Rescue Muni

The SF MTA will be reviewing a proposal to extend meter hours to evenings and Sundays in commercial districts around San Francisco on October 20. This proposal was requested by the MTA board as part of the 2010 budget, as a means to find additional revenue to avoid service cuts and also to reduce car traffic in heavily traveled corridors.

As written, the proposal would generate approximately $8 million annually, enough to avoid at least some service cuts. Priorities for Rescue Muni are to make it easy for drivers to pay the meters (parking cards are still very difficult to find at retail stores), and to use the money to fund service improvements such as expanded limited stop service as proposed in the Transit Effectiveness Project.

If you agree that extended meter hours could be a good way to fund expanded service, please attend the meeting on October 20 at 2 pm at City Hall, room 400. (Yes, this is impossible for people who work normal business hours. We have complained about this in the past.)

Update: The Chronicle covered the story.

Update 10/20: Beyond Chron has a commentary as well.

In 2003, San Francisco started a $35m pilot to test out 23,000 smart parking meters, representing $30m of revenue which the SFMTA uses to fund services such as Muni’s bus and light rail service.

According to security research published today, the brand of meter that San Francisco uses, along with other major cities, can be defrauded to allow unlimited free parking, among other security issues. See the paper on how this works as well as the news story.

At long last Muni will have an automated way to enforce the no parking in bus lanes rule, which any rider knows is very rarely enforced now. Thanks to legislation that went into effect on January 1, SFMTA may now enforce bus lane violations via bus mounted cameras, and Muni is beginning a three month pilot program on the 14-Mission and 38-Geary lines. The fine is $100, so auto drivers, double park somewhere else, or not at all!

Election results are coming in very slowly this year because of the Secretary of State’s requirement that they be tallied by hand, but absentee numbers came in last night, and things are looking good.

Proposition H, the nightmarish omnibus parking measure, is trailing 42%-58% in absentees, so it’s clearly headed for a well-deserved watery grave. Proposition A, the Muni reform measure, is on the knife’s edge, leading 51%-49%. People who vote absentee are usually markedly more conservative than people who vote at the polls, and since opposition to Prop A came largely from more conservative quarters (the Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party, etc.) it’s reasonable to hope that the at-the-polls ballots will widen that margin, not tip it over to the No side.

That said, it was a very low-turnout election with a big last-minute No on A campaign push, so only cautious optimism is warranted until we see some counts of the at-the-polls ballots, from precincts distributed throughout the city geographically. But things are looking good so far.

Mayor Newsom has a 70-point lead and our hearty congratulations on winning a second term. And Proposition C is leading 74%-26%. So we’re three-quarters of the way to a clean sweep, and we have reason to think the coming days or weeks will bring good news on Prop A. We’ll keep this blog updated with news on Prop A as we get it. And you can check results as they’re updated on the Department of Elections site here.

-Daniel M.

UPDATE: (4:36 p.m.) With the first batch of at-the-polls votes counted, Proposition A’s lead has increased to 54%-46%, and Proposition H trails even further now, at 36%-64%.

Today’s the day.

If you haven’t voted by mail yet, be sure to go to the polls today and vote. This election is widely expected to be a low turnout affair, but it’s a critical election for the future of Muni. The outcomes on Proposition A and Proposition H will have an enormous impact on transportation in this city.

This election is a crossroads for Muni. It really is. We face a choice between a real Muni reform measure that extends the work of 1999’s Prop E, and injects new funding into the agency, and a measure that puts parking and private automobiles first. Muni’s on the ballot today, and Muni needs your vote.

Please vote Yes on A and No on H. And if you’ve already voted, phone a friend and urge them to vote. Tell them what’s at stake. Don’t assume they know. Don’t assume they’re already planning to vote. Send them a link to the Rescue Muni page, and to our friends at Yes on A/No on H.

Once more, for emphasis, are Rescue Muni’s complete endorsements:

Mayor: Gavin Newsom
Proposition A (Muni Reform/Clean Air): YES
Proposition C (Public Hearings on Ballot Measures): YES
Proposition H (Massive Parking Increase): NO

See you at the polls.

-Daniel M.