Rescue Muni

SF Muniverse asks.

Only twelve short years after we began to advocate for it (see TRANSFER from August 2001, page 5), the SFMTA has finally approved the project. Assuming all federal approvals come in, construction could begin in less than two years – a very short time by San Francisco standards!

Well done SFMTA and SFCTA for getting the approvals – now let’s GET IT BUILT.

Today’s Chronicle reports that SFMTA has reported good results from the all door boarding initiative that began last year. The key stat: dwell time is down 4 seconds PER STOP, which adds up to big savings on every trip. Props to our colleagues at SF Transit Riders Union for their lobbying on this issue!

The SFMTA is considering making 2012’s Christmas break service, where Muni uses a Saturday schedule instead of the normal weekday schedule, permanent each season. Ridership was 30% lower than a normal week, and running a Saturday schedule saved the agency $275k, with savings as great as $350k with additional tweaked cuts such as reduced express bus runs. With the purported money-saving success of Christmas break service, Muni is also considering a similar holiday cut during the end of March, during spring break, where ridership is lower than a typical week.

According to a set of weekly reports obtained by Rescue Muni, for the week of Nov. 12-18, the most gutted major line is the 14, with the 45 and 47 getting gutted to as low as 95% service. The worst performing line was the 2, with only 89% of it’s service hours deployed

For light rail, the system’s busiest line, the N, was the worst performer at 93.2%, followed by J at 94.7% and F at 95.6%.

The SFMTA doesn’t publicly post weekly missed run reports, but they do post a daily operations report that is available for viewing here. The reports posted are nearly a year out of date, but according to Jeff Flynn, SFMTA’s Data Development Manager, daily reports should be updated once again after data integration with the SFMTA IT department is completed.