As San Francisco’s transit chief prepares to step down, Mayor London Breed and other City Hall politicians are taking ownership of the city’s stumbling light-rail and bus system.
To that end, the mayor has formed a transit performance working group in collaboration with two supervisors and the city controller. The idea: review Muni’s service and figure out how to improve it, while also taking a hard look at the sprawling, sometimes unwieldy agency that governs all aspects of transportation in San Francisco.
Public opinion might sit elsewhere, but San Francisco's transportation problems and chronic lack of investment won't be fixed by hiring a new transportation director, no matter how talented he or she might be.
“Over the last year, the Municipal Transportation Agency and Muni have produced an unending stream of bad news,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who helped generate the idea after hearing the frustration of his constituents in the Castro, Glen Park, Diamond Heights and Noe Valley neighborhoods. He receives constant text messages and phone calls about late and overcrowded trains.
Since the SFTMA was created in 1999, there have been a few attempts by District Supervisors to take back control, divert, or block funding, but this new review stands out for looking at ways to better support SFMTA.
“This is a longer conversation,” Mandelman said. “Rather than racing to the ballot with a particular proposal, we’re going to look at what the MTA has achieved over two decades, where it’s failed, and what kind of funding it needs to be successful.”
Public transportation “requires constant renewal,” said former city Controller Ed Harrington, who has watched City Hall struggle to reform Muni for decades. It’s never easy to manage a complex system with a multigenerational stock of vehicles, and now officials are also grappling with a driver shortage and an economic boom that’s put more strain on mass transit.