street Station and did not proceed through the Central Subway. Under that schedule, Church Street was indeed a transfer point to the remaining Muni light rail lines. This is no longer the case. At the same time, circulation through the surrounding neighborhood, particularly on Sanchez and Steiner, has become a major concern in SFMTA's Slow Duboce Triangle Study. As San Francisco, SFMTA, and Muni continue to rebound from the pandemic, the City and the Duboce Triangle face new transportation challenges and opportunities.

 

While we appreciate SFMTA's outreach to our merchant community and Muni riders, we do not believe SFMTA sufficiently engaged community members on the project's scope and timeline. We also believe the Church Street project and the Duboce Triangle circulation study need to be considered together. When SFMTA engaged us on the Slow Duboce Triangle Study, many respondents raised concerns about vehicle traffic on Sanchez and Steiner and supported exploring ways to shift more through traffic toward streets such as Church, while improving conditions on the neighborhood's established bicycle corridors.

 

Because comparable "before" traffic counts were not collected, we cannot say how much of today's traffic on Sanchez and Steiner was caused by the Church Street restriction. But the current circulation pattern is consistent with traffic being displaced from Church, and we believe that relationship should be analyzed before the present Church Street configuration is made permanent. SFMTA's 2025 counts show the scale of the imbalance: Church Street carries about 3,170 vehicles per weekday, while nearby segments of Sanchez and Steiner carry roughly 4,400 to 5,600 — even though Sanchez and Steiner form part of the Wiggle bicycle corridor.

In short, the two efforts should work together: encouraging through traffic to use Castro, Church, and Fillmore, while focusing traffic-calming measures and pedestrian and bicycle improvements on Sanchez, Steiner, and Noe. But as long as the Church Street Transit Plaza keeps restricting vehicle traffic on Church, the alternatives in the Slow Duboce Triangle Study would only slow traffic on those streets, not shift it elsewhere.

 

DTNA recommends restoring ordinary southbound through traffic on Church Street and holding in abeyance any procurement or construction that would foreclose that option until the circulation impacts and feasible design alternatives have been fully considered.

 

Michael John Alves, Thomas Hubbard and David Troup on behalf of

DTNA's Board and Streets and Circulation Committee