Photo: SF Gate
The Biscuit wanted to give all neighborhood MUNI riders the heads up on upcoming MUNI service slow down and which lines will be directly effected.
The last week of March, the 25th thru the 29th, is Spring Break for San Francisco Unified School District and SF State. MUNI believes that since the kids will be away making madness, getting tanned and experiencing alcohol poisoning at Daytona Beach ridership will be down an estimated 20%.
Reducing service through holidays, historically slow ridership periods, is a new tactic the Powers That Be of MUNI has been trying out as way to save dough. During the last cut back-the week of Christmas through New Year of 2012-the budgetary saving added up to 275K returned to MUNI's always hungry general fund.
With this as evidence of solid economic thinking and results MUNI plan is to reduce service to about a dozen lines during peak commuter hours. The projected savings? A whooping 45K out of their overall $821 million dollar budget.
Wow. Really?
MUNI Sardines. Photo: sarahdopp
I don't know about you, but, somehow I think most of the City's adult, working, peak hour, MUNI using riders would rather get to the office on time without the extra drama of super long waits. Not to mention the overcrowding. Busses are often already over crowded busses when running at full capacity during regular operating schedules.
Unmentioned in the roll back service plan: bus break downs plan. Is there a mechanism in place to have back up busses and drivers on stand by to quickly fill in for these unexpected-yet all to frequent-MUNI realities during all important commuter hours? Mechanical failures account for a large amount of over crowding as passengers are forced off one bus onto another or hustle to a different route or service all together. And how does this effect MUNI's 'estimated' time of arrivals schedules? Are those even valid during these times? It certainly will skew the GPS time of arrival info provided by 511.
MUNI believes that this roll back of service will translate into less overtime pay for drivers, maintenance costs and help keep the environment a bit greener by reducing fuel use. I guess they're not factoring in how quality of life erosion due to stress and misery a citizen experiences from living through one of their 'cost saving' experiments.
The even worse news is they're considering applying this adjusted schedule throughout the Summer when school is out if things go well.
MUNI lines running through or adjacent to the Castro directly effected: #24 Divisadero: operates from 3rd & Palou in Bayview to Pacific Heights and the #22 Fillmore: crosses the City from Dogpatch to Bay St in the Marina. Both of these lines are immensely important to the health, wealth of most Castro merchants, residents and visitors.
Other lines experiencing slow downs will include:
8AX/8BX Bayshore Express
9L-San Bruno Limited
14-Mission Local
29-Sunset
31-Balboa
38-Geary
43-Masonic
48-Quintara-24th Street
49-Van Ness-Mission
28L-19th Avenue Limited (will not operate at all)
MUNI Chief Ed Reiskin
If this plan sounds unwise feel free to contact Ed Reiskin, transportation director for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, at 415-701-4720. You can also tweet him @EdwardReiskin or message him directly at Facebook to voice your concerns.
