Geary Boulevard (designated as Geary Street east of Van Ness Avenue) is a major east-west thoroughfare in San Francisco, California, beginning downtown at Market Street near Market Street's intersection with Montgomery Street, and running westbound through downtown, the Civic Center area, the Western Addition, and running for most of its length through the predominantly residential Richmond District. Geary Boulevard terminates near Sutro Heights Park at 48th Avenue, close to the Cliff House above Ocean Beach at the Pacific Ocean. At 40th Avenue, Geary intersects with Point Lobos Avenue, which takes through traffic to the Cliff House, Ocean Beach and the Great Highway. It is a major commercial artery through the Richmond District; it is lined with stores and restaurants, many of them catering to the various immigrant groups (Chinese, Russian, and Irish, among many others) who live in the area. The boulevard borders Japantown between Fillmore and Laguna Streets.
Geary Boulevard carries two-way traffic for most of its route, but the segment east of Gough Street carries only westbound traffic; at Gough, eastbound traffic is diverted by a short curved street, Starr King Way, onto O'Farrell Street, which runs parallel to Geary until it reaches Market Street.
The roadway is named for John W. Geary, the first mayor of San Francisco after California became a U.S. state. (Later, he also had the unique distinction of serving as governor of both Kansas and Pennsylvania.) It began life as a dirt carriage track out to the Cliff House and Ocean Beach and for a time a flat track paralleled the road where horsemen raced their mounts on Sundays.
Muni bus service along Geary Boulevard is provided by the 38 Geary bus line, which is the most heavily used bus line in the city with over 50,000 passengers per day,[1] and over 100,000 passengers per day in adjacent lines (1 California, 2 Clement, 31 Balboa).
There have been feasibility studies by Muni that have investigaged the possibility of creating a light rail line on Geary,[2] but no plans have been adopted yet. A bus rapid transit line is being planned on Geary Boulevard between Van Ness and 33rd Avenue.[3] The target completion date is in 2010-2011. This bus rapid transit corridor will have dedicated bus lanes down Geary Boulevard. The dedicated lanes are planned to be "rail ready," which means the corridor will be designed so as not to preclude future conversion to a streetcar line, including a subway section in downtown.
This would not be the first streetcar line on Geary. From 1912, when the San Francisco Municipal Railway began service, until 1956, when redevelopment projects led by Justin Herman included its removal and replacement with buses, the B Geary line ran along this street to Playland and Ocean Beach. If and when a future streetcar line is built along Geary, it will once again use the "B" letter.
The section of the boulevard between Franklin Street and Masonic Avenue was upgraded to a signalized expressway in the 1960s. It features between four and eight through lanes and two grade separations at Masonic and Fillmore, complete with semi-exits.
Geary Boulevard also has the highest address and block numbers in San Francisco, with the last block being the 8300 block. In addition, although it is not signed, the city's GIS database records the underpass of Masonic Avenue as the 8400 block.
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