Muni head pledges to improve services
Stung by criticism from the mayor, San Francisco’s transit chief pledged Thursday to reduce delays in bus and train service and make other noticeable improvements within three months.
In a letter to Mayor London Breed, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin said he plans to reduce gaps on the Muni Metro rail system by 3 percent, and decrease gaps on key rapid bus routes by 5 percent. He vowed to cut back preventable collisions by 5 percent.
“We are actively and aggressively working to rectify current service issues and expect noticeable improvements next week,” Reiskin wrote.
Reiskin provided a point-by-point response to a scorching letter that Breed sent this week, which chided the agency for bungling service during the two-month retrofit of the Twin Peaks Tunnel. Breed described numerous other problems — including the city’s process for permitting electric scooter companies and its background checks on construction contractors — raising speculation that Reiskin might be in danger of losing his job.
“I remain fully committed to continued and sustained improvements to Muni and to the performance of the agency as a whole,” the transit boss wrote. “As director of transportation, I will always accept responsibility for that performance.”
His fix-it plan for bus service focuses on such lines as the 38R on Geary Boulevard and the 14R on Mission Street, which run frequently but tend to be crowded and generate lots of complaints.
“Behind each of these targets is a plan to achieve them,” Reiskin wrote, promising to lay out those plans the next time he meets with Breed.
SFMTA will finish reviewing permit applications from scooter companies next week, Reiskin said. Breed had expressed concerns about the “opaque” scoring of those applications, after a Chronicle report that described how the process could penalize Uber and Lyft.
Breed sent the letter Monday, a day before Reiskin’s annual performance review from the SFMTA Board of Directors.
It came as the agency reeled from a systemwide slowdown caused by the closure of the Twin Peaks Tunnel, a vital artery between downtown and the city’s west side neighborhoods. The agency put together what many saw as a haphazard service plan during the retrofit, siphoning drivers and buses from popular lines, and using them to run shuttles around the tunnel.
Reiskin said he expects service to improve when the tunnel reopens Saturday. He called the recent delays “unacceptable.”
He added that the agency was devastated by the Aug. 10 death of construction contractor Patrick Ricketts, who had been working in the tunnel. Though Reiskin defended the contractor who employed Ricketts of Oakland, Shimmick Construction, he also promised to more rigorously evaluate construction bids in the future.
Shimmick has been cited 39 times by Cal/OSHA for safety violations. The company did not mention those violations in pre-bidding documents it submitted.
Several board directors pledged support for Reiskin, but also saw Breed’s letter as an opportunity to fix a bus system that serves more than 700,000 people a day.
Board Director Malcolm Heinicke said he welcomed the mayor’s scrutiny.
“I believe Ed is capable of small and steady efforts to improve the system,” he said. “But I also think the mayor’s reminder to him to focus on operations was helpful and was heard.”
Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan