District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener is taking a hard look at ways to funnel more funding to the city's forever-ailing transit system. His latest proposal: a city charter amendment that would increase the Muni budget whenever the city's population increases.

The Chronicle explains Wiener's thinking behind the whole thing:

Muni already gets a percentage of the city's general fund each year - currently $232 million - but Wiener said that amount has not kept pace with the city's booming population and, by extension, transit ridership.

Since 2003, he noted, the city had added about 85,000 residents, yet Muni has about $2 billion in maintenance needs it has been unable to address. San Francisco is expected to add another 150,000 people by 2040, Wiener said.

In order to pass, the charter amendment would need to be cleared by the Board of Supervisor and approved by city voters. If it does go through, it will retroactively take affect to account for the last decade or so of population growth in San Francisco, which could mean $20 million to $25 million in new funds right from the start.

To be clear, Supervisor Wiener only intends to move forward with the charter amendment proposal in the event that Mayor Lee backs pulls back his support for a ballot measure that would increase the city's vehicle license fee. The vehicle license fee proposal is expected to bring in some $18 million for Muni in its first year and comes as a package deal with two other ballot measures that would raise a total of $1.5 billion for the city over the next 15 years. According to Wiener, the vehicle license fee hike would have a greater long-term impact.

[Chron]