Nat Ford

The future CEO and executive director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) should be a visionary who can focus on implementing a labor agreement with transit operators, improve Muni reliability, make more taxis available, focus on pedestrian safety and expand bike facilities, Mayor Ed Lee told the Board of Supervisors yesterday.

In a unanimous vote, the SFMTA Board of Directors this afternoon approved a $384,000 severance package for outgoing Executive Director/CEO Nat Ford, and announced that the agency will accept applications for the top job until July 1, when he is scheduled to depart.

After months of insisting that he is focused on San Francisco and the SFMTA, Muni Chief Nat Ford has reached an agreement with the agency's Board of Directors to leave at the end of the month, Streetsblog has confirmed.

Now that it appears unlikely SFMTA Executive Director/CEO Nat Ford is headed to D.C., the focus turns to whether the veteran transit professional can keep his job in San Francisco. While no one we spoke to at City Hall was willing to publicly talk about whether Ford should stay or go, there is a growing concern that he has lost credibility.

The Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority Board of Directors is scheduled to meet tomorrow beginning at 8 a.m. EST to decide whether to hire SFMTA Chief Nat Ford as its chief executive, according a spokesperson for the agency. If recent coverage in the Washington Post is any indication, there's no guarantee Ford has the job.

SFMTA Chief Nat Ford told Streetsblog today that heading up the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) is actually the first job that he's been interested in taking, despite steady rumors that he's been applying for a number of positions over the years.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, in an interview with Streetsblog this week, pledged to make the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) implementation his number one Muni priority. That'll be no easy task, however. More than three years after the SFMTA Board unanimously approved a plan to give Muni its first major revamp in 20 years, the TEP -- at a cost of over $3 million so far -- remains just another plan collecting dust.

In a wide ranging interview with Streetsblog this morning, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said he is frustrated by how long it takes to implement ideas to improve transit and pedestrian safety, and pledged to make the implementation of the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) the top Muni priority in his administration.

Rumors about whether SFMTA Chief Nat Ford plans to depart the agency have been circulating for years now.  In interviews with Streetsblog, Ford has repeatedly said he doesn't want to leave the SFMTA, telling us in our most recent meeting last September that he is confident about the future the agency is charting "and I'd like to be here for that future." The latest gossip about Ford, however, is more than just a rumor.