If you're not outraged yet about Muni -- the fare increases, the service cuts, the refusal to abide by legally mandated schedules, the f**king DEATHS -- just feast your eyes on the early-distribution copy of a new report by the SF Planning and Urban Research Association (PDF). Not only could Muni face a $1,000,000,000 (BILLION! BILLION! BILLLLLLLLION!) shortfall in the coming years, but guess what: those $1.50 fare increases and service cuts they forced through last year? It turns out that there were tons of other revenue sources that Muni could have pursued instead. So, to all you low-income families who had to go without buying milk so you could get to work: ha, ha, ha, HA.

Who, you may ask, is responsible for bumping the prices up and quality down? There's a bunch of names indicated by SPUR's report: there's the Geary Blvd Merchants' Association, helmed by David Heller; there's the car dealerships on Van Ness; there's the MTA administrators; and Carol Migden, and state legislators; and even the board of Supes and the Mayor and the Tax Collector's office, and yes, you yourself -- everyone's got a hand in Muni's billion-dollar problem, either by actively draining funds or failing to obtain new sources of cash.

Fortunately, SPUR has a list of actions that would fix service and raise money. (You can take action right now by sending a letter to the MTA, supporting SPUR's "Faster Muni" campaign.) Some stuff is easy -- like enforcing existing laws -- and some of it's more complex, like overhauling Parking Control Officers deployment. Some of the options might not work. But Muni's income depends on the quality of service, and the quality of service depends on income. If Muni can fix one, it'll fix the other, and SPUR knows exactly how to do that.

After the jump: specifics. We've read the 26-page report and distilled it so you don't have to go f**king around with PDFs.

Here's the strategy: reduce costs; be more efficient; raise more money. Um, okay, that's not very specific. Let's get nittier and grittier; Muni needs to:

• Board passengers faster


• Reduce red-light waits


• Reduce waiting-in-traffic time


• Space the stops out more efficiently


• Favor the major lines

The goal needs to be increasing productivity to 80 passengers per hour (which it was at in the early 90s), rather than the 63 it's currently at. By Muni's own estimates, if it maintains current levels of ridership and service, it'll need an extra billion (good God, that's a lot of money) by 2015. On the other hand, if Muni increases efficiency 25 percent, it'll only need an extra $300 million by 2015. It sure would be handy not to have to throw $700 million to Muni, especially if the transit agency could raise that money itself just by being less incompetent.

So let's get even specificker. SPUR has a ton of suggestions for improving matters, and it's evaluated them all to figure out the best ones. Their evaluations considered the following:

• Revenue sources should support congestion management (that doesn't necessarily mean a Londonesque congestion tax; it could mean, for example, increasing parking meter prices).


• Don't discourage development (for example, by excessively taxing employers; taxing auto-congestion-sources is more productive).


• Revenue sources must be sustainable. Oooh oooh I know let's hold a bake sale!


• Revenue sources should be fair and equitable and minimize impact on low-income groups. Oooh oooh I know let's hold a culturally diverse raw-foods bake sale!

And now, the stuff you've been waiting for: the specific measures Muni can take to raise funds and bolster service - all measures that they could've taken before the last round of fare-hikes and cutbacks. First on the list is empowering the MTA (which controls parking and driving and mass transit) to actually do its job. They know what they're doing, believe it or not, but they need to get approval from the Board of Supes sometimes. And bless the Supes' hearts, they don't always make the best decisions where transit is concerned. (For example, the MTA wanted to raise meter rates last year; the city's parking spots went for about $3 an hour, compared with $6 to $10 for private parking spots. The Supes denied the MTA permission to do that, opting for Muni fare hikes instead.)

SPUR also recommends that Muni start looking for funds NOW, fer Christ's sake -- what are you waiting for? Enforce existing rules (many taxes go uncollected) and increase meter rates. These measures would immediately start bringing in more money. Present multi-year budgets; present multiple budget scenarios; and create a rainy day fund.

Hire more fare inspectors. That'll bring in up to $5 million more a year.

Parking Control Officers (PCOs) are deployed along obsolete beats. Update them. That'll bring in an extra $4 million a year.

Collect the taxes that you said you would. There's $1 million a year in uncollected parking taxes.

Enforce the rules that you said you would. It's illegal for downtown garages to offer all-day, weekly, or monthly passes, since that discourages people from taking the bus (sec. 155 (g) of the planning code). Enforcing that rule would bring in $5 million a year.

Put cameras on the street-sweepers to collect license plate numbers, thus freeing up PCOs to enforce parking laws elsewhere. It would bring in $6 million a year.

Adjust meter rates to achieve 85% occupancy. That would bring in between $6 million and $30 million per year.

Stop subsidizing parking for city employees; that costs the city just under $1 million a year.

Raise the parking tax. That would bring in $4 million a year.

Expand Residential Permit Parking; currently, it only covers a third of the city. We'd get $10 million a year out of that, reduce traffic congestion, and make it easier for residents to find spots close to their home.

Strategically raise parking fines -- not to raise money (it wouldn't bring in that much more), but to discourage violations that slow busses down.

Implement a surcharge for garage parking during peak hours. That would have the effect of London's congestion tax -- raising money and discouraging traffic -- without a complicated monitoring system. It would raise $28 million a year.

Raise the state sales tax to get $30 million a year.

Restore the 2% vehicle license fee and implement a Vehicle Impact Mitigation Fee for an additional $96 million a year.

Increase the local sales tax for another $27 million a year.

The MTA should collaborate more on developing properties (like the hotel that it owns on the Embarcadero). That'll bring in sustainable revenue sources.

Raise the Transportation Impact Development Fee (a fee applied to developers that mitigates the strain that they place on transit) to be dependant on proximity to transit, and also apply it to residential development. It's hard to estimate how much money that would bring in, but it would be a lot.

There are a couple of revenue sources that SPUR discourages. Among them: fare increases (they reduce ridership); higher fares for premium service (Muni is incapable of providing premium service right now); a local gas tax (a regional gas tax would be better); a parcel tax (it doesn't accomplish any congestion-management); and billing businesses for the burden they place on Muni (that would discourage development in Muni's key neighborhoods, and encourages sprawl).

These are all great ideas, of course, since Muni desperately needs money. But it also needs more than that: it needs reform and improvement in its operations. It certainly would suck if Muni bled all those revenue dry without improving its service and, consequently, its ridership. Ultimately, it's that ridership that oughta be Muni's primary revenue source; that would motivate the agency to serve its customers, something it doesn't currently do. We look forward to a time when Muni is an effective method for getting around town and for encouraging people out of their cars. Someday ... someday.