Muni

Muni drivers rejected a concessions proposal today that would have saved dozens of operator jobs while reducing Muni service cuts and fare increases.

Heads up, concerned Muni riders: the MTA Board has rescheduled a key meeting from February 16 to Friday, February 26 at 9 a.m. The Board will vote on service cuts and various fare increases at the meeting, so it could be the last chance to speak your mind on Muni service before the MTA moves on to dealing with its fiscal years 2011-2012 budget deficits.

Consolidating Muni stops that are too close to meet the MTA's own spacing standards could speed up travel times for riders and save the cash-strapped agency millions of dollars annually. But in a twisted development that typifies the MTA's current budget crisis, the agency says its staff is too busy cutting service to finish a proposal that could lessen those service cuts.

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?

Supervisor David Campos will find himself front and center this month in a multiple-front struggle to answer an age-old conundrum: Why doesn’t Muni work better and how can we fix it?

Dozens of local elected officials and community leaders donned their novelty hard hats today for a Central Subway groundbreaking ceremony under the I-80 freeway overpass. Tunneling for the subway won't start for at least another two years, so a utility relocation project at the future site of the tunnel's SoMa portal had to suffice.

A city employee driving a Water Department truck struck and killed a woman in a crosswalk on Ocean Avenue this afternoon, just minutes before a Muni bus driver in another part of San Francisco struck a second pedestrian.

After a week of intense labor negotiations at City Hall, Transport Workers Union President Irwin Lum and Mayor Gavin Newsom's office confirmed late Friday night that both sides have reached agreement on the "framework of a proposal" that would help Muni reduce its current $16.9 million budget deficit.

On March 1, the terms of the MTA Board's two longest-serving directors will end, and a convergence of factors could make their reappointment or replacement more closely scrutinized than any in the agency's ten-year history. Adding to the uncertainty, one or both of the directors - Shirley Breyer Black and Rev. Dr. James McCray, Jr. - may actually be termed out of their seats, depending on how the City Attorney's office interprets the City Charter.