February 8, 2008
Giant Hulking Muni Takes a Terrifying Interest in Small, Innocent Transportation Authority
Well, whaddya know. No sooner did we lavish praise upon the SF County Transportation Authority than Nat Ford, head of Muni, decided that he might be interested in committing a hostile takeover of the SFCTA... thereby making the TA as flawless as Muni. Good idea! If our agency was melting down, and there was another one making us look bad, we might want to buy it and run it into the ground, too! (That's why we're always wishing we could seize control of SF Metblogs.)
The TA, if you're unfamiliar, was created a couple of years ago by a voter mandate. Muni was in awful shape at that time (unimaginable, we know), and an voters needed an alternative agency that could actually get work done. And it worked -- the SFCTA has reduced congestion, fixed up 19th and Geary and Octavia, spruced up transit in neighborhoods like Little Saigon, and they're working on converting Caltrain from diesel to electric. In contrast, during that time Muni was busy being mean to a lady in a wheelchair.
If Muni took over the TA, it wouldn't make your bus run on time, or put up more NextMuni signs, or train bus drivers to be more friendly, or cut waste, or consolidate redundant lines like the parallel 31, 5, and 21. It would, however, mean that Gavin would have a bigger piggybank to dip into when he feels like strangling transit.
So, why does the TA work so well, and the MTA (that's Muni + some other street-related agencies) move so sluggishly? Well, our guess is that it's because the TA only takes on projects that it can afford; while the MTA is so ambitious, so underfunded, spread so thin, and so chronically strapped for cash and talent that it can barely stay in business. (The T-Third and Central Subway aren't going to help.) If Nat really wants to make Muni run well, he'll need to stop eying other agencies' money, and make the tough decision to cut costs -- and by cutting costs, we mean start eliminating services. That won't make him popular; but it'll make Muni work.
|
the sfcta can onlly spend money it has ,and only on things related to transit. It is also run by elected officials who can be held accountable by the voters.
The MTA spends its money on pay raises, inefficient workers, and pr agents for the Mayor. And it is less accountable to the public (even more so thanks to Peskin's Prop. A).
So yeah, let's take a functioning agency and f*ck it all up by letting MUNI run it. This is just the kind of genius I've come to expect from San Francisco.
Actually the money the TA manages IS Muni's money, and the TA's power hungry director makes Muni jump through hoops to get it. Many of the projects they take credit for are actually carried out by SFMTA staff.
Why does the TA insist that decals with their logo are placed prominently on Muni vehicles, adding to the cluster f*ck of decals nobody can read because there are JUST TOO MANY DECALS? Ego.
Among the problems that Muni has, I don't think the clusterfuck of decals rate very highly.
No, but it's indicative of how MUNI would rather spend their time. I mean, come fucking on...
I think that streamlining the process is good... if we can ensure some manner of responsive/appropriate behaviour. Who knows.
We cannot.
Well which way would you rather suffer? Improvements not happening because of people marking their territory or improvements not happening because Natty Tatty Ford is a pussy and won't do anything positive with this merger?
On another note: interesting tidbits being discussed about the NextBus system from one of its employees on RM's Yahoo! group.
Improvements ARE happening. Not on the Muni side, but the TA's done consistent good work.
I believe that Nat Ford's attack on the Transportation Authority was retribution for Jake McGoldrick's Budget Analyst report -- Jake's been the Chair of the TA since I stepped aside after winning Proposition K in 2003. It's too bad Ford's been drawn into the Mayor's political machinations. He's got a large public transportation agency to run!
Just to clear up what the Transportation Authority is and how we began, here's the description from our website...
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority administers and oversees the delivery of the Proposition K (Prop K) half-cent local transportation sales tax program and New Expenditure Plan, which was passed by 75% of San Francisco voters in November 2003. The Authority was created in 1989 to administer Prop K's predecessor, the Proposition B half-cent transportation sales tax program, which began in 1990 and continued until it was superseded by Prop K.
Since 1990, the Authority has also been the designated Congestion Management Agency (CMA) for San Francisco. In this role, the Authority is responsible for developing and administering the Congestion Management Program (CMP). Through its CMA activities, the Authority leverages state and federal transportation dollars to complement Prop K revenues and performs project delivery oversight to assist with project implementation. The Authority also tracks transportation system performance to ensure that San Francisco gets good value for its transportation investments and prepares a long-range Countywide Transportation Plan to guide future investment decisions.
The Authority has also served as the San Francisco Program Manager for grants from the Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) since 1990. In this role, the Authority approves funding for transportation projects that directly benefit air quality through reduced motor vehicle emissions.
I believe that Nat Ford's attack on the Transportation Authority was retribution for Jake McGoldrick's Budget Analyst report -- Jake's been the Chair of the TA since I stepped aside after winning Proposition K in 2003. It's too bad Ford's been drawn into the Mayor's political machinations. He's got a large public transportation agency to run!
Just to clear up what the Transportation Authority is and how we began, here's the description from our website...
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority administers and oversees the delivery of the Proposition K (Prop K) half-cent local transportation sales tax program and New Expenditure Plan, which was passed by 75% of San Francisco voters in November 2003. The Authority was created in 1989 to administer Prop K's predecessor, the Proposition B half-cent transportation sales tax program, which began in 1990 and continued until it was superseded by Prop K.
Since 1990, the Authority has also been the designated Congestion Management Agency (CMA) for San Francisco. In this role, the Authority is responsible for developing and administering the Congestion Management Program (CMP). Through its CMA activities, the Authority leverages state and federal transportation dollars to complement Prop K revenues and performs project delivery oversight to assist with project implementation. The Authority also tracks transportation system performance to ensure that San Francisco gets good value for its transportation investments and prepares a long-range Countywide Transportation Plan to guide future investment decisions.
The Authority has also served as the San Francisco Program Manager for grants from the Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) since 1990. In this role, the Authority approves funding for transportation projects that directly benefit air quality through reduced motor vehicle emissions.
Like Shmoozilla2000 said, the TA hold the purse strings, so a lot of what you think you might like about the TA is just them approving funding to a Muni/MTA project. Last week we got an example of the reverse with the Doyle Drive replacement, a project that the TA has been spearheading but when the toll was voted down the headlines read that it was a blow to the MTA.
While Supervisor Daly and others will make this out to be all about politics and who's trying to steal power from who, if the TA and MTA were to merge, there are requirements as to who can sit on a board that doles out transit funding and the new MTA board would be required to include District Supervisors as well as Mayoral appointees. This would give the Board of Supervisors more power on the MTA board than they have now.
Consolidating the TA and MTA would probably be good for a lot of projects that wouldn't have to bounce from one to the other or have duplicative staff on both sides.