Rescue Muni

The SFMTA will be holding another meeting and public hearing on the budget deficit and proposed fare increases/service cuts on Tuesday, April 21, at 2 pm, at City Hall, room 400. We urge everyone who can attend (of course it is scheduled during the work day) to comment on the proposals.

In addition to opposing the inflated “work orders” from the various city departments that are now being contested (thank you Sup. Dufty!), Rescue Muni has some specific recommendations:

Concerning the Work Orders, we have several objections:

We also suggest that MTA consider the following proposals for long term improvements:

If you attend, comment here or let us know on Twitter!

The Culture Bus, a 1 year project that will cost Muni $1.6 million, has only 255 weekday riders, according to the Chronicle.  Known as the 74X-CultureBus, the line is intended to bring tourists and Muni regulars from downtown to the car-congested Academy of Sciences building that recently opened in Golden Gate Park.  The buses aren’t run like the rest of the fleet, the coaches are extra clean and the drivers have gone through additional customer service training, something that the rest of the Muni system could use more of.

Service on the line has since been cut from 20 minutes to once an hour according to the article, but Rescue Muni has taken the position that this line should be terminated if it is not profitable within one month, especially in light of the city, state, and federal budget constraints.

At Wednesday’s meeting, members heard from the candidates and voted on our endorsements for the November election.  The following candidates have been officially endorsed by Rescue Muni:

Board of Supervisors

District 1 - Sue Lee

District 3 - Joseph Alioto, Jr.

District 5 - Ross Mirkarimi

District 7 - Sean Elsbernd

District 11 - Ahsha Safaí

BART Board of Directors

District 9 - Tom Radulovich

YES on Proposition 1A (High Speed Rail Bonds)

YES  on Proposition P (Transportation Authority Reform)

Thank you to everyone—members and candidates alike—who participated in our endorsement process.  An additional endorsement may be forthcoming, pending Rescue Muni Board of Directors action.

After months of public input, the SF Transit Effectiveness Project is presenting its updated proposal for route changes to the MTA Board tomorrow. This proposal would make the most dramatic changes to Muni lines in a generation, adding buses and streetcars and speeding up service on the most important lines while keeping essential community service lines running. Staff estimates that this proposal will allow Muni to add 70,000 new riders every day - a 10% increase in ridership at a time when gasoline prices are rising and demand for transit is growing rapidly.

Rescue Muni supports this proposal as revised. We were very pleased that the TEP staff and CAC took our suggestions into account when the updated proposal was written, but we also want to reiterate our support for the concept of the TEP, which is to use modern measurement techniques to learn where passengers actually want to ride the system and align routes to this demand, and also to design routes to make service much faster and more reliable. If you have been stuck on a slow, unreliable line thinking that there has to be a better way, the SFTEP is designed specifically to solve this problem!

(If you haven’t already reviewed the detailed proposal for the lines you ride and the system as a whole (pdf), please take a look now.)

These will be considered at the MTA Board on Tuesday, September 16. If you agree with us that this proposal will make service much faster and more reliable both on YOUR line and citywide, please come to the meeting and speak in favor! Details:

SFMTA Board Meeting and Public Hearing on SFTEP
City Hall Room 400 (1 Carlton B. Goodlett Street)
Public Comment at 3:30 pm and again at 5:30 pm

Thanks!

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%.