Rescue Muni

In 2003, San Francisco started a $35m pilot to test out 23,000 smart parking meters, representing $30m of revenue which the SFMTA uses to fund services such as Muni’s bus and light rail service.

According to security research published today, the brand of meter that San Francisco uses, along with other major cities, can be defrauded to allow unlimited free parking, among other security issues. See the paper on how this works as well as the news story.

Today’s New York Times profiles the Transmilenio system in Bogota, a center-running bus rapid transit system that has quickly become a very popular way to get around town. (This was modeled on the famous system in Curitiba, Brazil, and Mexico City and many others have similar systems now.)

We’ve long been advocates of a similar system in San Francisco, specifically on Geary and Van Ness boulevards. (Proposition K in 2003 – six years ago – identified these as top priorities.) Of course, projects in San Francisco take decades while projects in other cities only take a few years, but we are hoping that once the EIRs are done construction can begin soon on both.

Tired of your bus stopping twice on one block? At long last the MTA is about to announce proposed stop consolidations citywide, which will allow Muni to offer faster and more reliable service. This is something that was discussed in the SFTEP but as not yet been implemented. The proposal includes a new spacing policy, ut more importantly, actual implementation of that policy (only 18% of lines conform to policy today). Of course stops would still be closer together on steep hills.

For a simple example of how service can be faster with fewer stops, compare lines 21 and 5 through the Western Addition. The 21 stops on every block and sometimes twice in one block, while the 5 stops on every other block – and due to reduced dwell time the 5 is much faster from Stanyan to City Hall. Implementing 5 line style stop spacing citywide could speed up service at no additional cost, giving more potential riders a reason to switch to transit. (Rescue Muni has favored stop consolidation for over a decade.)

Update: Curbed also has an item on this.

From N Judah Chronicles on Twitter: the proposal to reject the budget failed, with only five Supervisors (Avalos, Campos, Daly, Mar, and Mirkarimi) voting to reject. (We had urged rejection due to the inflated work orders causing excessive service cuts.)

Meanwhile some Supervisors are promoting yet another charter amendment, this time to give the Supervisors control of three of the MTA board appointees, and make one elected. We opposed an amendment like this the last time it went before the voters.

Update: The Chronicle covers the story.

The Board of Supervisors might still reject the MTA budget. The Budget Committee scheduled a special hearing on May 27 to reconsider the motion to reject. Seven votes are needed to reject the budget (as we and others advocated last week); last time the motion failed by one vote. Supervisor Avalos and others have been urging rejection mainly to keep youth and disabled fares from increasing (promoting the so-called “Transit Justice” package); we also have been urging rejection, to prevent service cuts due to the inflated work orders from other city departments.

If the budget is rejected, one option to increase revenue and reduce service cuts is to extend parking meter hours to 10 pm and also enforce meters on Sundays. Another, as we have urged all along, is for the MTA to demand lower work order amounts from other city departments, notably SFPD. And increased fines for fare evasion would also be helpful.

The special meeting is next Wednesday, May 27, at noon. (Those who work in SF can attend at lunch hour!) We’ll post the details closer to the meeting.