Streetsblog San Francisco

People catching Muni near West Portal station this morning were greeted by an unusual sight: Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, and a team of volunteers were out canvassing the avenue to gather signatures for a ballot measure that would change the way the city sets Muni operator salaries.

Elsbernd, who first introduced the measure late last year only to see it receive an icy reception in a Board of Supervisors committee, said getting it on the ballot through a signature campaign was a daunting task, but so far people are receptive.

"If they give you that two seconds to talk to you about it, they'll sign it," he said. "It's just whether or not they'll give you that two seconds."

After twenty minutes of standing out on West Portal Avenue, Elsbernd said he'd collected about 15 signatures. To get on the November ballot, 70,000 of San Francisco's half-a-million registered voters must sign a petition in support of putting the measure on the ballot.

"We've got a lot of signatures we've got to collect in the next few months," Elsbernd acknowledged.

The measure would remove language from the City Charter that currently sets Muni operator salaries and benefits at the average of the two highest-paying large transit agencies in the country, instead of through a collective bargaining process. The measure's supporters argue that the charter provision has been too costly for Muni and has given management less flexibility to negotiate better work rules.

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Could the bleakest budget in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's history force its directors to finally get creative in funding Muni?

The answer, judging from Tuesday's MTA Board meeting, is yes. Fresh off approving a 10 percent cut to Muni service to balance this year's budget, MTA directors appeared eager to close the agency's massive budget gap in the upcoming two years without cutting more service or raising fares.

MTA staff presented $75 million in solutions that the agency could enact without going to the ballot box, but more than a third of that would come from charging for transfers and cutting even more service -- ideas quickly shot down by the board.

The remaining solutions, including a plan to extend parking meter enforcement hours, add up to about $40 million annually. That's far less than the $56.4 million shortfall the agency is projected to face next year, or the $45 million shortfall projected for the year after that.

But for the first time in the MTA's ten-year history, the board seems serious about going to the ballot box to stave off further service cuts. Transit supporters say it's a noteworthy shift.

"It is a really good sign to see the MTA trying to get ahead of things now and come up with a long-term revenue strategy so they're not facing a crisis every single year," said Gabriel Metcalf, Executive Director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), an urban planning think tank.

Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City and a member of the BART Board, also called it a welcome development. "This would be the MTA Board for the first time not being totally passive about creating new revenue and actually being proactive," he said. "It's late, but it's progress."

The directors will have to maintain their resolve during what is certain to be an uphill battle. MTA staff presented five potential ballot measures to the board on Tuesday, and the directors themselves suggested two more. Each of the seven faces formidable hurdles.

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Widespread outrage at the MTA Board, so visibly on display at today's meeting on Muni service cuts and fare increases, appears to be driving a growing surge of organizing that transit supporters hope might finally create a sustained movement with the potential to pressure the MTA into developing long-term fixes for Muni.

Most members of the public testifying at the meeting today were livid about the MTA's approach to the budget, illustrated by loud outbursts from speakers and thunderous applause by the more than 200 people who filled the overflow South Light Court at City Hall.

Long-time Muni organizers and transit wonks were hopeful the momentum that helped turn out so many people would continue beyond today.

"I'm thrilled. I think it's word of mouth, it's gotten around," said Sue Vaughan, a member of the MTA Citizens' Advisory Council and an organizer with Transit Not Traffic. "It's got a life of its own and it's gaining momentum."

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who roamed the overflow room and spoke with a number of people who gave public testimony, was awed by the turnout. "I'm incredibly impressed about the volume of people that have come out. They're well organized, and their passion is right on and felt by many of us."

"As far as I'm concerned, you've got a mini-movement that's not going to fade away."

An abundance of different groups were represented at the meeting, including advocates for improved transit, affordable housing, people with disabilities, youth, seniors, and more, as well as plenty of unaffiliated Muni riders who were deeply concerned about the MTA's proposals for balancing its budget.

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With Muni riders looking for somewhere to direct their frustration at potential service cuts and fare increases, and with the Mayor eager to frame the MTA's budget deficit as a choice between labor concessions and fare hikes, it's easy to view a proposed charter amendment that would change how Muni driver salaries are set as a shot at transit operators.

But SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, who's drafting the amendment along with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, said the point isn't to scapegoat drivers, but to fix some of Muni's most persistent service problems, like the high rate of absenteeism that leads to frequent missed runs.

Operators, said Metcalf, have a hard job and deserve to be fairly compensated. For many drivers, the job is a hard-earned but solid path to the middle class. But by setting transit operator salaries automatically at the second-highest rate in the country, MTA management has removed any incentive for operators to allow revisions to work rules that hobble Muni performance, said Metcalf. A November ballot measure would revise the City Charter so salaries and benefits are set entirely through collective bargaining.

"We want to write a squeaky-clean good-government charter provision that does not go after any specific work rules, but rather sets up conditions for fair collective bargaining," Metcalf said. "It puts a lot of sunshine around it. Voters get to understand what is being negotiated. The hope is that, over time, labor and management can work out a better way to run Muni."

Metcalf insisted that the measure is not intended to be punitive against drivers. "Being a driver is a really hard job," he said. "In the end, what we've got to get to is a culture where people are happy to go to work and people feel taken care of and work hard and they get paid well for working hard."

"It is basically the same system virtually every other union and city government has," he added. "There is no way anyone in good faith can say that is anti-labor."

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In San Francisco it's almost as cliche to kvetch about Muni as it is to misquote Mark Twain about chilly summers, but what can possibly be done to fix a transit system that seems to have so many problems and almost no solutions that everyone can agree upon?

The city's sitting mayor and several former mayors have vowed change for the better, but in just the last year the city has seen fare increases, service cuts, and layoffs of maintenance and cleaning personnel that make riding Muni less attractive, less reliable, and more expensive. What gains may have been made in the past decade since restructuring Muni and the Department of Parking and Traffic into the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) are arguably slipping away amid budget cuts, which are forcing cutbacks that the agency and the riding public will feel for years.

Getting concessions from Transport Workers Union (TWU) 250 will stave off the worst of the budget shortfall for the next six months, but large deficits loom, with an expected gap of more than $100 million over the next two years. While members of the Board of Supervisors toy with the idea of changing appointment criteria for the MTA Board of Directors and some advocates are working in Sacramento to stop the governor's raids on transit funds, many people are trying to figure out a local solution that might have traction.

"It is an extraordinary crisis. Ideally it would be great to see everyone come together," said Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City, a transit advocacy organization. "We all want a functioning transit agency in town."

As the MTA holds a series of town hall meetings that have elicited the expected anger of riders who are already feeling the burden of cuts and hikes and who can read the writing on the wall, another group is organizing what it expects to be a large Muni Summit in early March. The summit is being coordinated by members of San Francisco Tomorrow, whose long-time Muni champion and critic Norm Rolfe passed away recently, members of Savemuni.com, who have long opposed building the Central Subway, and members of the MTA's Citizens Advisory Council (CAC).

"There’s definitely anger," said Gerald Cauthen, a civil engineer and former employee of Muni who helped found Savemuni.com. Cauthen has attended numerous MTA Board meetings and the two recent town hall meetings, where he said some of the testimony is hopeful, despite the frustration riders feel. "Many people don’t know what’s wrong with Muni, what it will take to make Muni better, but a lot of people are throwing out ideas."

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For decades, planners and transportation specialists have debated how San Francisco's most important street could be re-visioned to  make it work better for transit, pedestrians, cyclists, shoppers, and those living on or near it. Now, as the Better Market Street Project moves forward with trial traffic diversions, the Art in Storefronts project, music and programming in public spaces, greening along sidewalks, and pedestrian safety improvements, San Francisco's political class is intent on revitalizing the street for the long haul. Though the concrete vision for what Market Street will eventually look like is some ways off, there is more effort now than in many years to improve the public realm and ensure the street lives up to its great potential.

City planners have been on the hook for some of the last century's greatest metropolitan mishaps: urban freeways and "slum clearance," arbitrary minimum parking requirements, and land use laws that have left little room for the mingling of uses. Understandably, today's planners are a bit humbled. But when planning directors from some of North America's most progressive cities spoke at City Hall this week about the political challenges that face urban planners, several of them said the field needs to move beyond worrying about past mistakes.

"Because of the failure of the planning profession in the past, we've gotten quiet, we've gotten a little too meek," said Brent Toderian, Vancouver's planning director. "We serve at the will of politicians, and are often unwilling to speak truth to power loudly and persuasively and in public. I think that's really been an absolving of our leadership responsibilities in the profession."

SPUR and the San Francisco Planning Department hosted the discussion with planning heads from SF, New York, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Minneapolis and San Diego, who were all in town for the Urban Land Institute's annual expo.

While the directors didn't lack for bold visions, some lamented the planning field's fixation on avoiding undesirable consequences. "I'd have to say, especially in California, unfortunately, the field has evolved into focusing on preventing bad things from happening instead of making good things happen," said Bill Anderson, San Diego's planning head.

Minneapolis planning chief Barbara Sporlein echoed that concern. "So much of planning is making up for past mistakes," she said. "It just feels like every time something happens, [we say,] 'That can't happen again.'"

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It would someday rank among the world's most beautiful bike paths. Imagine a separated, 2.5-mile bicycle path between the northbound traffic lanes of the Embarcadero and the pedestrian promenade from AT&T Park to Fisherman's Wharf. Not only would it provide a safe and dignified passage for cyclists, it would cut down on bike and pedestrian conflicts that occur on the shared sidewalk. Sound like a fantasy? Not so, according to a study sponsored by SPUR, which suggests that not only would the path serve an important transportation function, it would attract tourists and locals alike.

The study's goal was to examine the feasibility of a wide, comfortable, car-free facility capable of serving cyclists well enough to attract bicyclists away from the pedestrians on the promenade and provide safe and convenient bicycling to fast and slow riders alike. The path would eventually connect to other links in the Bay Trail, providing a car-free beltway, so to speak, around the city on the shores of San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The plan was crafted by a summertime fellow sponsored by the Patri family of architects and urban designers. The Patri Fellow, Carrie Nielson, with the help of staff from the design firm EDAW/AECOM and the Port of San Francisco, looked at various alternatives and settled on the idea of a two-way, 15-foot wide cycle track using space captured from the northbound bicycle lane, parking, and the sidewalk. Her research found that it's feasible, simple in some places, complicated and expensive in others. Total cost is estimated at $10-20 million.

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If the Geary Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project doesn't get some love from advocates and the general public, the project could be in trouble, according to several people closely following the process.

"I look to the left, I look to the right, all I see is opposition and criticism," says Joel Ramos, a member of the Geary BRT Citizens Advisory Committee and a staffer for Transform who has experience in the battle for Berkeley BRT.

Richmond Supervisor Eric Mar, who is in favor of BRT on Geary, said he expected more support from transit advocates.  The project gets little but tough love from its allies in the transportation reform movement, who complain alternately that the plan should be for rail instead of buses and that it ignores the needs of bicycle users in the corridor. From the anti-transit side, there are still dozens of Richmond residents who reliably show up to complain about the minor impediments to car traffic and parking that Geary BRT will impose. Indeed, without the enthusiastic support of transit advocates, Geary BRT public meetings get overrun by opponents.

Geary BRT would create a new exclusive busway in the center of the street from just east of Gough Street to 33^rd Avenue in the outer Richmond. With pre-paid and three-door boarding, bypass lanes for express buses, and car-free lanes, the Transportation Authority expects to shave from five to nine minutes off the typical trip, as much as 30% of the travel time between those points. With stations instead of stops and low-floor buses with multiple doors operating in straight lines with no swerving for traffic, Geary BRT will feel like a train on rubber wheels. The dimensions of the center lane are planned to be able to accommodate trains if desirable in the future. The agency is currently completing its environmental impact report, which is expected to be ready for certification within the next few months. The project will cost approximately $200 million. 

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San Francisco and New York were blessed with gorgeous weather Friday, which made for glorious PARK(ing) days in both cities.

In San Francisco, upwards of 34 metered parking spots were transformed into temporary parks, on-street bike parking demonstrations, cafe seating and other public space reimaginings. New York, writes Streetfilms director Clarence Eckerson, had about 50 spaces "filled to the gills with people, sod, chairs, food, fun, games, and in one case - bubbles galore!"

In his latest Streetfilm, John Hamilton, using images submitted to our Flickr pool, features some great San Francisco moments in SoMa, the Mission, and North Beach, and takes us for a brief photo tour of PARK(ing) Day events around the world. Clarence opted to "take it down a notch," and spent more time relaxing in the spaces rather than trying to document as many as possible. The result is two inspiring PARK(ing) Day Streetfilms!