Rescue Muni

Stuck in your bus waiting for a break in traffic? The SFMTA and various city officials have a proposed fix: a law requiring cars to yield to buses pulling out of a bus stop. This is the law in Ontario as well as Quebec, British Columbia, Oregon, Florida and New Jersey. According to SFTEP studies, 6 percent of running time is wasted by buses waiting to pull out into traffic.

Of course, for this to be effective, it would require far stricter enforcement of transit related moving violations than has ever been done in SF, as anyone who rides a bus in our transit only lanes knows. And it’s no substitute for expanding transit lanes and adding bus rapid transit citywide. But it certainly could help.

Don’t stop renewing your Fast Pass just yet. Tuesday’s Chronicle reports that Muni has done a study of the costs and benefits of eliminating the fare, and the results aren’t pretty: to save $8 million in fare collection costs, Muni would be giving up $112 million in fares and also increasing operating costs by $69 million.

Update: Here is the study. (long pdf)

At long last Muni will have an automated way to enforce the no parking in bus lanes rule, which any rider knows is very rarely enforced now. Thanks to legislation that went into effect on January 1, SFMTA may now enforce bus lane violations via bus mounted cameras, and Muni is beginning a three month pilot program on the 14-Mission and 38-Geary lines. The fine is $100, so auto drivers, double park somewhere else, or not at all!

Despite or because of or notwithstanding SF’s plans to cancel Halloween in the Castro, there will be some important service changes tonight:

The MTA gave a briefing yesterday morning to its Board of Directors on what would need to be done to meet the Prop E mandated 85% on time standard, and it wasn’t pretty. According to staff, Muni would need an additional $150 million per year to achieve the standard mandated by voters in 1999, and it won’t happen until 2012, five years from now and thirteen years after it was passed.

Update: Detailed powerpoint on On Time Performance is at the MTA website. (pdf)

Couldn’t it happen faster than that, particularly if basic steps like expanding and enforcing transit lanes, consolidating stops, implementing Proof of Payment systemwide, using already installed signal pre-empts, and dispatching trains in order from Embarcadero were taken? The SF Transit Effectiveness Project is studying these proposals and others.