L-Taraval reconnects western neighborhoods with refreshed rail service

Reporting from THE PARKSIDE

The L-Taraval Muni Metro rail line is finally returning to the subway and the streets Saturday morning, after years of construction replaced aging underground utilities, built new boarding islands, and replaced worn out rails.

Trains will run every 10 minutes on weekdays and every 15 minutes on weekends between the zoo and Embarcadero station. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will discontinue L bus service as rail service returns. Transit officials said passengers should board trains at the new boarding islands.

City officials held a ribbon-cutting event Thursday morning at McCoppin Square in the Parkside neighborhood to welcome back the L light rail service.

Mayor London Breed said at the event that the transit project was important to address safety issues with passengers who had to board and get off trains into oncoming traffic:

“One of the biggest challenges that we were having, as some of you remember who used this line, is people would step out, and some folks have been hit, and it was not safe. You were taking your life in your own hands, and we had to change that. We had to make it safer.”

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Called the L-Taraval Improvement Project, construction took more than five years to complete two phases of the project along the busy Taraval commercial corridor, which drew ire from merchants as they endured years of construction and ripped-up streets.

The SFMTA split the project a first phase between the Zoo and Sunset Boulevard from July 2019 to July 2021, and a second from Sunset to Ulloa Street starting in January 2022.

Albert Chow, president of the People of the Parkside Sunset, represents the merchants on Taraval Street. Chow expressed a sigh of relief that the project was finally completed. Chow, who owns the Great Wall Hardware store on Taraval that recently suffered a fire, said at the ceremonial event:

“We’re done. I still remember this started in October 2015. Someone walked in my store and showed me the plans for this project. I thought, this is crazy.”

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He noted several SFMTA-led projects where merchants were impacted, including the Central Subway and Van Ness projects, but added that as the Taraval project evolved, the SFMTA and other city leaders began working together with merchants, adding:

“Our community suffered mightily through this experience, but because of SFMTA, because of PUC, because of the people that reached out to the mayor’s office and the supervisor’s office, we made it.”

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The project included installing or extending 22 transit boarding islands that transit officials said would keep passengers safe when they board and get off trains. Before the installation of the islands, passengers had to board and alight through a lane of traffic on Taraval. Merchants grew concerned early in the outreach process about the loss of parking spaces to accommodate the new extended boarding islands.

Transit officials conducted a pilot project to find an alternative solution for drivers to stop ahead of trains at transit stops for passengers to board or disembark. The project involved adding paint and signage to inform drivers where to stop. However, during the pilot, drivers complied only 74 percent of the time, falling short of the SFMTA’s target compliance rate of 90 percent.

Other transit upgrades include the installation of new rail for the first time in nearly 50 years, and five new traffic signals that transit officials said will speed up L rail service with transit signal priority. Additionally, crews replaced the entire overheard head contact system that powers the trains.

The project included transit upgrades along with replacement of aging underground utilities, such as the sewer pipes and water main system, throughout the entire commercial corridor.

San Francisco’s transit chief Jeffrey Tumlin said:

“Today. Muni is faster, cleaner, safer and more reliable than it has been in decades, and that is thanks to projects like these. That includes the sacrifice of those along the corridor who’ve endured the construction period.”

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The Mayor’s Office said in July that it had concluded a first round of grants that were given to qualified merchants on the Taraval Street corridor impacted by the years-long construction project.

City supervisors, including Connie Chan, who chairs the budget committee and supervisors Joel Engardio and Myrnal Melgar, who represent the project’s commercial corridor, supported the efforts to create a $1 million refund for merchants on Taraval.

Melgar said:

“The backbone of our community is our small businesses and nothing does more to support their success than to have a transportation system that works so that they can get customers here efficiently, easily and cheaply.”

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The Office of Economic and Workforce Development administered the grant program, handing grants to 150 businesses of up to $5,000.

Engardio said:

“I believe that this infrastructure that we’ve built here, that we’ve that we’ve redone, is going to set us up for a renaissance in the Sunset.”

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The project has also garnered mentions during the 2024 election session among mayoral candidates, including former interim mayor supervisor Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie, founder of the nonprofit Tipping Point and Levi Strauss heir.

At one mayoral debate in July, Lurie described the project as the “nightmare on Taraval Street,” while Farrell said the project was hurting businesses that had been there for generations.

Breed at the debate defended the project saying that replacing the old underground utilities was important so that the roadway does not open up like on Sacramento Street in Pacific Heights when a massive sinkhole appeared last year after a water main break. She added that the SFMTA needs to do better public outreach to communities on its capital projects.

Following a ceremonial ribbon cutting, Breed and elected leaders hopped on the L train for an inaugural ride.

Though service does not officially begin until Saturday, the first passenger, who gave Yi as his first name, said:

“I feel so surprised and happy because I’ve been taking the bus for so long.”

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Jerold Chinn

Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.