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How bad is the Muni budget problem? Bad enough that our jet-setting mayor was actually quoted about it in the paper! From the Chronicle:
"We're at the point now where we can't get down to zero (deficit) without tough decisions," Newsom said. "I hate the idea of raising fares. I don't want to cut Muni service. But I ask (critics), 'What ideas do you have that do not eviscerate public safety and health and human services?' "
Not only was he quoted, he was quoted quoting himself! Talented man, that Gavin. But even he has his limits - he wants other people to come up with some ideas. Why don't we look for some on the Internet?
- The N Judah Chronicles has had a few good ones - he's been warning about the fare-increase/service decrease death spiral for a couple of years.
- Rescue Muni has some thoughts. We never knew that 311 charges Muni $2 for every Muni-related call, for example. That seems high. But their recommendation to call 511 also seems like a bad idea. Those guys don't know the difference between a bus lane and hospital curve.
- SPUR seems to always have something to say.
That's just us, taking two minutes to poke around on the Internet, not even taking into account the dozens of highly-intelligent comments surely to show up in the Chronicle's comment section from people in Texas who somehow ride Muni enough to complain about homeless people taking up two seats! And we know that SFist commenters are even smarter! Have at it, guys - how would you save our ailing transportation system?
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I'd start by firing Nate Ford and his clutch of overdressed, overpaid Atlantans. Those guys have done nothing but collect fat paychecks and throw around a lot of unwarranted attitude ever since they got here. While they're at it, they should sack half the drivers. Their surly attitudes betray their resentment at having actual employment so we should do them a favor and point them towards the queue at the unemployment office.
Then, I'd kill the Central Subway. Not because it would help Muni's coffers, but because it's a stupid project.
Finally, I'd tell all the whiners in this town to shut it. We've been due for a fare increase for years. We should kill transfers and force people to pay for each boarding. We should also increase the cost of a fast pass to $60+ a month. In LA, the monthly pass is $62 monthly, in San Diego it's $68, in Seattle they range from $63 to $90, and in Portland they start at $75. We pay nothing to ride the bus here.
Ford doesn't deserve that $300,000+ salary while his agency is heading down the drain.
Muni better reconsider some of their cuts:
--89-Laguna Honda is a really poor idea since it's an ADA access issue to get to that hospital. The hills are STEEP.
--38-Geary Ocean Beach Branch needs to be kept because Muni may decide to not add extra buses to cover the gap. They suggest making the former Ocean Beach buses terminate at 33rd Avenue/Geary, but there's no area for the drivers to take their required rest stop (if you say the 1 California terminal, it's not big enough to take on 60 foot articulated buses).
--18-46th Avenue will take the brunt of the terminated 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch, but that will cause serious delays to the line with no planned increase in vehicles to compensate for the route change. Plus, ADA access issues for the public if they want to visit the Cliff House area since that's the only bus line serving that specific area.
I've always wondered why it is Muni's responsibility to provide access to a a hospital in a terrible location. Shouldn't the hospital be paying for this shuttle service?
And making it impossible to get to Cliff House by bus isn't just an ADA problem; Cliff House is also a pretty big tourist destination that will not require some serious hill-climbing from visitors.
Good point about the hospital offering the shuttle service. Hopefully it doesn't reach a point where people will have to hitchhike to the hospital. Plus, let's remember that hospital is considered a last ditch place for people who cannot afford a care center, so family members may not afford a car, but at least they can take Muni to Forest Hill Station.
About the Cliff House, I've always told Muni and my city Supervisor Eric Mar to stop the 18 line from changing. If Muni wants to be more efficient, they can still go to the Ocean Beach terminal, but should run their buses down Pt. Lobos/Great Highway to the terminal. Balboa street residents will be happy that there will be no more noisy buses running through their neighborhood, but also still connect them with a major bus line in the city.
Too many people are paid too much to run an agency that isn't providing service. Improvements on timeliness are not as impressive as actually eliminating redundant lines and keeping the traffic flow consistent during rush hour.
Getting a ride to work on MUNI is very difficult north of West Portal and east of Filmore Street during weekdays. I need to leave my apt an hour early to get downtown on time because I cant get on an overcrowded bus or underground car and have to wait for the next carrier and hope there is room.
If difficulties like these can't be managed by experts making multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars then we shouldn't pay experts.
Also - I'd love to be reminded about the ballot measures that have been passed that raise funds expressly for MUNI that have been directed to other places courtesy of the Mayors office. How many times have MUNI funds been taken to pay for something else?
Yes, riders need to pay more. But if MUNI wants to keep attracting riders that pay more the service has to be reliable and attractive.
I'll second that.Its laughable that he ignores his appropriation of Muni funds then asks the public to come up with ideas.
I actually agree with AYM and would add that to truly solve the problem we should add a few provisions.
First, we convince Nate and Gavin that there are a lot of super hot chicks on that space station floating around in outer space somewhere. Second, we take up a collection and send the two of them on a one way trip to Russia so they can hop a private spacecraft and be sent there while the adults work on the adult issues.
(It's only a few million for the tickets and these two a-holes toss it around like drunken sailors without care or concern. Or care not cash.)
Third, we hire a professional, experienced city manager to come into town, kick a little ass and privatize MUNI. Only then shall success unfold. It will take a few years to gain traction but these buffoons keep setting the bar lower then tripping over it. Repeatedly.
"privatize MUNI"
This is probably the most-frequently posted phrase on sfgate.com.
Name one thing that's been privatized and is now better than it was.
The Internet ... more or less.
What is it with you people and sarcasm? Nobody bothered to question if there were any hot chicks on the space station and everyone pig piles on privatization of MUNI?
I'm heading over to the Masturbatathon thread and making a dick joke. jeeez
I recommend pay freezes for upper management until the problem is fixed.
To clarify: freeze the mechanism by which they are issued paychecks, not the amount they are payed.
If you haven't heard, Muni is proposing to sell more than just the standard variety of fast passes.
Instead of just one adult, youth, disabled, and senior...
They want to produce:
"Cheap" Adult (non-BART)
"Premium" Adult (w/BART)
Youth (non-BART)
Youth (w/BART)
Senior (non-BART)
Senior (w/BART)
Are they HIGH? How much more money will they waste on printing costs? And in a "green" perspective, what a waste of paper when there's such an excess of wasted fast passes. I keep saying it, Muni should trim their fat by simply taking advantage of TRANSLINK installed on all vehicles. Paper passes are sold to the most basic passes and the premium passes with BART are only for Translink cards. With BART joining the program in just a month, it seems like a no-brainer idea.
Premium fast pass has been a bad idea ever since Emilio Cruz proposed it in 1997. BART provides service along the Mission corridor for LESS than Muni can provide it for. If this happens, expect even more crowding and delays on the 14 line, and demand for increased service that will outweigh any cash savings from BART.
They should switch to Translink ASAP.
Muni did it for real before. And it FAILED!
Their version of a "premium" pass included BART, Caltrain (in the old days), and all express commute buses. That was a major fail because express buses charged a higher price, and the cheap passholders had to pay a surcharge to ride the express. But what really pissed the city off and forced Muni to go back to its old policies: No more transfers.
How do I get the "Cheap" Adult Fast Pass? My boyfriend will attest that I'm cheap. On another note ... why print all of the extra passes for "with BART" vs. "without BART" - what's the cost difference between the agencies? Seems like they should cut out BART since it only hurts their own ridership for folks communting to/from the Mission/16th, Mission/24th, Glen Park, and Balboa Park areas and means twice as many passes to print. Let BART riders pressure BART to create some sort of pass ... MUNI has its own issues to sort out, like figuring out how they can start increasing services instead of decreasing them so that more people feel like they CAN stop using cars to get around town.
Make MUNI driver salaries negotiable ... reward the good drivers who avoid hitting pedestrians, help with the 85% on-time thing, and otherwise help our City's residents more apt to use public transit instead of driving cars or motorcycles ... fire the drivers who give the others a bad reputation
Yes, let's reduce the amount of people getting killed by Muni. I think this make people, like, more likely to feel safe on or around, or near a bus
I really am flumoxed by the mindset of Muni. It's like the big airlines and how they treat their customers: "Sorry, we cancelled your flight after delaying it for 5 hours. Oh you're upset. Well here's a complimentary F U."
We need a VirginAmerica / JetBlue type exec to come in and revamp Muni completely. Cut the fat and make the transportation efficient from a cost and time perspective.
Case in point, what's up with bus stops every two blocks? Is it for the elderly in disabled? If that's the reason, then are the elderly and disabled in Western Europe less elderly and disabled? They seem to be able to get more than one block in either direction to catch a bus.
Stop consolidation is sorely needed throughout the system. It makes sense for a bus to stop every block on a steep hill, it does not make sense on flat street.
Also they need to push Translink. Speeds up boarding time tremendously.
Finally, get the friggin fare inspectors on the buses to stop back door boarding.
are the elderly and disabled in Western Europe less elderly and disabled?
They're certainly skinnier.
SF paratransit service is pretty good comparatively -- the only problem is that taxis won't go to the western part of the city so apparently taxi vouchers aren't very useful.
Muni should increase the number of taxi medallions at the same time it consolidates stops.
thanks for the link!
There have been plenty of alternatives offered but Gavin and his MTA board refused to listen. Gavin was out of town running for governor anyway so it's not like he was paying attention, unless it meant more Muni money for political aides in his office.
No one denies there's gonna be some tough cuts, but at a time when we're getting federal stimulus money for infrastructure, we need to be sensible about where to make reductions. It does us no good to make repairs to the Muni trains only to see them fall apart because we cut maintenance.
Likewise, we can't afford people who decide at random not to show up to work for no other reason than "I ain't feeling it" and screw up the system. Again, this was never discussed.
And on and on. I'm willing to pay a little more per month if Muni was willing to do a better job collecting fares, collecting parking meter money, and stop shoveling all their dollars off to other city agencies for BS reasons. Do that + some other things and then let's talk about cuts. I bet we could reduce the number of cuts by a lot so that at least the service won't suck so bad people will be late to work etc.
The Mayor's premise (that we must cut MUNI or health and human services) is a bs-forced choice which the City really does not face. As others have said, MUNI would have a little bit more cash in the till if it wasn't being raided by other agencies. The unfortunate political fact is that people actually want a fully-functional MUNI system and are far more willing to support it than some of the other things which are stealth-funded through sending bills to MUNI.
Hey, Mister Mayor, the same universal health care you like to promote on "Morning Joe" is expensive. And if you're arguing that it's sacrosanct but MUNI isn't, you're going to find yourself behind in the polls.
How about not allowing other sf city departments to bill MUNI?
Seems like 311 and SFPD have been using MUNI like a big blank check.
If MUNI drivers would refuse to move until everybody who boarded the bus paid, that should rile up San Franciscans to beat the snot out of the freeloaders or pressure them to pay ... that's how they do it in New York. Letting people get on the bus without paying and no repercussion is such bullshit - I'm not saying a $2 fare isn't fair, but the decreases in services to boot while SO many folks freeload on the system? Bullshit.
"that's how they do it in New York."
New Yorkers tend to have a more proactive and let's say 'outgoing' attitude towards problem people. I just don't think us wafey, skinny-jean wearin' San Franciscans can be that 'outgoing.'
What Greg said. Caltrain raised fares in January and is likely to do so again soon. I don't like paying the fare increase but it bothers me a whole lot less since 98% of the time, Caltrain is on schedule to the second, and when Caltrain is late it's often due to external factors a.k.a. a suicide, that can't really be controlled.
NextBus has made MUNI tolerable - until you need to board at the start of the line - in which case the prediction means absolutely nothing.
I think you're letting that anger cloud your reasoning young man,
Your statements about Nat Ford and the staff he brought in having done "nothing" is absurd when you look at vehicle and driver availability before and after. You can make a case they haven't done enough, but just off the top of my head I know that Metro has 20% more trains running today than before Nat Ford and his staff came in and took over.
Eliminating transfers as you say would require a complete redesign of the Muni system. It would be impossible to directly connect every part of the city to every other part of the city effectively so the system has evolved with feeder lines from more remote parts to major lines (like the 35 and 37 in my neighborhood which connect people in the hills to Muni Metro along with the 22, 24 and F) and established transfer points between major corridors, like 4th & Market to Powell Station which connect Muni Metro to the Stockton corridor.
Here's an example: I used to transfer at Powell/4th from Muni Metro to the 30/45 to get to SOMA, which is a common practice since it's faster and easier most the time than taking the N or T to Caltrain. Were transfers eliminated, I would have to wait at Castro for a T, and only a T in order to get down to the Caltrain stop. You can imagine what would happen if a good chunk of the morning commuters let other trains pass and then tried to pack onto the T. It could easily back up trains behind the T and those 30/45 busses would still have the same ridership north of Market and would still run down to Caltrain, just with fewer passengers who are instead putting added strain on Muni Metro.
Of course, there's way's to mitigate that, though running more trains to Caltrain isn't practical because of the cost and the terminal there only really allows turnaround of one line, they tried turning back busses at Market and the 20-Columbus was a failure, or you could make an exemption to the no-transfer rule on Metro defeats your goal in the end. It might seem on the surface like eliminating transfer is a way to generate revenue, but it comes back to cost us one way or another.
They tried eliminating transfers also, back in the day. (Frank Jordan was mayor, IIRC.) Total failure. The system is built on the assumption that people can transfer from crosstown to radial or crosstown routes.
The #1 priority is to avoid further cuts to maintenance. Service quality is much more important than the advertised (and never achieved) level of service.
The work orders do need to be reduced however. If the BoS rejects this budget, they had better approve a subsequent one with reduced work orders and similarly reduced service cuts. My fear is that instead the MTA will pass a budget that cuts service MORE, to keep parking fees from going up.
Because those work orders are coming from outside the SFMTA, rejecting their budget doesn't do anything besides giving them more time to negotiate deals (like this plan to create an SFPD force dedicated to Muni instead of the work orders) and it's up to the Board of Supervisors, Mayor and those departments to figure out how to take less from them.
It doesn't cover the entire deficit, but reducing those work orders means less cuts in service and maintenance. One thing I don't want to see put back on the table though is selling taxi medallions, something the SFMTA considered for a while. Adding medallions should only happen methodically and after serious study because the impact could last for decades and not done on the fly as a way to make a quick buck.
I think you're letting that anger cloud your reasoning young man,
Your statements about Nat Ford and the staff he brought in having done "nothing" is absurd when you look at vehicle and driver availability before and after. You can make a case they haven't done enough, but just off the top of my head I know that Metro has 20% more trains running today than before Nat Ford and his staff came in and took over.
Eliminating transfers as you say would require a complete redesign of the Muni system. It would be impossible to directly connect every part of the city to every other part of the city effectively so the system has evolved with feeder lines from more remote parts to major lines (like the 35 and 37 in my neighborhood which connect people in the hills to Muni Metro along with the 22, 24 and F) and established transfer points between major corridors, like 4th & Market to Powell Station which connect Muni Metro to the Stockton corridor.
Here's an example: I used to transfer at Powell/4th from Muni Metro to the 30/45 to get to SOMA, which is a common practice since it's faster and easier most the time than taking the N or T to Caltrain. Were transfers eliminated, I would have to wait at Castro for a T, and only a T in order to get down to the Caltrain stop. You can imagine what would happen if a good chunk of the morning commuters let other trains pass and then tried to pack onto the T. It could easily back up trains behind the T and those 30/45 busses would still have the same ridership north of Market and would still run down to Caltrain, just with fewer passengers who are instead putting added strain on Muni Metro.
Of course, there's way's to mitigate that, though running more trains to Caltrain isn't practical because of the cost and the terminal there only really allows turnaround of one line, they tried turning back busses at Market and the 20-Columbus was a failure, or you could make an exemption to the no-transfer rule on Metro defeats your goal in the end. It might seem on the surface like eliminating transfer is a way to generate revenue, but it comes back to cost us one way or another.