Streetsblog San Francisco

The Board of Supervisors, for the second time this month, voted 6-5 this afternoon against a motion to reject the MTA's $778 million budget. BOS Prez David Chiu and Sophie Maxwell were among those not supporting a rejection. The vote came despite Supervisor John Avalos' announcement that he had a commitment from MTA Chair Tom Nolan to come up with a different budget if supervisors rejected it.

Transit advocates, frustrated over the decision, said they are planning to rally behind Avalos' proposed charter amendment to reform the MTA Board, which is appointed by the Mayor. They felt a rejection of the budget was the only way to force a better plan, which they say is unfairly balanced, with riders taking a bigger hit than drivers. 

But Chiu, who pointed out that he rides Muni more than any other supervisor and is the only member of the Board who doesn't own a car, said "we have come quite a ways" since the first MTA budget was proposed. He said the upcoming debate over the city budget is going to "make this debate look like child's play."

"In fact, as I've done the math, we've come about 30 million dollars from where the original budget was," said Chiu, who proposed the original rejection motion. "It is time for us to move forward."

Chiu's office said the $30 million he was referring to is a $15 million reduction in work orders, the $10.3 million worked out in a compromise, and $5 million in anticipated parking revenues, assuming the MTA moves forward with stronger parking enforcement. 

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, in an interview after the vote, said he believed it was still possible to get the MTA to make more concessions because "a strong message has been sent," but said he is going to back Avalos' charter amendment, which could appear before voters as soon as November, assuming there are six votes on the Board to place it on the ballot. The amendment would see three members of the MTA Board appointed by the Board of Supervisors, three by the Mayor and one elected.

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MTA Executive Director Nat Ford has released a list of proposed service enhancements on 14 lines that run parallel or near lines that are being eliminated or scaled back in this year's budget. The move comes following a "deal" worked out by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu that would put about $8.7 million back into the MTA budget for transit service enchancements, a compromise that some other supervisors say still falls short, and may lead to a vote to reject the spending plan tomorrow.

In a letter to the MTA Board of Directors Friday, Ford said his plan would tweak the schedules, creating better running times by investing "about 150 service hours per day to better match the scheduled running time with the actual time." He said the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) estimated the system needs about 230 hours of additional service per day to meet running times.

The lines slated for enhancements include the 9-San Bruno, 14-Mission (included the limited), 49-Van Ness/Mission, 4-Van Ness, 38-Geary Limited, 82X-Levi Plaza Express, 44-O'Shaughnessy, 5-Fulton, 10-Townsend, 48-Quintara, 39-Coit, the 1A-BX California Expresses and the J-Church. See the full list of here (PDF).

Ford made sure to include enhancements on a line in each supervisorial district.

The 14-Mission Limited would see some of the biggest enhancements. Currently, it only operates mid days and Saturdays, but service would be extended from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. to "help absorb customers who switch to Muni because of the BART Premium Pass. It will also represent additional capacity on Mission Street, which will help ameliorate the proposal to discontinue the 26-Valencia."

The Board of Supervisors has scheduled a special meeting at noon tomorrow to again consider rejecting the budget. It was unclear whether Chiu and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell would be voting to reject, but Maxwell appeared willing to consider supporting adding Sunday and evening parking enforcement back in, something Supervisor John Avalos proposed in a "Transit Justice Package."

The Board of Supervisors will try again on an MTA budget, voting 7-4 this afternoon to delay a motion to reject it. Instead, they'll hold a special meeting Wednesday, May 27th, at noon.

The delay, requested by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, came after Supervisor Sophie Maxwell indicated a change of heart on parking. Maxwell, considered a swing vote on the rejection motion, had previously indicated she was against adding Sunday and evening parking enforcement, measures Supervisor John Avalos, some of his colleagues and transit advocates have demanded be put back in the budget to more equitably balance it between drivers and Muni riders.

“I too have come to a different feeling about parking. I mean, I was one who said I don’t know about Sundays and I don’t know about 10 [p.m.] but I am reconsidering and I think a lot of other people could too, so I think it’s something that should really be put on the table.”

Maxwell asked MTA Chief Nat Ford how soon an MTA study on parking would take. As part of a "compromise" reached with Board President David Chiu last week, Ford agreed to study increasing parking enforcement downtown from 6 to 8 p.m. Advocates, however, have proposed that Ford's original plan to enforce parking until 10 p.m. be added back in.

“My concern is that without pressure maybe the discussion won’t happen because the parking issues are something that we need to look at and I want to look at it sooner rather than later," said Maxwell.

Ford indicated that more parking measures will be studied and brought before the MTA Board, especially in light of the fact that the agency is now facing an additional $13 million gap, due to the recent rejection of an SEIU contract and more state budget impacts.

While not giving a specific time line, Ford responded: “It will be something that we’re looking at very quickly.”  He had earlier indicated additional parking measures would not be added without consultation with the MTA Board and the Mayor's office, which is opposed to adding more parking revenue in the budget.

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Supervisor John Avalos, leading the charge for a Muni budget that is more equitably balanced between drivers and transit riders, was joined Monday by a broad coalition of advocates, including groups representing seniors and youth, in a rally designed to pressure the MTA into restoring about $15 million in revenue measures carved out of the original plan. It preceded a march to the MTA where Avalos and advocates demanded and got a meeting with MTA Chief Nat Ford (hear the audio below) on the eve of a Board of Supervisors meeting to consider another rejection motion.

It remained uncertain, though, whether Avalos had the seven required votes to reject the MTA's budget, and advocates were urging citizens to put the heat on Board President David Chiu and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, considered a swing, by calling and emailing them.

Avalos spoke to a large crowd on the steps of City Hall, calling for a balanced Muni budget that doesn't fall on the backs of riders: "When it's budget season we don't come with our hat in our hand but our fists raised to win a better budget."

Also in attendance were Supervisors David Campos and Ross Mirkarimi, both of whom voted last week with Avalos on the Budget and Finance Committee to reject the MTA budget a second time, a move all three hoped would get the MTA to budge.

"In a city like ours that professes to be green, well, almost green, and professes to be aggressive in tackling global warming, this could be one of the most counter intuitive actions we could take in terms of trying to get people out of their cars and riding Muni," Mirkarimi said of the current MTA budget.

Campos said the "Transit Justice Package" proposed by Avalos represents an effort on the part of the progressive members of the Board to work with the MTA.

"I think that anyone who cares about making the city true to the principal of Transit First would jump at the opportunity of supporting something that simply gives 15 million dollars back to the system. That is not a radical proposal at all," said Campos. "It recognizes that we should not be balancing the MTA's budget on the backs of the poor."

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San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos is proposing a charter amendment "that will provide greater checks and balances and independence for the MTA Board of Directors." Avalos, along with other supervisors and transit advocates, plan to announce their own MTA budget proposals (PDF) and rally on the steps of City Hall Monday:

The proposed Transit Justice Package proposes increased parking fees in certain parts of the City on Sundays and evenings, eliminating public subsidy in the City’s parking garages, rolling back some fare increases and safe guarding access for low income MUNI riders. 

Avalos and Supervisors Campos and Mirkarimi, sitting on the Budget and Finance Committee, voted again this week to reject the MTA budget, which calls for fare hikes and service reductions to deal with a $129 million deficit. Avalos sent a letter to the MTA Board late Friday explaining his proposed charter amendment:

I have asked the City Attorney to draft a Charter Amendment that would allow for a more balanced approach to appointing members of the MTA board.  The amendment provides the mayor with three appointments, the [Board of Supervisors] with three appointments and a yet to be determined independent government entity with one appointment to the MTA board. I know this may cause you some alarm, but the true nature of the proposals is to ensure that MTA has greater independence to make budgetary and policy decisions on this very important city department.

A charter amendment requires six votes of the Board of Supervisors to place on the ballot. The deadline for supervisors to introduce measures for the November ballot is Tuesday, the date of their next meeting. The rally Monday will be held at 3pm at City Hall on the Polk Street steps. We'll be staffing and tweeting the latest news.

The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee voted for a second time Wednesday to reject the MTA budget and send it back to the full Board. It followed a narrow vote by the full Board Tuesday to table BOS Prez David Chiu's original rejection motion, following a "compromise" reached at the last minute to put $10.3 million in revenue and cost savings back into Muni's budget.

The 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Carmen Chu dissenting, followed a lengthy discussion in which Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos and Ross Mirkirami argued that the MTA budget was still woefully unacceptable, with all agreeing the rejection motion was the only way to get the MTA to budge some more. A procedural move at the last meeting allowed members to consider the motion again.

"We were able to get to where we got to yesterday because we had a measure before us calling for the rejection of the MTA budget," said Avalos. "I do think that we live in a political world and need to have this rejection measure before us in order to be able build the kind of pressure we might need to get some more changes."

Avalos said if there was anything flawed about the process over the last week it was that supervisors weren't being specific enough about changes and ideas they wanted to see in the budget, instead only criticizing what they thought was wrong with it. 

"I think if we have a process where we can come to some agreements that are specific and take those to the MTA and the Mayor and use the next week to discuss that somewhat further, we might be able to make a few other changes that can alleviate perhaps fare increases [and] service cuts that are alarming.”

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