When the pandemic struck and shut down much of San Francisco, the city’s transit agency cut 51 lines. Many have come back, but now the city is facing another crisis.
Christina Tucker couldn’t be blamed for feeling deja vu all over again. The Tenderloin resident is a regular on the 31 Balboa, which was cut in the pandemic and restored with modifications in mid-2021. Tucker recalled how many of her disabled neighbors struggled to get up Hyde Street to catch the 5 Fulton on McAllister or the 38 on Geary. “It was devastating to all of us to lose that service,” Tucker tells The Frisc.
Federal emergency COVID dollars — which made service restoration possible — will run out as of 2025, leaving the SF Municipal Transportation Agency with a $130 million deficit. “That’s the equivalent of about 20 Muni lines,” said SFMTA director of government affairs Kate Long at a state hearing on Bay Area public transit in May.
Long’s boss, SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin, has said without rescue dollars from the state, those 20 lines will disappear in stages, starting this summer. There’s no word yet which lines could be on the chopping block.
The agency could also crib other savings from its pandemic playbook, such as hiring freezes and job elimination through attrition. “We are preparing for all contingencies,” SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun tells The Frisc.
[Update, 4/21/22: At the June 20 SFMTA board meeting, officials said ridership is up to 66 percent of pre-COVID levels, with weekends at 75 percent, thanks to adjustments of service where it’s needed most. In the fall, school routes will get a boost. A “rapid” 28 19th Avenue to Daly City BART is in the works, but revival of the 10 Townsend and 12 Folsom/Pacific has been postponed.]
Busted by budgeting
Scott Wiener, SF’s state senator in Sacramento, has been leading the charge to get California Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide $5.15 billion in rescue funds for transit across the state, half of which would come to the Bay Area.
But Newsom’s May budget draft didn’t budge. It not only stiff-armed the $5.15 billion emergency request, it also maintained a $2 billion cut for transit expansion and other capital projects, part of cuts Newsom says is necessary to close a $32 billion state deficit.
While SF’s budget won’t be signed until August 1st, the main deadline that matters is July 1, when the state budget is signed and enacted.
While Wiener and other lawmakers push from the Capitol, pressure is also coming from advocates, who are holding “funeral for public transit” rallies tomorrow Saturday in SF and Oakland.
With or without additional funding, SFMTA must face a new reality. SF is among the bottom of U.S. cities in downtown recovery. Traditional commute patterns have been rearranged. Muni ridership is at 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and much of that is driven by students, who ride for free.
Transit also has to serve those who don’t have cars — low-income, seniors, disabled, and those who give up driving voluntarily.
Muni is scrambling for other revenue sources, but its options are shrinking and time is ticking down.
Boxed in
SFMTA has long depended on farebox revenues — especially from people riding daily to the city’s core — as well as parking fees and fines. In 2019, these sources accounted for over half its revenues. Today, they make up less than one third.
To give itself a $18 million boost, the agency was set to extend parking meter enforcement Mondays to Saturdays until 10 pm and add Sundays from noon to 6 pm, but city officials put that plan on hold amid concerns about its impact on business. In the short term, the agency doesn’t have a lot of other revenue options.
Even more reliant on the downtown commute and on fares for revenue, BART is facing similar woes. Officials say without state funds they could end weekday service at 9 pm and eliminate weekend service and an entire line.
Less service means even fewer riders, which will lead to even less service and so on — a death spiral.
‘This is a do or die moment for public transportation.’ — SF state Sen. Scott Wiener
Average daily ridership on BART is now at 180,000 and Muni is at 400,000. If just these two agencies follow through on threatened cuts, a significant portion of ridership will shift to cars and add to congestion that has already returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a 2022 study.
More cars also means a steeper climb to reach climate and street safety goals: 41 percent of California greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. SF is also on the cusp of rethinking its street grid to make biking and other alternative modes safer. More cars makes for less safe streets for all users, notes Robin Pam, an organizer with advocacy group KidSafe SF.
She lost her Muni lines — the 23 and 36 — in the pandemic. They were not among the first routes to return, so she had to find alternatives. “We got e-bikes and biked a lot, but we also drove a lot more,” says Pam.
There’s a less obvious but important link between public transit and housing. As with streets, SF is also embarking upon a decade-long revision of its housing plan, with much of the development organized around transit lines. “More driving means more CO2 and more housing sprawl,” noted Wiener at a press conference this week. “This is a do or die moment for public transportation.”
Wiener says the emergency $5.15 billion he’s stumping for would come from looser rules on capital funding, diesel tax revenues, and the recent federal highway funding that President Biden encouraged reallocating for transit.
A taxpayer ask
The rescue money, spread over five years, would serve as a bridge to future fundraising, perhaps through bonds in 2024 or 2026. In a presentation posted in advance of next week’s SFMTA board meeting, the agency highlights the possibility of a 2026 regional bond measure.
Compared with many East Coast states, California invests little in transportation, according to an analysis by SPUR. (SFMTA gets 18 percent of its revenues from the state, and BART only 5 percent.)
Meanwhile, a majority of California’s $22 billion transportation spending over the last eight years, even as climate extremes have arrived, has gone to maintain or expand highways and other car infrastructure, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But asking voters to approve new funds is no sure thing, even in San Francisco.
Wiener and transit officials acknowledge the need for more accountability. SFMTA has fumbled or overspent on several notable projects such as the Central Subway and the forfeiture of grant funding for Better Market Street, eroding public confidence.
Local think tank SPUR believes state funding should be tied to improvements important to riders, like safety, cleanliness, and reliability. “SFMTA is ahead of the game on many of these proposed accountability requirements,” says SPUR transportation policy manager Sebastian Petty, who lauds the agency’s rollout of transit-only lanes and participation in the Clipper Start discount program for low-income riders.
But there will be voters who require a lot more convincing, like Kathy Richter, a 30-year resident of Pacific Heights who lives along the former 3 Jackson route — one of 12 lines that haven’t come back from the pandemic. “It’s shocking, especially in San Francisco, to have a public service yanked out from under you — your life is changed forever,” she tells The Frisc.https://www.change.org/p/save-the-3-jackson-bus-in-san-francisco
Before she retired, Richter took the 3 Jackson to work every day, and she’s trying to live as the city has asked — to give up her car and take transit.
Now Richter says she has to walk five blocks on steep streets to get to her nearest bus. “I’m still ambulatory and can walk, but I’m getting older and would like to age in place,” she adds.
Richter, who campaigned hard to get the 3 back, says she is unlikely to vote for future funding measures.
In the Tenderloin, Christina Tucker sees the 31 Balboa as essential for her neighbors. Nearly one third of the Tenderloin lives below the poverty line, and over 60 percent of SF’s unhoused population call the neighborhood home. Many residents rely on the bus to get to the doctor, to school, and to do grocery shopping at the Safeway in the Fillmore. “Without that, we have just the mom and pop stores, and those are expensive,” Tucker says.
How many riders is enough? If service cuts come down, it’s unclear what the agency’s criteria will be. But among the 23 lines with the lowest ridership, the 31 Balboa is 18th, with an average weekly of 3,400. The five lines with the lowest ridership average 500 weekly riders or less.
Tucker, who recently completed a City College program in addiction counseling and works for the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Coalition, stepped up three years ago, distributing “Bring Our 31 Back” T-shirts and posting flyers. The thought of having to do it all over horrifies her: “If they took it away again, it would be a shock. It’s not fair to the elderly and disabled for sure.”
Kristi Coale covers streets, transit and more for The Frisc.