Muni making progress on some service goals

The interim head of San Francisco’s beleaguered transit system delivered a 90-day progress report Tuesday, the first official review after a systemwide slowdown over summer.

Muni met its goals to reduce preventable collisions and improve the frequency of its rapid bus lines. But it missed targets to increase service, run its light-rail lines on time and get its lowest frequency bus routes on a tighter schedule.

Nonetheless, acting Muni director Julie Kirschbaum was optimistic. The bus system came within one point of hitting its mandate for 96 percent service delivery — the share of scheduled buses that are operating on a given day — and steadier train arrivals. In the past three months, riders experienced delays or “gaps” between trains 21 percent of the time, barely missing the goal of 20 percent.

Those numbers seemed to cheer the board of directors at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. But the board also signaled that Muni will face scrutiny going forward. They asked for similar reports every 90 days.

The 90-day plan laid out by Kirschbaum’s predecessor John Haley was supposed to build trust in Muni and thaw relationships in City Hall, following a calamitous period of bus delays. Haley had poached drivers and buses from popular routes to run shuttles during the two-month retrofit of Twin Peaks Tunnel, a vital pipeline between downtown and the westside neighborhoods.

That infrastructure project strained Muni at a time when it was already short drivers, and trying to cope with other changes, Kirschbaum said. Officials were overhauling the light-rail fleet, introducing a new fare box and radio system and adding new 40-foot trolleys.

“So we had to train our existing operators in all of this stuff,” Kirschbaum said. It happened to coincide with Muni’s general signup for drivers to switch vehicles or roles, which also taxed the agency.

“And on top of all that,” she said, “we had to figure out how we were going to take these major rail lines with highefficiency trains, and convert them into buses.”

Even as it steadily improves, Muni is grappling with other construction projects that disrupt service. Crews widening a platform in Mission Bay got delayed by rain over the weekend, forcing the agency to replace its T-Third trains with buses on Monday and Tuesday, which irritated commuters.

SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin said the line will be back to normal Wednesday, just as Muni faces a grilling in City Hall. Supervisor Vallie Brown called for a hearing at 11 a.m. “to hear answers from SFMTA about why this system collapsed over the summer, and what steps are being taken to strengthen Muni.”