By Calvin Welch, HANC Board
The SFMTA withdrew its ill-considered seven-year-old proposal to remove 6 Parnassus service from the Upper Ashbury portion of the line and relocate it to Haight Street to make up for the previous loss of the 7 Haight line, and will keep service to the Haight-Ashbury unchanged. The decision was approved by the SFMTA Board on March 28 when it adopted the citywide Transit Effectiveness Program (TEP) which made changes to 59 of the City’s 81 transit routes. The plan also calls for the net reduction of two stops on Haight St.: the removal of the Haight/Cole stop and consolidation of two stops on either end of Buena Vista Park into a single new stop at Lyon and Haight.
HANC and other residents of the neighborhood consistently opposed the proposal since it was first made in 2007 when the TEP was first announced. HANC also strongly opposed the ending of the 7 Haight service, from Stanyan to the Transbay Terminal but SFMTA ended the service anyway as part of the original TEP “service enhancements”.Oddly, one of the reasons cited by SFMTA re-routing of the 6 from Ashbury Heights to Haight St. was to “provide more service to Haight Street.”
At HANC 's March general membership meeting, the odd history of the TEP as well as the current state of Mayor Lee's transit proposals were the subject of discussion by a panel made up of HANC's former President and current Senior Disability Action staff member, Pi Ra; Bob Allen, Acting Executive Director/Transportation Justice Program Director, Urban Habitat; and Peter Cohen, of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.