Muni Forward: The Most Significant Service Improvements in Decades

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is launching the most significant series of service improvements in decades, aimed at increasing the frequency of Muni service, simplifying the Muni network, and making navigating the system easier for customers. Rolling out on April 25, the improvements are part of Muni Forward’s effort to make getting around San Francisco safer, easier and more reliable.  

“Through Muni Forward, we are investing in our city’s public transportation system to make it even more reliable, safer, easier to maintain, and ready to meet the demands of a growing ridership and a growing city,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “A 21st century transportation experience is what riders deserve. Enhancements like accelerating improvements to Muni by expanding San Francisco’s light rail fleet and replacing the entire fleet with new, state of the art Siemens vehicles help to improve transit times and reliability, and moves Vision Zero — eliminating traffic fatalities in our city in the next decade—forward.”

This April’s service improvements are packaged as an innovative transit transformation. They include substantial service increases, eye-catching bus shelter enhancements, a new vibrant Muni system map designed to facilitate faster commutes, renaming core bus lines to better complement travel and every Limited bus line will now carry the name Rapid—“Rapid is the new Limited.”

“Muni Forward is a monumental leap forward for this transportation agency,” said SFMTA Board Chairman Tom Nolan. “Our goal is to make Muni the preferred alternative for even more people in San Francisco, so we’ve adopted a comprehensive reorganization of services that increases the dependability of our transit system and our overall transportation network.”

Service Improvements

Muni transports more than 700,000 people during a normal weekday: that’s more than the individual populations of Seattle, Washington, DC and Boston. The majority of those daily trips are taken by bus. For this round of service increases, Muni Forward prioritized the bus routes that are the workhorses of our transit system, identifying time of day to enhance frequency; and extend service hours on Express routes.

“Muni has literally turned the corner in terms of service success,” said John Haley SFMTA director of transit. “Our on-time performance has increased steadily over the past seven months, Muni ridership continues to grow, newly hired operators are in service, more are in training, and we’re poised to be the only agency nationwide to completely replace its fleet with low or zero emission vehicles. So with the adoption of Muni Forward advances, Muni can nimbly support the current surge in construction and its resulting population growth.”

Rapid Network

Muni Forward is also launching its “Rapid Network”: which prioritizes frequency and reliability on Muni’s most heavily used routes. As part of the Rapid Network rollout, the term “Rapid” or “R” will replace “L” for Limited-stop routes. Think of it this way: “Rapid is the new Limited.”

Already Rapid Network routes are benefiting from transit priority improvements, including transit-only lanes and transit signal priority, with more enhancements on the way. A few of the Rapid routes will even see service increases on April 25:

• An additional five buses to the 38R-Geary Rapid during peak travel this month;
• As well, the 38R will launch new service on Sundays
• The 14R-Mission Rapid will also add two buses all-day on weekdays;
• (That translates to a bus every 7.5 minutes – a dramatic increase over the current 9 minute schedule);

The 14R will also extend its service operation day from: 8AM – 6:47PM – previously hours of operation were 9AM – 5:10PM
Transit Priority improvements will also extend to all Muni Metro lines.

New Route Names and Numbers

Muni Forward is also introducing new route numbers and names. This reorganization helps to better align route numbers throughout the system and more appropriately identifies where the following buses travel in the city.

New Map

To aid in better navigating the network of new Rapid bus routes and route number changes—Muni Forward is introducing a new service map. Its color-scheme is simple yet the colors and thickness of route lines boldly offers riders a new way to distinguish the most frequent service (the Rapid Network is denoted in Red) from local transit service.

Improved Bus Shelters

The new Rapid Network will also roll-out additional signage and transit service branding at Rapid and Metro shelters to make finding and navigating the Muni network easier.

• New transit poles outfitted with solar powered lanterns – will be visible day or night.
• Redesigned flag signs will better identify route information, intersection names and real-time arrival details.
• Bright red chevron-style decals, just below the shelter rooftop, easily signal a Rapid stop.
• Just outside the shelter, new bicycle racks allow for the convenience of Park & Ride and serve as anti-cluster anchors – helping to distribute waiting riders more evenly between the front and rear doors.