San Francisco Citizen

For the record, here’s the latest from MUNI, below.

Is today’s move being oversold? Yes. And is MUNI still an organization that’s being run primarily for the benefit of MUNI workers (as opposed to, I don’t know, the riders)? Yes. Oh well.

At least the Legion of Honor museum‘s famous raccoons can look forward to increased owl service when they hear about unprotected garbage across town:

via plomomedia

All the deets:

MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM AND SFMTA ANNOUNCE 61 PERCENT RESTORATION OF MUNI SERVICE ON SEPTEMBER 4, 2010
Searching for New Funding Sources & Operational Efficiencies Allows SFMTA to Restore 178,871 hours of Service Across the Muni System

San Francisco, CA—Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Executive Director/CEO Nathaniel P. Ford Sr. today announced a 61 percent restoration of Muniservice hours, effective September 4, 2010. The increase in annualized service of 178,781 hours, represents real progress towards the shared goal of full service restoration by the end of this current fiscal year.

By locating a variety of sources of funding from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and operational savings within Muni, the SFMTA created a one-year funding package of $15.0 million that restores 61 percent of the May 2010 service reductions. The 10 percent May cuts were originally proposed in order to save $28.8 million a year to cope with the Agency’s operational deficit caused by $220 million in state raids to transit funding and a lack of $19 million in concessions from the SFMTA’s largest union, TWU-250A.

“The good news today is Muni riders will experience more frequent and reliable service starting on September 4th,” said Mayor Newsom. “This represents real progress towards our shared goal of fully restoring Muni service by this time next year. I offer my thanks and appreciation to the SFMTA Board and staff for creatively searching for funding to do these restorations and continuing to push for reform at the Agency.”

Ever more deets, after the jump

“We remained focused on restoring service for the riding public, and despite budget deficits and economic constraints, we are excited to announce a 61 percent restoration, placing almost 179,000 hours of service back on the street,” said Executive Director Ford. “We won’t stop working until we’ve crafted a plan to restore all the service we reduced back in May, but this is an excellent step in the right direction.”

Mayor Newsom and Board President David Chiurecently announced a joint effort with the Controller’s Office and the SFMTA to present a full restoration plan by December 1. Adding back the remaining 39 percent of service through this working group will require locating an estimated $6 million to $7 million in additional efficiency savings and revenues.

SFMTA leadership will present details about the service restoration to the SFMTA Board of Directors at noon today at San Francisco City Hall, Room 400.

The new schedules include built-in efficiencies that actually reduce the number of drivers needed by 20 operators, reducing standby hours by 232 each day. The restorations also include the addition of seven trolley coaches and two LRVs back into the system. The restorations include an average of 504 additional daily weekday service hours, 499 Saturday hours, and 421 Sunday hours.

All told, the 178,781 hours of schedule restorations will be posted for driver sign-ups on August 11, withoperators choosing their runs by August 21, and an effective date of restoration on September 4. The restorations include the following improvements to Muni:
§        Restored Owl Service to every 30 minutes
§        Restored night end times for Community Routes
§        Restored night end times for many Local/Rapid Routes
§        Restored light rail vehicle (LRV) service
§        Added capacity back to 13 weekday routes and three Saturday/Sunday routes
§        Restored evening or night frequency on nine routes
§        F-Line historic service better integrated into schedule to increase headway efficiency

Tags: 2010, bay area, bus, california, drivers, gavin newsom, mta, Muni, nat ford, San Francisco, SFMTA

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 11:44 am and is filed under Muni, transit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.