A variety of transportation projects have been narrowed down as part of a plan to make transit, bike and pedestrian improvements along Ingleside’s stretch of the Ocean Avenue corridor. And now they are ready for the general public to take up and offer feedback.
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority started the Ocean Avenue Mobility Action Plan at the direction of District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who also sits on the authority's board of directors.
The plan will focus on a set of two large projects and three small projects. The project ideas were developed with the help of the Ocean Avenue Mobility Task Force, a group of community stakeholders, as well as feedback from surveys over the past 18 months.
All of the projects will still require more technical work and public outreach, but the transportation authority has shared potential design options drawn from a toolkit of safety and transit improvement project ideas.
Transit improvements would include constructing transit boarding islands that would fit two-car trains. The K Ingleside is currently a two-car train. Operators close the second car to passengers at West Portal station when heading to Balboa Park station.
A map showing possible changes to the K Ingleside light rail line. | Courtesy image
Approximately 30 to 40 parking spaces would need to be removed near some transit stops and could be partially offset with angled parking on side streets.
Other transit improvements eyed for improving the K-Line include installing transit signal priority, transit stop consolidation and restricting left turns.
All of the transit improvements are considered one large project in improving the reliability and increasing the capacity of the K-Line. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will conduct the outreach process as part of the K Ingleside Rapid Project.
Another large project is the removal of the Ocean Avenue pedestrian bridge between City College of San Francisco to Geneva Avenue along with replacing the connected retaining wall to create a new shared bike and pedestrian path.
A new street crossing would be included as part of the project as well as a continuous bike path for bicyclists between Interstate 280 and the Geneva Avenue, Ocean Avenue and Frida Kahlo Way intersection.
A map showing possible changes to the Frida Kahlo Way, Ocean Avenue and Geneva Avenue intersection. | Courtesy image
There are also a number of proposed smaller projects to improve pedestrian safety and to slow vehicles down on Ocean Avenue.
The Ocean Avenue pedestrian improvements would include crosswalk warning signs, removing parking near intersections to make pedestrians more visible to motorists and sidewalk bulb outs.
Speeding would be addressed through making traffic signals more visible to drivers and the installation of signs showing vehicle speeds.
One other small project seeks to create an alternative east-west bike connectivity using Holloway Avenue and Ocean Avenue.
The public can provide feedback on the projects by emailing oceanave@sfcta.org by April 27, 2023.
