SF Transit Riders Union

BART is asking for a half billion dollar subsidy for its slow tram to the Oakland parking lot — money that is locally controlled and could be used to improve public transit throughout the Bay Area. Watch this funny video for details. Then go to the Transform page to take action.

Thursday the BART Board voted to postpone an inflation-based fare increase for people who use single-ride tickets, costing the agency more than $2 million that could go to cleaner cars and more reliable service. They could buy an air conditioning system for their control room, for example, so that the trains could run on hot days!

And just to be clear: it’s not that we love fare increases. Fares should never rise more than inflation, but they should keep up with inflation so that the agency’s revenue stream is reliable. And BART’s per trip fare structure for everyone except fast pass users (a scheme that Muni pays for, by the way) penalizes people who want to rely on transit all the time. If BART wants to give a fare break, create a systemwide monthly pass system. That would drastically increase ridership and therefore improve our environment.

Click here to see the SF Chronicle article on the topic.

I can’t believe that BART Board members are considering forgoing the revenue from the planned very small (5¢ in SF) annual fare increase at tomorrow’s Board meeting, the DAY after they couldn’t run the trains because they hadn’t maintained their equipment room well enough. Perhaps they should spend some money on an air conditioning unit for their control room!

And for San Francisco BART riders who use the fast pass? Nada. While the suburbanites save a few dimes, you’ll have dirtier cars and a less reliable system.

I plan to be there tomorrow to represent SF transit riders at the BART Board meeting.

The Transit Riders Union will work on four campaigns to improve transit service.

1. Improve specific lines. We’ll work with riders, local residents and merchants, and the MTA to reduce travel times and increase frequencies on key lines, starting with the 14-Mission and the T-Third. We’ll develop materials and methods that should work on all the main lines, including yours!

2. Campaign for full service restoration (in terms of service hours).

3. Get more money for Muni. Executive Director Nat Ford says that Muni’s structural deficit is $100 million/year. We’ll work to reach consensus on how we should raise that money, then win the campaign for more funding!

4. Get a rapid network throughout city. Cities all over the world have figured out how to have a fast and frequent surface transit network. We can too! It’s a long-term campaign to have amazing service on every major line, but we expect no less.

Come to our organizing meeting to begin planning for these campaigns:

Transit Riders Union organizers’ meeting
Monday August 30, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
995 Market Street, 14th floor

Director Cameron Beach was at the Board of Supervisors’ Budget & Finance Committee meeting today making a cogent 3-minute presentation in support of the parking tax. It was fantastic to see. Supervisor Mirkarimi pointed out that the last time a parking tax was proposed it had no support from the MTA which hurt it at the ballot box, and expressed gratitude that this time will be different.

So, thank you Director Beach for showing up today and making your comments on behalf of more money for Muni riders! You’re making me optimistic!

The MTA Board yesterday voted to restore half the service they eliminated in May of this year. Service will be restored in mid-September. First priority for this partial restoration will be 30-minute service on the OWL routes and later hours for most of the routes whose service now ends in the early evening.

Here are some choice quotes from the hearing.

Fran Taylor, SF Transit Riders Union supporter, on the MTA board referring to these service restorations as improvements: “If someone steals your wallet, and it has $100 in it, and they come up to you the next day with $50 and say, here, here’s a present for you, would you call that an improvement?”

Director Cam Beach, on his concerns that the MTA is adding service without the money to pay for it: “I want to make sure that if this board does do this, it will be the only service change or addition until at least July 2012. There will be no increase in July 2011, as we had previously discussed.”

Gee, Director Beach, thanks for the optimism!

Transit riders need more service, not less. And we need it before July 2012, Director Beach. It’s your job, as Director, to find the money to provide service. To give thanks where due, “thank you” for voting to put the parking tax on the ballot to raise additional funds for more Muni service, but, please don’t be so pessimistic about that or other sources of revenue!

This is the press release the Transit Riders Union just sent out about the rally tomorrow. The rally is at the Federal Building at noon.

California’s two Senators are the targets of a rally tomorrow asking them to sign on in support of a federal bill that would provide $2 billion for the nation’s transit agencies. In the Bay Area, the Public Transportation Preservation Act (S 3412/HR 5418) would help restore Muni service and prevent the elimination of weekend Caltrain service as proposed by its operating Board. Neither Boxer nor Feinstein have signed on to the bill. In the rally whose keynote speaker is Jesse Jackson, Transit Riders Union project director Dave Snyder will speak on the need for more federal funding for transit operations.

The Transit Riders Union represents riders, not the MTA management, and not the MTA workers. We have a singular goal: improving public transit to attract a million daily rides (up from about 700,000 today) in order to comply with the city’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

We understand this cannot be done without the cooperation of MTA workers, so we don’t blame them for the problems of Muni. We intend to work cooperatively with transit operators in finding ways to improve the productivity of the workforce while preserving good working conditions and wages. Voters must understand that even with savings that could be achieved through changes to the labor agreements at the MTA, Muni needs more funding to provide the service San Francisco needs to achieve its goals. MTA Executive Director Nat Ford said that Muni’s structural deficit is about $100 million per year. The Controller’s audit on Muni work rules said that about $3 million in annual savings could be achieved through changes in the way operators get overtime pay.

The Transit Riders Union supports more federal funding for transit because it’s the federal government that has the ability to levy progressive taxes, such as a restoration of the Reagan era tax on high income earners. The Transit Riders Union is a member of the Transportation for America campaign.

At our event today at Lisa Feldstein’s house in Cole Valley, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi today delivered an impassioned defense of the parking tax.

To paraphrase, he said something like “some people like to test polls and play games and back away from things if they don’t poll well, but I just helped to defeat Prop 16 where we we didn’t assume defeat because they were going to outspend us 500 to 1.”

He was happy to hear of the support for the parking tax from the Transit Riders Union allies and steering committee members the Chinese Progressive Association, Chinatown Community Development Center, and POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights).

Now, add to that list the Sierra Club. Read their letter, and the many reasons to love the parking tax, here.

In conversations with Supervisors and their aides over the last several days, it’s clear that the Muni funding increases contemplated in two proposed ballot measures — the parking tax and the charter amendment’s increased set-aside — are both on thin ice.

The parking tax is polling about 10 points down right now, and politicians have a tendency to trust snapshot polls more than they trust the ability to change voters’ opinions. The Supervisors have other tax ideas that are more popular  and have told me they prefer to select fewer more popular taxes in order to prevent voter backlash against all taxes.

The increased set-aside is not a popular solution for funding transit because it just uses general fund money that would otherwise fund health clinics, the arts, and other critical social services. A compromise we’ve advocated is to make the set-aside contingent upon the passage of a general fund tax, enlisting the transit-riding public in the support of the tax to generate revenue for general public services as well as the transit to get people to the clinics and theaters! The Supervisors I’ve talked to are open to this idea.

The Supervisors are holding their first hearing on these tax measures this Friday, June 25, at the 1:30 Rules Committee meeting. Please express your opinion on the charter amendment we’ve analyzed here, and please share the only official message we have at this point: “whatever you do, find some way to increase the Muni budget to restore full service.” If you can’t attend, you can email Committee Chair David Campos by clicking right here.

It’s not just Muni. Transit agencies everywhere are suffering declining budgets and implementing deep service cuts.

While in the long run, Congress and the President need to step up with more taxes to fund better transit, a bill in Congress would stave off some of the worst cuts in the short term by authorizing about $2 billion in emergency operating funding. There are two things you should do to support this effort.

1. Write a letter to Senators Boxer and Feinstein, encouraging them to support the bill. You can use this form at Transportation for America’s webpage.

2. Attend the San Francisco rally with Jesse Jackson and other transit advocates as part of a national campaign to support this bill. The rally is at noon at the Federal Building on June 29!