Riders and businesses in the Mission District say the rerouting of major Muni bus lines is causing confusion and hurting commerce. The 14-Mission, 14L-Mission and 49-Mission/Van Ness, which usually travel along Mission Street, have been rerouted to South Van Ness since the beginning of March because of a repavement and infrastructure project by the Department of Public Works and Public Utilities Commission. The project affects Mission Street between 16th and Cesar Chavez streets.
Category: Transportation
Posted inArts & Culture, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space, Transportation
America’s Cup may be scaled-down, but transportation challenges are unchanged
City scrambles to invent temporary bus and train lines for legions of yacht race spectators
A version of this story appears in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
The effect of a scaled-down America’s Cup plan on an ambitious transit effort is unclear as the city continues to view the expected flood of visitors for America’s Cup pre-events this August and October as a chance to experiment with new transit options. On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with America’s Cup organizers that will put more of the spectator activity along the Marina Green. The transit plan for the game calls for an estimated 300,000 spectators around the waterfront — the equivalent of almost half the average weekday Muni ridership of 637,000 — city planners said they have to get nearly everyone out of cars to prevent transportation chaos.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, Muni, Transportation
Muni chief takes aim at swollen overtime budget
City transportation director Ed Reiskin says he hopes to control Muni’s overtime spending in the next fiscal year by budgeting it at $42 million. After budgeting $32 million for this fiscal year, the actual spending is expected to reach $60 million.
Posted inCity Hall, Transportation
City’s transit agency faces $53 million deficit for next two years
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is looking for new revenue sources to balance its budget for the next two years.Despite cuts in overtime and management reductions, the transit agency still faces a looming budget deficit of $19.6 million for the 2012-2013 fiscal year and $33.6 million for the 2013-2014 fiscal year.
Posted inPublic Safety, Transportation
Bike theft on the rise at BART stations
Jay Fraser knows what it’s like to lock a bicycle at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and return to an empty rack. Fraser is a research analyst for the Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco and has commuted by bike for 20 years, 10 of them in the Bay Area. He had a bike stolen at the Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre BART station and a seat stolen at the Walnut Creek station. Like Fraser, hundreds of other commuters have parked a bike at a BART stop and returned to find it gone or stripped of parts.
Posted inCity Hall, Transportation
Taxi officials studying taxi app, passenger feedback
Finding a cab in the city may soon get easier for San Francisco residents and visitors to the city. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation, which oversees taxi services in the city, is working on developing an application to help make it easier for people to find a cab.
Posted inCommunity, Neighborhoods, Transportation
S.F. transportation agency apologizes, reassesses parking meter plan
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency agreed to assess people’s parking needs block by block in the Mission and other southeastern neighborhoods before installing any new parking meters. That marked a change in the agency’s attitude since a Jan. 13 meeting in which a hearing officer approved the installation of about 5,000 parking meters in several eastern neighborhoods, despite the objections of hundreds of people who spoke unanimously in opposition to the proposal.
Posted inEconomy & Business, Education, Media, Social Justice, Social Services, Transportation
Sharing skills during the holidays
With the holiday festivities swiftly approaching in a year marked by global protests over economic inequality, people in the Bay Area are turning to alternate, community-based means of exchanging goods and skills. Collectives like the Timebank help people circumvent buying gifts with money during the holidays. “The systemic way in which the economy works undermines every good that we try to do,” said Mira Luna, co-founder of the local nonprofit Bay Area Community Exchange, an organization that has been facilitating trades of talents and commodities using time rather than money as the currency. “There’s a lot of underutilized resources and a lot of needs out of there.”
Posted inCity Hall, Labor, Transportation
Muni operators deserve payout from settlement, says Mayor Lee
San Francisco transit workers got an unexpected holiday bonus, of sorts, after winning back a contested $8 million in health care payouts that the city initially refused to give because it was trying to cut its 2011 budget. Mayor Ed Lee said Tuesday that he agreed with the decision by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to relinquish the funds to the Transport Workers Union 250-A.
Posted inCity Hall, Transportation
Muni chief optimistic despite projected budget shortfall
Muni is projecting close to an $80 million budget deficit by 2013-2014. The agency released its preliminary budget report Monday. Despite the shortfall, Muni wants to change the minds of riders and drivers who are skeptical that the service can be reliable and on time. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which oversees Muni, has drafted goals for the next six years that Muni chief Ed Reiskin calls “ambitious.”