Muni

The SFMTA Board last week approved a $32 million, six-year contract (PDF) with AnseldoBreda to repair and rebuild seven damaged light-rail vehicles, including four LRVs described as "piles of rubble." At least one board director, however, Malcolm Heinicke, wanted to know if the agency would be better off buying new LRVs, instead of spending all that money to repair damaged cars.

The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) this afternoon denied a request from the Muni operators union seeking an injunction blocking service restorations that went into effect Saturday. The decision came just hours after SFMTA Chief Nat Ford told the agency's board of directors the restorations have been a success.

Enforcement of laws on Muni has been a balancing act for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), as safety fears and controversy over work orders with the SFPD have led politicians and advocates to complain the police are charging for services they don't deliver. At the same time, saturation enforcement for proof of payment has led minority rights advocates to argue that uniformed police accompanying fare inspectors on sweeps have a chilling effect on riders who don't understand they are only being asked to show their transfer tickets, not their immigration papers.

At the city's second community meeting to discuss Masonic Avenue streetscape improvements, attendees debated options for redesigning the street from its current configuration into what could be one a model complete street. There was consensus among the roughly 70 community members in attendance that the thoroughfare from Geary Boulevard to Fell Street needs significant work, and among various problems, the most pressing were lack of enforcement of speeding, slow transit, a history of crashes and overall lack of vitality.

A noted transit advocate and a key organizer of Sunday Streets in San Francisco has cleared the most significant hurdle to her appointment as the newest member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which runs Muni and manages every street in the city. Cheryl Brinkman, a product manager in generic pharmaceuticals at McKesson Corporation and the chair of the board of the transit non-profit Livable City, received unanimous support from the Board of Supervisors' Rules Committee, which has recommended the full board approve her nomination at its meeting next week.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced today that Muni will restore 61 percent of the service it cut in May, or about 178,781 service hours, after identifying about $15 million in funding sources and "operational savings," which involves scaling back stand-by hours, or non-driving time, for operators.

Fearing a potential defeat by voters on a crowded November ballot, and saying he wants to see faster reform at the SFMTA, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu announced a compromise with Mayor Gavin Newsom late Tuesday night before casting the swing vote against a Muni charter amendment he had originally co-sponsored with three of his colleagues.

Cheryl Brinkman, one of the original organizers of Sunday Streets who has a strong history of livable streets advocacy, will be nominated today by Mayor Gavin Newsom to serve a four-year term on the SFMTA Board, filling one of two vacancies that have been left empty since May 1, Streetsblog has learned.

Despite the difficult economic times and the large service cuts last December and again in May this year, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced that Muni had achieved its best quarterly on-time performance rate ever, or 75 percent, from January through March, 2010.