Muni

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) got the mainstream media's attention during the holiday season after reporting that the dismal economy had helped push transit ridership down by 3.8 percent during the first three-quarters of 2009, when compared with the previous year.

Editor's note: Today, we introduce the first installment in an occasional series of profiles of Muni riders and the lines they ride.

MTA Director Cameron Beach expressed his frustration today about slowed Muni vehicles that have nothing to do with traffic congestion or frequent bus stops: for almost as long as he's been a director, Beach complained, trains in the Twin Peaks tunnel between Castro and West Portal stations have been operating well below their historical speed of 50 miles per hour.

It wasn't without grumbling, but commuters this morning made it through the biggest changes to Muni's bus network in over 30 years, and the MTA wasn't sent scrambling to fix any huge problems.

At California State Assembly Committee on Transportation meetings this morning and Tuesday, the California Transit Association (CTA) and public transit agency representatives will discuss the challenges that state funding cuts have imposed on transit providers. Today's hearing is at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board Room. The Tuesday hearing takes place in the Sacramento Regional Transit District Board Room.

This Saturday will bring wide-ranging changes to Muni, a broad reorganization of the city's transit system that MTA Executive Director Nat Ford called the most complex service changes in a generation. But while this round of changes will be virtually net-neutral in terms of overall service and revenue, Ford said the MTA's looming $19 million mid-year budget deficit will force the agency to consider much deeper future service cuts.

In an annual performance review of San Francisco's Muni transit service presented at the final MTA Board Meeting of 2009 yesterday, several troubling indicators cast a shadow on the agency's efforts to improve its reputation and service performance.

Police enforcement on Muni is getting a major overhaul after years of inconsistent officer deployment. Under a revised Memorandum of Understanding between the Police Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, officers will be required to ride lines that most frequently have problems with crime. Station captains will now regularly present Muni crime statistics for their districts at Comstat meetings, where they will be grilled on why crime has increased or decreased.

Anyone who's given a friend from out of town directions on riding Muni knows it can be tricky to describe just where they need to get off to reach their destination. Fortunately, buses now automatically announce upcoming stops and display them on screens at the front of vehicles, and light rail vehicles announce upcoming stations when they're running in the Market Street tunnel.