Letter to Members about the Muni Reform Initiative

Dear RESCUE MUNI Member:

As you know, riding Muni remains a frustrating experience. Despite funding of Muni in real terms that matches or exceeds that experienced during the past generation, Muni remains unreliable and overcrowded, and passengers still experience crime and harassment. Traffic causes serious delays, making a bad situation worse. Many San Franciscans who would prefer to use transit must sit in traffic, take taxis, or walk because Muni is so unreliable.

RESCUE MUNI's Steering Committee has joined with the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) and other concerned parties to draft a Muni Reform Initiative that we believe will make the system significantly better and strengthen San Francisco's Transit-First policy.

What does this ballot measure do? In summary, it:

• establishes a detailed list of service standards Muni must meet;
• enforces these standards with incentive pay;
• provides for stable funding so that Muni can meet these standards;
• puts Muni and DPT under one Transportation Agency; and
• establishes a much stronger Transit-First Policy for San Francisco, including priority for transit, bicycles, and pedestrians over automobile traffic.

We hope to sponsor this initiative for this fall's election. But we need your help.

Our bylaws require that the members ratify any policy decision by the Steering Committee, and in particular they require in-person ratification of any ballot initiatives that we might support. To that end, we have scheduled a special General Membership Meeting on Thursday, February 25, at 6 p.m. We will give a detailed briefing on the initiative, answer your questions, and then take a vote.

We urge you to come and vote YES for Muni Reform!

This is our best chance at real, meaningful reform in many years. It is also the most important step yet taken by our young organization. From our beginnings as a small group of frustrated riders, we have grown to several hundred transit riders committed to making our transit system the best in the world. With the Muni Reform Initiatives, we can take a stand for the rider and demand that the city put Transit First.

Please contact us at 415/273-1558 or board at rescuemuni.org if you have questions or comments.

Thank you very much! Andrew Sullivan, Chair
Daniel Murphy, Vice-Chair
Ken Niemi, Co-Founder
and the RESCUE MUNI Steering Committee