Muni is running only a core system of buses with no rail lines in service. But around 100,000 people still ride every day. Cat Carter, interim executive director of the San Francisco Transit Riders, hasn’t been on Muni in months, but she and others in the organization have kept busy, distributing masks and thinking about the future of Muni as budget cuts and the return of traffic congestion loom. Carter said the pandemic has shown us how essential public transportation really is, and said its importance for essential workers makes it essential for society to function.
“We depend on these essential workers to get to their jobs in health care, to clean the hospital, to take care of patients, to be the lab techs, to be the grocery stockers, to do all the different essential work that we now recognize as essential to keep our society going. And if they’re dependent on transit, that means we’re all dependent on transit.” — Cat Carter
