Board of Supervisors Accepts Muni Fare Hikes

After negotiating with the Mayor's office, Supervisor David Chiu abandoned his objection to the SFMTA budget in exchange for a $10 million reduction in costs to riders, according to Stephen T. Jones. (Update: more detail from Paul Hogarth at Beyond Chron)

By a vote of 6-5 the Board voted to accept the SFMTA budget, which includes a 50¢ fare increase and a $10 increase in the cost of a Fast Pass. Chiu changed his position after SFMTA chief Nat Ford agreed to shift some of the budget pain by:

• Paying $2.8 million less in work orders to other departments (which have their own budgets)
• Avoiding $8.6 million in previously proposed cuts
• $6.5 million in salary reductions
• $1 million in new revenue from increased parking meter enforcement (after a 90 day study, naturally)
• Delaying Fast Pass increases for youth, disabled and seniors by six months

Chiu also supposedly got some promises that Ford and the MTA would "immediately complete MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) negotiations with the SFPD to finally explain why the MTA is giving them millions of dollars every year."

Urge Your Supervisor to Reject the Flawed SFMTA Budget

The SFMTA's proposed budget includes $23,100,000 in increased financial costs to riders in addition to service cuts. The consensus among the riding public is that this budget must be rejected.

The SF Bay Guardian points out that raising fares and cutting service could actually increase the deficit next year.

Beyond Chron notes that the service cuts and fare increases are disproportionally skewed to hurt the lowest income riders.

Streetsblog SF is appalled that the SFMTA board rejected a $9,000,000 increase in revenue because it would have meant more parking enforcement, calling it a missed opportunity to avoid cuts in service.

Quote of the Day

From the dreamy Steven T. Jones at the Bay Guardian:

Rob, despite what you and others (even within the bike community) have said, it wasn't completely irrational to put forward the notion that the Bike Plan should have been exempt from detailed, two-year environmental review. There's no doubt that facilitating safe bicycling improves the environment, and there's nothing in CEQA that gives priority to automobiles. A judge didn't agree that the EIR could be waived, deciding to broaden the reach of CEQA to include bike plans for the first time, but the EIR has now supported the city's original assumption. After all these long and expensive legal and bureaucratic delays, we're essentially where we were three years ago, albeit with environmental documents that should allow us to move faster than we were able to then. All your lawsuit accomplished, Rob, was to delay the plan and force taxpayers to spend millions of dollars more on it than they otherwise would have.

CVC 21950(a)

SF Citizen poses a question for those of you who travel through SF behind a windshield: What do you do when you approach an intersection - no stoplight - with some poor abuelita waiting, stranded on the median for a chance to cross the street?

This is hardly an academic issue; there are hundreds, if not thousands of intersections in this city where at least one direction of traffic has no signal or sign. What do you do? No stop sign, no stop light, no stop - right? No.

California Vehicle Code (that thing you had to pretend to have read when you were 15) Section 21950 (a) states unambiguously:

The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.

So, since you like totally knew that, you stop.

But these uncontrolled intersections usually occur at broad, multi-lane expressways. What, then, asks SF Citizen, of the cars that just keep on cruising past, preventing the pedestrian from crossing? Law of the jungle? My car is bigger and faster so I crush you if you try to slow me down? Once again we can turn to that obscure tome, the CVC. This time Section 21951:

Whenever any vehicle has stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle.

I suppose it's unreasonable to hold drivers to the rules of the CVC. We certainly don't enforce it's provisions to any reasonable extent. Since there's almost no chance of getting a ticket for violating CVC 21950 (a) or 21951, it's to be expected that nobody abides by them.

Well that's not okay! Enforcement of these and other laws protecting pedestrians has to be some kind of a priority.

SF Citizen suggests signalizing these intersections, at least the most dangerous of them. I completely support that idea. Good street design works as a compliment to law enforcement. It's past time to get some action from our civic leaders on this issue. Since our lovely mayor actively violates the vehicle code I suggest contacting your member of the Board of Supervisors, or writing a letter to the editor of the Chronicle, Examiner, Guardian, or other newspaper of choice.

Excellent Feature on LOS Reform

LOS stands for Level Of Service. It's a metric that transportation and environmental planners use to evaluate the impact of new construction under CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act). But it's a bad one, and LOS reform has become a buzzword among local transportation equity activists. I first heard about it from the SF Bay Guardian's Stephen T. Jones, and it's been gaining visibility as the transit advocacy community has diversified and become more robust in the Bay Area.

Well, Streetsblog has a great three-part feature post summarizing the history of this 'tool,' its faults, and options for abolishing it in the future. Check it out:

Paradise LOSt (Part I): How Long Will the City Keep Us Stuck in Our Cars?
Paradise LOSt (Part II): Turning Automobility on Its Head
Paradise LOSt (Part III): California’s Revolutionary Plan to Overhaul Transportation Analysis