To Help Bring Muni up to Standard:

Write to SFMTA Director Nat Ford and to the SFMTA Board.  Mr. Ford and the Board can be reached at MTABoard@SFMTA.com.  The Charman of the SFMTA is Tom Nolan.  Current Board members are Cameron Beach, Jerry Lee, Bruce Oka and Malcome Heinicke. 

Remind Mr. Ford and the Board how important Muni is to its riders and to the businesses that rely on Muni.  Emphasize the absolute bankruptcy of their current plan to cut service and raise fares and ask them to concentrate instead on eliminating the hundreds of barriers that are currently impeding service on most if not all of Muni's 70 existing bus and rail lines.  Remind them of the dismal consequences of their continuing to waste their key staff and scarce transit resources on a virtually useless political subway.

Write to the Mayor:  gavin.newsom@sfgov.org.  Refer him to the many good Muni improvement ideas promulgated by members of the public at various recent Muni hearings and at the recent Save Muni Summit.  Ask him to use his influence to make certain that the current meat axe approach to Muni's problems is replaced with something more sophisticated....something that takes into account the many good ideas that have recently been proffered by concerned San Franciscans.  And ask him to tell the truth about the Central Subway Project to San Francisco's elected representatives in Washington.   Or telephone him.  His number is:  415 701 2311

Write to the San Francisco Supervisors who also sit as the San Francisco County Transportation Authority:  Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org, Chris.Daly@sfgov.org, Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org, Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org, Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org, Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org, eric.l.mar@sfgov.org, david.chiu@sfgov.org, carmen.chu@sfgov.org, david.campos@sfgov.org and john.avalos@sfgov.org. 

As them to take a step back and determine how best to bring Muni up to its full potential.  Emphasize that Muni's 700,000 daily riders are depending upon their elected representatives to be prudent and productive when allocating scarce transportation resources.   The current panicky program of cutting service and raising fares is not the way to go.

To Help Put the Central Subway Funds to Better Use: 

Send a letter or e-mail to the San Francisco federal representatives listed below.   Let them know just how you feel about this wasteful project.   Use our sample letter, or something in your own words.   And register your views by telephone.

FEDERAL CONTACTS

 Peter Orszag                                     Peter Rogoff, Administrator

 Director, Office of Management        Federal Transportation Administration

 and  Budget                                      East Building 

 725 17th Street, NW,                         1200 New Jersey Avenue SE

 Washington DC 20503                       Washington DC 20590 

 202 395 3080                                      202 366 4043

 Sample Central Subway Letter  

(your name or letterhead)

(Address)

(date)

Subject:  Central Subway Exposed

Dear________________________:

On behalf of the 700,000 riders a day who use the San Francisco Municipal Railway and 60,000 small businesses that depend on Muni, we urge you to divert funding from the virtually useless Central Subway to other more productive San Francisco bus and rail projects, including those needed to address Muni's critical and long neglected capital improvement needs.

The Central Subway has unfortunately evolved as a political project rather than as a well-conceived planning and engineering project.  A number of local elected officials and even a former Municipal Transportation Agency Manager have privately ridiculed the Central Subway as being a foolish venture.  They will say this off-the-record but so far not publicly.  If as much energy and political acumen had been put into solving Muni capital and operating problems as has been put into promoting the Central Subway and manuvering it through the federal funding process Muni wouldn't be in the sorry fix it's in today.

Here’s a summary of what’s wrong with the Central Subway.

·     It is only 1.7 miles long and yet would cost $1.58 billion; in other words well over $900 million a mile. 

·     Its primary transportation nodes are the Washington Street Station (the northern terminus) and the Union Square Station.  The two are only a half mile apart! 

·     Today’s T-Line light rail riders enjoy a direct connection to all the subway stations along Market Street, including the Ferry Building/Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell and Civic Center.  The Central Subway would eliminate these connections and instead carry T-Line riders past Market Street to Union Square, where they would be obliged to double back to Market on foot. 

·     Today's Stockton Street bus users can transfer easily to Muni LRV lines J, K, L, N, M, F and T and to Muni east-west bus lines 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 9L, 10, 12, 14, 14L, 21, 31, 71, 71L and 76.  Connections to every one of these east-west lines would be significantly less convenient from the subway than from north-south Muni lines 8x, 30 and 45 which currently operate on Stockton Street. 

·     The misleading statements in the Project EIR/S notwithstanding, the perceived trip times for most Muni riders would be actually longer via the subway than via today’s bus lines.   For this reason the EIR projects that twelve years after the opening of the new subway it would be carrying only a disappointing 18,400 new riders a day.  This level of new ridership would be fine if we were talking about a new bus line, but does not come even close to justifing $1.58 billion expense of the proposed subway.

·     To make matters worse, the Central Subway project is being used as justification for cutting back service on the bus lines currently serving the northeast quadrant of San Francisco by 76,400 hours a year.  Since the subway would not serve the thousands of Muni users and would-be users living north of about Jackson Street, this makes no sense.

·     Despite the wildly varying claims in successive versions of the EIR/S about Central Subway cost savings, the fact is that the new subway would actually increase annual operating and maintenance costs by a substantial amount and therefore Muni's annual operating deficit.  Given the fact that the City and County of San Francisco and Muni already face projected deficits of $438 million in 2009, $615 million in 2010 and $746 million in 2011, this also makes no sense.

The Central Subway began as a back-of-the-envelope promise to provide an alternative way of getting to Chinatown.  The project has since degenerated into an overly costly boondoggle offering little transportation benefit to anyone.  A portion of the funds allocated to the Central Subway should be redirected to improve near term transportation improvements in northeastern San Francisco.  A wiser and more far-sighted use of the funds set aside for the Central Subway would lead quickly to vastly improved public transit connections in Chinatown and North Beach, with money left over to address other San Francisco transportation problems of long standing.  

Yours truly,

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