Muni Releases List of Service Enhancements As Supes Near Rejection Vote

Service on the 14 Limited would be expanded from mid days to 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Flickr photo by Octoferret.

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.”