Geary Boulevard – Bus Rapid Transit Project
The Challenge
Geary Boulevard is the most heavily used transit corridor in the northern part of San Francisco. Over 50,000 daily transit riders rely on Geary bus service, but the route is often unreliable and crowded. To improve travel times, reliability and the user experience, the city and county of San Francisco are evaluating the implementation of a bus rapid transit (BRT) system for the Geary corridor. The project seeks to define BRT designs and operations, costs, and potential benefits/impacts for the Geary corridor through the preparation of environmental documents, as well as communicate project issues and benefits to stakeholders through neighborhood outreach.
The Approach
Circlepoint is managing the public involvement activities that focus on identifying key stakeholders to engage in community involvement; reviewing, commenting, designing and finalizing initial project communication tools (e.g., fact sheets, multi-lingual materials); conduct scoping meetings; and developing strategies to effectively communicate community issues and concerns to the project team and members of the public throughout environmental review and preliminary engineering.
The environmental review is currently underway and will identify and analyze the impacts of proposed BRT alternatives, including a Locally Preferred Alternative. Circlepoint has assisted SFCTA in developing the EIS/EIR document outline and format, as well as the LPA strategy. Circlepoint has also been involved in briefings and coordination with S.F. Planning and Federal Transit Administration staff to obtain consensus on analysis methodologies and document format and content.
The Results
At this early stage in the process, the outreach campaign has successfully engaged the communities surrounding the Geary corridor, with targeted communications in many languages designed to engage the diverse population. The environmental review process is continuing as planned, with major milestones being met on a timely basis.
