Free Muni

Back during the heady days of the first dot.com boom, Muni was every-body's favorite thing to bitch about. The surge in population, and corresponding surge in ridership meant that the chronically underfunded transit service now faced increased ridership without a corresponding increase in budgets... it had old, outdated equipment that needed replacing and it needed to adjust its services to serve an evolving and rapidly changing population.

Sound familiar?

I was horrified, because it was a time when city revenues were booming and the economy was Go-go-go all the time. I didn't understand how was it possible that The City couldn't afford to properly fund Muni? As it turns out, it wasn't that the city didn't have the money... it was that the city didn't have the political will to solve the problem. Again, same situation, a decade-and-a-half later.

One of the solutions suggested to address Muni's problems, back in the dot.com days was to change the way it was funded. If funding is tied to ridership, but ridership can't go up because of bad service and lack of service, than funding to fix service and serve more riders never happens, creating a circle of failure.

What if Muni was funded the way our highways and streets are funded... that is, not on a per usage basis, but from general funds, and specific tax set asides?  What happens if Muni is free?

Some major points about "Free Muni:"
Revenue collection infrastructure eats up a large percentage of fares. Fair box maintenance and enforcement cost money.  Perhaps the specific percentages have changed since the advent of the clipper card, but those clipper readers and clipper infrastructure still need to be maintained and paid for.

Collecting fairs takes time:  On busy routes waiting for everyone to get their transfer slips and pay creates delays. If everyone were able to just get on the bus, at either door, overall rout times and speed could be increased, particularly on busy routs. Meaning it takes less buses to do the same number of routs.... OR you have more buses available for the route because they are zooming down Geary street much faster. so free Muni is a faster Muni.

The one downside pointed out by the free Muni studies* was that expected Ridership would Go up.  That's a win right? Part of  the goal of mass transit is to get people out of their cars and this would seem to be a win. But increased usage means increased crowding which would mean a need for more funding for more buses/LRVs.  This is only a problem if your funding isn't tied to ridership levels. If you have Muni Funding tide to usage, then this win stays a win. And, it promotes track-able and useful metrics at the management level... the more people you get out of their cars, the more your budget goes up.

Win win win.

The only problem is that in order to implement this, you need the political will to do so... That Muni Budget has to come from somewhere. Recently, parking revenue was reallocated to Muni, instead of ? (public safety?) and this created epic amounts of political backlash (SFPD, etc) and this backlash may have been behind the Mayor's recent shit-canning of an otherwise very successful transition to paid Sunday parking meters. Mayor Lee's inexplicably-but-purposefully sent Muni back into a deficit. That is some serious political football there. Muni was a wide receiver crossing the middle, jumping up for a pass, and Mayor Lee was a linebacker that speared Muni in the kidney. Muni will be pissing blood for weeks.

So where does the money come from? Who benefits the most from Free Muni? Employers of course. Many employers in the city pay for public transit as a perk for their employees (I know I did when I had a small biz in The City). Employers suffer when a bad Muni system makes their employees late for work, or stressed out when they get to work. Start there. Who else benefits? Land developers who can now sell condos without parking spots because Muni works and is free? Who else?**  Restaurants who can now expect more business because people Don't have to spend 30-40 minutes circling for parking? All of these groups are big players in city politics, and don't want Muni in their pocket books. And other agencies don't want their existing funding shifted away from them to Muni.

So Free Muni would have to arrive on a populist wave of anger and outrage, championed by someone who wanted to build a political career on the back of this very populist and popular idea.  Any takers?


*Sorry, but Google is failing me here. I'm sure you can dig up some of this history in 98-2001 era Bay Guardian editorials and articles. Right now, all of the internet Muni stuff seems to be related to how Muni can't possible afford to let kids ride for free, which tells you how bad things have become, vs-a-vi finding solutions to Muni's problems.

**Another way to look at it is who is rich and politically unpopular right now? Tech buses might have been a solution, but the big tech companies already sabotaged local cities by creating state legislation making it impossible for Muni  to rent out its bus stops to Google.  But... but but but.... Muni could refuse to enter in a commercial agreement with the tech buses... enforce existing traffic codes, and funnel that tech bus service to city owned parking lots.  Its sort of a dodge... but what SF would be dodging is Sacramento interference in local politics and revenue generation.  Given Google's recent "altruism/PRGambit" of paying for low income youth Muni passes, Its clear that they have money to burn. Let em burn it on a functioning public transit system for everyone.