Rescue Muni

In what will surprise nobody at all, the MTA has found in a recent study that “nearly 10 percent” of Muni riders don’t pay. With a 10% fare evasion rate, the potential annual revenue from stricter enforcement could be as much as $17 million per year – not enough to do away with the annual deficit, but enough to prevent more service cuts. (We are strong supporters of stricter fare enforcement, along with extending parking meter hours, which will also help prevent service cuts.) SFist is also discussing this today.

Update: Supervisor Dufty has scheduled a hearing on fare evasion as well as crime on Muni.

Update 10/22: The Examiner has an editorial on the subject.

Twitter has been busy today with tweets about major Muni Metro delays due to a car wreck, manual operations, and a recent Nobel Peace Prize winner coming to town. The SF Appeal also has coverage. Before you leave work, check Next Muni particularly if you’re riding the subway!

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.

The state Supreme Court ruled today in favor of the California Transit Association and its member agencies, leaving intact a ruling that $3.6 billion in funds dedicated to mass transit in 2008 and 2009 should not have been taken for other uses. It’s not clear how much of the money already spent is recoverable, but this is a promising step towards restoring funding that the voters dedicated to mass transit in Proposition 42 (2002) and other measures in future years.