Nighttime Muni metro service past 9:30pm is finally returning tomorrow—but N-Judah riders will have to wait a little longer to celebrate. Over the weekend, the Sunset Tunnel will once again be closed for construction, taking N-Judah trains offline for journeys past the Church & Duboce stop. Work will begin at 2am Saturday, wrapping up at 3:30am Monday morning.
According to the SFMTA, here's what to expect:
- Bus shuttles will substitute for the N-Judah rail service between Church & Duboce and Ocean Beach from about 5 a.m. Saturday until end of service at 1 a.m. on Monday.
- Regular N-Judah rail cars will continue to provide service between Church & Duboce and 4th and King streets.
- The N bus shuttles will follow the N-Judah line, making regular stops, except for the tunnel portion, where buses will be routed to Haight Street.
- The N-Judah stops at Church & Duboce will provide a transfer point between bus shuttles and trains for Muni customers.
Outer Sunset residents on Judah between 34th and 38th Avenues will also see lane closures, as the SFMTA takes advantage of the N-Judah closure to lay signal loops and conduits in the trackways as part of the Transit Signal Priority (TSP) system upgrades.
If you're a resident in the affected area, here's what you can expect:
- Work hours will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
- During construction the streets will remain open; however there will be lane closures and traffic will be diverted.
- Street parking at construction site will be temporarily unavailable.
- Driveway access will be maintained.
- There will be noise during excavation of the sidewalk and roadway.
This isn't the end of the Sunset Tunnel work. It's scheduled to pick back up right after the Super Bowl leaves town, with planned closures for the weekends of Feb. 12-14, Feb. 26-28 and Mar. 4-6.
Muni says about 80 percent of the work in the tunnel will be complete after this weekend's closure, the 14th in a series of weekend shutdowns that started in November 2014. "We are working diligently with the contractor to expedite the rest of the construction and will do the best we can to finish the work as quickly as possible," Muni says.
