San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
City’s chance to rethink Muni
City Hall shelves buckle with studies and reports on San Francisco’s problems. Ideas on homelessness, housing and taxes fill this dusty library.
Now Mayor London Breed wants to add another long look, this one aimed at Muni and its manifold problems.
Civic headaches often get kicked into this neverland where recommended fixes fade away. But maybe this time, weary transit riders should hope for the best. The farflung system could use a deepthink examination that energizes a rundown operation.
Today Muni competes with the likes of Uber and Lyft, vocal bike riders and a spreading flock of scooters and skateboards, all competing for space on the same pavement. The city’s population has soared, its economy is flourishing, and transportation habits are changing. Muni is struggling to fit in this world and an uncertain future.
To be sure, the system has its own homegrown problems. Service improves slightly and then tumbles when a wire snaps or a switch jams. It can’t run without drivers, and it’s 400 positions short. A new fleet of railcars has arrived, but flawed door sensors have caused injuries to passengers. Fares have doubled in 10 years, suggesting that money alone isn’t the answer. Promised breakthroughs such as the Chinatown subway and Van Ness bus lanes take too long to finish.
When Breed took office, she made no secret of her impatience. She fired off angry messages after each mis
step. The pressure eventually led Ed Reiskin to announce his exit effective in August. For better or worse, Breed runs Muni through her seven appointees overseeing the Municipal Transportation Agency.
She’s already launched a search for Reiskin’s successor, and that task will be in tandem with her proposed toptobottom appraisal of Muni. By design, the system is squarely under the mayor’s thumb with the Board of Supervisors given little say beyond approving Muni’s yearly budget.
The study won’t entirely be a Breed production. She’s including two progressive supervisors, Rafael Mandelman and Aaron Peskin, who have frequently differed with the mayor, to quell doubts she’s stacking it with tame allies. “Since taking office one year ago, I have heard nearly every day from constituents sharing harrowing tales of their experiences on Muni,” Mandelman tweeted last week. Peskin is likewise familiar with Muni’s woes and not shy about confronting the mayor.
There will be a dose of veteran advice from three outsiders who have run transit agencies in Los Angeles, Boston and Alameda County.
Also on the list is Gwyneth Borden, who now serves on the MTA board, and former City Controller Ed Harrington. There are slots for labor leaders representing the Muni workforce and transit advocates. Pulling all these voices together has another advantage: It could stem the urge for a single group to rush out a quick ballot fix that might be hard to correct later.
Doubters might write off the panel as an insurance policy to insulate the mayor from Muni’s persistent problems. When in trouble, appoint an instant commission to deflect trouble, according to the political playbook. But the panel’s work won’t be the final result.
It will take leadership and armtwisting to remake a giant bureaucracy if that’s what the eventual findings dictate. The schedule calls for a short timetable with the final analysis due in January.
But just as San Francisco struggles with housing or homelessness, it needs to acknowledge transit as an aggravating problem. There’s room for workable advice on what it will take to fix Muni and plan for its future.
Rehashing Muni’s woes won’t be enough. If the panel wants to make a difference, it will have to go deeper in recommending ways to make transit safe, reliable and relevant in a changing city. Money, or the perceived lack of it, is sure to be an issue, but it’s not enough to pour extra funds into the presentday funnel of Muni expenses.
What the report needs to produce are sweeping thoughts on what it will take to upgrade a creaking transit world that carries hundreds of thousands of passengers a day. Then it will be time to weigh the suggestions and move forward. The mayor is opening the door to wide examination of Muni, and she should be prepared to follow the advice.