Rescue Muni

The SFMTA offers convenient online sales of the Fast Pass as well as parking cards (to pay those increasing meter fees and avoid nasty tickets), but inexplicably limits Fast Pass sales to just twelve days per month. So we thought we’d post a quick reminder that you can now (as of April 10) order your pass online, and it will be mailed to you.

Would you like monthly reminders, at least until the MTA offers auto-renewal? If so, comment below, we can post a comment like this every month.

Many Muni riders also ride bikes, or would like to, if it weren’t so dangerous. If this describes you, tonight’s Bike Plan Open House should be of interest to you. SFMTA has been working on a comprehensive Bike Plan for SF for some years now, and although it has been delayed by a lawsuit, it’s now ready for public input. Among the proposals: bike access to Muni light rail vehicles, as is available now in San Jose and Sacramento. (Our friends at the SF Bike Coalition have been deeply involved in this process.)

The open house is today, March 26, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at the 101 Grove Street (Health Department) auditorium. Civic Center Muni/BART station is nearby, along with many other lines.

No more replacement buses, at least for a while: the Twin Peaks Tunnel project is done as of today, so Muni Metro service is back until 1 am (or close to it, check schedules and NextBus).

Also, plan now for a SFMTA hearing on fares and fines April 1, at the regularly scheduled MTA Board meeting. Due to budget shortfalls, the MTA is again considering fare and parking/traffic fine increases.

Today Mayor Newsom, MTA Director Nat Ford, SFTEP head Julie Kirschbaum, and others unveiled a highly detailed plan to revise Muni service citywide, to improve service quality and better match service to customer demand. This is easily the most extensive revision to Muni service proposed in a generation, since the crosstown routes were created in the 1970s. Highlights include:

The best way to review this is to look at the 8 page proposal summary (pdf) and service policy framework (pdf) and then go straight to the list of proposals by line.

Many of us at Rescue Muni have been participating in the SFTEP Citizen Advisory Committee, and the detailed proposal is quite consistent with the policy proposals discussed in these meetings. It’s very good news to see the MTA thinking about service as a whole and not just about specific point changes that can be made - after all, most riders use more than one line on a regular basis, so a faster, more reliable system is what is needed to increase ridership and get more San Franciscans out of their cars. And it’s also quite refreshing to see these proposals being made based on real world data on ridership and customer input, instead of just drawing lines on a map.

Of course we will have specific comments about many of the specific proposals, which we’ll post here soon, but we’re delighted to see Muni focusing here on what really matters - faster and more reliable service.
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MTA Director Nat Ford proposed a new round of Muni reform to the Chronicle this week, suggesting that the SF County Transportation Authority, which administers the half cent sales tax most recently approved by voters in 2003 as well as doing countywide transportation planning, be merged into the Municipal Transportation Agency, to create a single entity that would oversee all transportation funding and operations in SF. This is the structure of the Valley Transportation Authority in Santa Clara County.

This is an interesting idea, not least because SFCTA and MTA have often found themselves conducting related but sometimes competing planning exercises (e.g. Geary and Van Ness BRT, Transit Effectiveness Project). However, it was considered and rejected by the authors of Proposition E, including current Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Mayor Newsom, in part because the state requires elected officials to serve on the board for a congestion management agency, and in part because of a desire to keep the Supervisors in charge of allocating tax revenue.

If this gains momentum we will certainly have specific recommendations. However, the SF voters just passed Muni re-reform last fall, so it’s not likely that another charter amendment (with associated State law changes) will get six votes at the Board so soon after. We’ll keep an eye on this.