Van Ness had previously hosted trolley service in the form of the H Potrerostreetcar line starting in 1915. The trolley poles used for that service were deemed too deteriorated to be retrofitted for modern use. Muni had planned a transit corridor improvement project on Van Ness since 1989 as part of the Proposition B sales tax expenditure plan. The transit expansion part of the expenditure plan formed the basis of the 1995 Four Corridor Plan by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, which planned for rail expansions along four priority corridors including Van Ness. The corridors included the Bayshore Corridor which became the T Third Street Muni extension, and a proposed rail line along Geary Boulevard which ultimately became the Geary Bus Rapid Transit project. The third corridor to North Beach was implemented as the Central Subway project. The Van Ness corridor was considered to be phase four of these four corridors and was to be implemented last, beyond the twenty year planning timeline of Proposition B. Ultimately, however, Van Ness BRT broke ground before the Geary Boulevard improvements, which had a higher priority in the plan, were approved. By 2003, neither improvements in the Four Corridor Plan for Geary nor Van Ness had materialized. With the Proposition B sales tax expiring in 2010, a new sales tax was proposed in 2003 as the Proposition K ballot measure. The ballot measure, which was passed by the voters, specified an expenditure plan that included bus rapid transit on these two corridors. The SFCTA began to formally plan the project after the passage of Proposition K in 2004, with a completion date planned for 2012. However, the project was delayed and the project finally broke ground in 2017 with a completion date planned for 2019. Issues encountered during construction delayed the completion date further to 2020. By January 2019, the timeline for completion had again slipped to late 2021.
Controversy
Some people who drive automobiles near the corridor have complained about possible changes in automobile traffic patterns and loss of automobile parking along the corridor. Concerns that trees would be removed were met with plans to plant more trees on the route. Residents supportive of the project have complained about continued delays in completing the project, and that the project is taking longer to complete than other similar projects in other cities because the SFMTA did not close the street to automobile traffic during construction. The use of low platforms with a high-floor buses has been criticized as bus rapid transit creep.
