The project added transit-only lanes, painted red, along many sections of Geary between the Salesforce Transit Center and 33rd Avenue.

Side-running transit lanes are less efficient than center-running configurations, and so this decision has been criticized as a downgrade from the original plan.

The bus lanes run in the center of the street west of Stanyan to around 27th Avenue in the Richmond District and Laurel Heights.

The project will also implement transit improvements such as bulb-outs for bus stops and traffic signal updates.

[8] Subsequently, replacement rail service on Geary was proposed multiple times, such as in the original plans for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

Proposition K mandates that Geary BRT be built to "rail-ready standards" to accommodate a planned future conversion to light rail.

[14] The final design of the first phase, after several revisions based on community input, was approved by the SFMTA board in August 2018.

[17] SFMTA found that the temporary side-running lanes kept bus travel times from increasing as auto congestion returned.

[18] The SFMTA considered these results to be satisfying enough to retain the side-running transit lanes permanently instead of constructing a center-running corridor as originally planned.