Muni looks at the future of San Francisco rail transportation

San Francisco is growing, y’all. Like, hella. Muni is already unable to keep up with demand. But they want you to know that they totally got this. Well, kinda.

Last week, SFMTA released its Rail Capacity Strategy (PDF), a pretty comprehensive look at the current system and how it will need to grow to keep up with expected growth in both the population of the city as well as the number of people coming into San Francisco each day to work.

Some key items from the report:

• San Francisco’s population is forecast to grow by nearly 30 percent over the next 25 years.
• Demand for Muni light-rail trains during peak times is forecast to grow by up to 80 percent by 2040.

Here are a few examples of how SFMTA is coping with the increased demand and some proposals for the future (some of which align with Supe. Scott Wiener’s proposals for more subways in SF):

• SFMTA has purchased an additional 24 trains that will be in service by 2019 and plans to purchase 40 more trains for service by 2021.
• constructing a pocket track east of Harrison Street along the Embarcadero to move trains around quicker at Embarcadero Station
• extending the Central Subway to Fisherman’s Wharf
• moving the M Line underground on the west side of the city

Read SFMTA’s announcement here and the full report here. As always, let us know what you think!