Taken with Transportation Podcast: Connecting Community to Transit

Taken with Transportation Podcast: Connecting Community to Transit
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The Bayview Community Shuttle is intended to help residents connect more easily with transit lines that serve Bayview-Hunters Point, such as the 54 Felton and T-Third.

Accessing public transit can be more difficult for people in one particular San Francisco neighborhood than it is in other parts of the city. So we are designing a supplemental transportation program for this area, the Bayview Community Shuttle.

You can learn more in the latest episode of the SFMTA podcast, Taken with Transportation. Host Melissa Culross talks with SFMTA Transportation Planner Christopher Kidd, San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, Bayview-Hunters Point Community Advocates Environmental Justice Director Dalila Adofo, SFMTA Planning Director Maia Small and neighborhood residents about the shuttle, which is expected to begin running in Bayview-Hunters Point in 2024. 

Christopher Kidd is the planner in charge of the shuttle program, and he discusses its development and design, which includes extensive community outreach. “We want to make sure that this is a service where it’s effective,” he says. “And also, we really want to make sure this is a service that is complementing our transit service already and helping connect people to rapid transit and regional transit to help them make trips more effectively on transit so they don’t have to drive.” 

The podcast episode also explores why Bayview-Hunters Point, specifically, will benefit from this type of service through the conversations Culross has with Supervisor Walton, Small, Adofo and neighborhood residents.  

“A lot of people [in the neighborhood] are driving because they have to get to work, because they have to get their children to school, because they have to do their daily activities,” Walton says. “And most certainly being in the southeast sector of San Francisco, we don’t always have the fastest and most adequate transportation.” 

“We’re really responding to a particular neighborhood and a history in that neighborhood,” adds Small. “There were really big economic and land use challenges that have gone back many, many, many generations. So we want to make sure that we’re using transportation and mobility as a way to serve them while that’s slowly changing.” 

The shuttle is funded through the spring of 2026 by a grant from the California Air Resources Board. You can hear the entire episode at our podcast page (SFMTA.com/Podcast), Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Our Bayview Community Shuttle website (SFMTA.com/BayviewShuttle) offers an up-to-date list of community outreach events, as well as a survey you can take to help us develop the service. 

Published September 12, 2023 at 01:53AM
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