Streetsblog San Francisco

Muni riders, apparently leaving a broken-down N-Judah train, walk out of the Sunset Tunnel. Photo: ChazWags/Flickr

Just how bad is Muni? And is it getting any better? Supervisor Scott Wiener has called for monthly reports from the SF Municipal Transportation Agency and the City Controller’s Office to tally up the true cost of transit delays and track progress on Muni’s reliability.

Supervisor Scott Wiener. Photo: Dennis Hearne Photography

The regular reports to the Land Use and Economic Development Committee would help inform the public and keep Muni’s chronic problems in the spotlight as a funding priority, said Wiener. ”It’s important for us as policymakers to see it and hear from our constituents so we can build political support to actually fix this system,” he said at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “We’ve had some budget debates relating to Muni in the past year, Muni has never won those debates, and we’ve seen money leave Muni or not come into Muni in the first place, and I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

Wiener requested status reports on reducing Muni’s $420 million backlog in deferred maintenance for vehicles and infrastructure, and fixing up out-of-service Muni trains and buses. He also wants a monthly count of missed runs and “subway meltdowns,” as well as a study of the “economic productivity loss as people are stuck on Muni, late for work, miss appointments, don’t get to school, and don’t get to carry on their life because they’re waiting in a station, streaming up on to the street walking downtown.”

“Riders see this deficiency every day, with missed runs, with breakdowns, with systemic meltdowns where the entire subway fails for a significant period of time, and with all sorts of problems that seem to be occurring with more and more regularity,” said Wiener.

Ben Kaufman, spokesperson for the SF Transit Riders Union, said the organization “is encouraged by Supervisor Wiener’s proposal and appreciative of his attention to Muni’s system-wide issues that continue to plague its ridership.”

But beyond fixing up its existing infrastructure, said Kaufman, the city also needs to keep its eye on upgrading its transit routes with solutions like those proposed in the Transit Effectiveness Project, and to “implement them expeditiously.”

“It is incumbent upon our city to focus on the solutions to these problems rather than just the problems themselves,” he said. “We have a good idea of how to create an efficient and reliable transit system, as evidenced by the best practices of cities around the country and world. Transit improvements such as traffic signal prioritization and physically separated bus-only lanes will go a long way toward making bus and train performance more predictable for the agency — as we mitigate external factors such as traffic congestion and red lights — and thus more efficient and reliable for Muni passengers.”

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Update 3/5/13: This bill was finally approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Developers would be allowed to skirt limits on car parking if they devote the extra spaces to car-sharing, under a proposal approved unanimously by the SF Planning Commission yesterday. The bill [PDF], which advocates warn could be abused as a loophole to expand private parking, would apply to residential and commercial buildings. The legislation must still be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Even as demand grows, car-share parking spots are disappearing as gas stations and parking lots are redeveloped. A proposal would allow developers to exceed parking maximums to add car-share spots, but advocates say it could be abused to expand private parking. Photo: Lacy Atkins, SFGate

Under the proposal, developers who want to build the maximum number of private parking spots permitted by the planning code but aren’t willing to devote any of those spots to car-share would be allowed to add up to five extra car-share spots in a building of 50 residential units or less. For buildings larger than that, which are required to provide at least one car-share space, up to eight could be added. To be eligible for the exemption, a developer cannot apply for a conditional use permit to exceed the maximum allowance for private parking, according to Andres Power, an aide to Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the proposal.

Advocates say that letting developers exceed parking maximums undermines the purported spirit of the bill. “Car-share is meant to reduce demand for residential parking, so car-share spaces ought not be over and above the maximum number of residential spaces,” said Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “Using car-share to justify excess parking is cynical greenwash, and nothing more.”

Proponents argue that the bill would make it easier for car-share companies to provide spots evenly distributed near residences, which is becoming increasingly difficult as sites like parking lots and gas stations, where many car-share spots are located, are redeveloped for housing and other uses.

Power cited studies showing that, on average, every available car-share vehicle replaces eight to ten privately-owned cars while encouraging the use of transit, walking, and biking. Essentially, he argued, car ownership would be more effectively reduced if developers build extra spaces for car-share than no car-share spaces at all.

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The city's proposed reforms on transportation fees would end a non-profit exemption for major developments like hospitals and university campuses, but opposition is stirring from smaller organizations who seem to believe they'll be affected. Photo: THE Holy Hand Grenade!/Flickr

With any increase in the number of people living and working in San Francisco comes an added strain on the city’s streets and transit system. To account for that, San Francisco collects fees on new development — with an exception carved out for just about any non-profit organization. That means that even massive developments like hospitals, university campuses, or museums — which generate thousands of daily trips — may pay nothing to help the city’s transportation agencies accommodate them.

That would change under a city-led effort to reform the way San Francisco collects and distributes transportation revenue, but city officials say they’ve met with unexpected opposition from small non-profit organizations based on misconceptions about who would have to start paying fees. The fact is that most non-profits would not pay the one-time fee under the proposal.

The debate is expected to culminate at a Board of Supervisors hearing on December 4 on changes to the city’s Transit Impact Development Fee (TIDF). The board routinely approves TIDF updates, but this one is more significant because it would be used as a stepping stone toward the proposed Transportation Sustainability Fee (TSF). The TSF is expected to replace the TIDF in 2014 as part of the Transportation Sustainability Program (TSP), a broader effort to reform the way the city plans and funds transportation projects with a focus on improvements for transit, walking, and bicycling.

Championing the effort is Supervisor Scott Wiener, who says that the TIDF reform will provide crucial funding for Muni while leaving the vast majority of non-profits unaffected.

“City Hall rarely puts its money where its mouth is in terms of funding Muni, and we know that Muni has a $100 million annual operating structural deficit, and that leads to inadequate maintenance, not enough vehicles, and all of the other things that reduce Muni’s reliability,” Wiener told Streetsblog. “The updated TIDF, and ultimately the TSP, is going to be a critical stable source of funding. We have this broad non-profit exemption that was put into the original TIDF which is something of an anomaly because non-profits typically pay other impact fees, and I don’t think it makes any sense to exempt particularly larger non-profit projects like hospital projects and large private schools or university campuses from the fee.”

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With backing from the Board of Supervisors yesterday, free Muni for low-income youth may finally come to fruition if approved by the SF Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors on December 4.

Photo: telesle17/Flickr

Favor from the SFMTA board seems likely, since it already approved the agency’s share of the funds for the program in its two-year budget in April, and SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Reiskin proposed a plan to a Board of Supervisors committee on Monday that would pay for a 12-month pilot program and help fund Muni vehicle maintenance.

The SFMTA’s original funding allocation was contingent upon matching regional funds from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which initially rejected a $4 million grant for the program, but recently voted again to award the SFMTA a $6.7 million grant.

From there, the debate at the Board of Supervisors has centered on whether or not those funds would be better used for under-funded Muni vehicle maintenance. The board voted 7-4 yesterday to approve a resolution favoring youth passes, with the opposition led by Supervisor Scott Wiener, who has stood out as a transit advocate on the board. On this issue, he has ardently called for prioritizing vehicle maintenance above free youth passes.

From the SF Examiner today:

Supervisor Scott Wiener failed in his effort to derail the pilot program. Wiener argued, along with supervisors Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd and Mark Farrell, that all of the funding should go toward Muni service, which has suffered through decades of neglect…

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A bill allowing many residential parking spaces to be rented to residents citywide was passed unanimously by the SF Board of Supervisors yesterday despite criticisms that it could encourage car commuting and discourage property owners from converting garages to housing units.

Supervisor Scott Wiener. Image: SFGovTV

At a board meeting last week, D5 Supervisor Christina Olague proposed postponing approval of the legislation for further analysis in response to a letter from Jason Henderson, a geography professor and chair of the Market and Octavia Citizens Advisory Council (and occasional Streetsblog contributor).

Henderson, along with Livable City’s Tom Radulovich, argued that the measure had not been properly vetted by advocates and staff from the Municipal Transportation Agency for the impacts of allowing most residential parking to be rented to anyone in the city, eliminating the existing requirement that renters live within 1,250 feet of the parking space.

But the bill was pushed through after other supervisors said they felt further consideration unnecessary. The provision removing the 1,250-foot rule was one piece of a larger, generally popular proposal to simplify procedures for collecting the parking tax from property owners who own five or fewer parking spaces.

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A proposal to allow residential car parking spaces to be rented out to anyone living in San Francisco has drawn fire from livable streets advocates who say it would encourage more car commuting and discourage property owners from converting parking spaces to housing units.

Under a new proposal, residential parking garages in small buildings could be rented to anyone in the city, potentially drawing car commuters. Photo: Rahim Rahman/Flickr

The proposal is part of legislation [PDF] headed to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The provision would remove an existing requirement that anyone who rents a residential parking space live within 1,250 feet of it, opening such spaces up to car owners citywide. The change would apply to buildings with five or fewer parking spaces, clearing the way for residential buildings near workplaces to be used, essentially, as commuter parking. It’s worth noting that 70 percent of downtown rush hour driving is done by SF residents, according to the SF County Transportation Authority.

“Those spaces would no longer be residential spaces. We’re changing the use of them entirely,” said Livable City Executive Director Tom Radulovich. “Five [spaces] or fewer is pretty much every residential parcel in this city… We’re a city of small apartment buildings.”

Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the ordinance, said the current limit is impractical to enforce, and that allowing property owners to rent parking spaces to a broader market would make it easier to “unbundle” them from apartment rentals.

The larger part of the legislation, which is meeting with little opposition, would reform payment procedures for a parking tax that has gone almost completely uncollected on non-resident rentals since it was put in place in the 1970′s. The entire bill was passed by the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee within the last week.

In an email to the Board of Supervisors, Radulovich argued that removing the 1,250-foot rule would go against the city’s policies which “maintain that existing neighborhood parking should be prioritized for residents and for local businesses, and that parking policies should discourage drive-alone commuting in favor of sustainable transportation modes.” His statement reads:

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Since Scott Wiener took office as District 8 supervisor, he’s stood out as a progressive transportation advocate at City Hall, holding the SFMTA accountable for improving service for Muni riders, making the streets safer for pedestrians, and more.

Supervisor Wiener's opposition to Sunday parking metering doesn't jibe with his stance as a transit advocate. Photo: Dennis Hearne Photography

So it was disappointing to hear him say he’s against the SFMTA’s long-overdue proposal to enforce parking meters on Sunday.

At a Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee meeting last Thursday, Wiener told SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin that although he “completely understands the policy rationale for it in theory,” he’s “not a fan of the Sunday meters.”

“Even though the patterns have changed in the last 50 years in terms of activity on Sunday, I also know that patterns have developed taking into account that there are no meters on Sunday,” said Wiener. “I think that’s the reason we’ve seen the reaction that we’ve seen.”

Sunday metering, he added, “is something that has a lot of impacts on a lot of people throughout the city.”

That’s for sure. Every Sunday and every evening after 6 p.m., when metered spots fill up with motorists taking advantage of free parking, scores of drivers opt to cruise or park illegally. That means more drivers distractedly searching for spots, more double-parked cars delaying Muni and endangering bicycle riders, more unnecessary air pollution and wear-and-tear on the city’s already-broken pavement, and businesses hurt by a lack of parking turnover.

If Wiener wants to see the “theory” in practice, he can visit Los Angeles, Old Pasadena, Miami Beach, or Portland, where meters are already in effect on Sundays.

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