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Muni’s on-time performance still not meeting city goal

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Sep 2 2011 - 1:14pm

It’s that time of month again — when the city’s transit agency releases its quarterly performance report card. And it looks like not much has changed from previous reports, which is not good news for Muni officials. For the last three months of the 2010-2011 fiscal year (April through June 2011), on-time performance measured at 72.9 percent, far below the 1999 voter-mandated goal of 85 percent. During the previous quarter for the first three months of 2011, on-time performance was at 74.7 percent.

N-Judah rush hour express bus service trimming trip times, overcrowding

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Aug 1 2011 - 1:40pm

The apparent success of Muni's Nx-Judah express bus service could offer hope to riders on other crowded streetcar lines. Municipal Transportation Agency spokesman Paul Rose said other express buses could be possible, but the agency will look at community needs before adding buses to other lines. For now, riders seem to be enjoying the added service to the N-Judah line. Ridership on the express bus, which started in June, has grown from 938 passengers to 1,282 a day during the first four weeks, according to the transit agency. Muni projected an average daily ridership of 1,000 to 1,500 passengers. Riders have asked Muni to extend the hours during the evening and to add express buses for other rail lines.

Challenges await new Muni chief Ed Reiskin

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Jul 21 2011 - 4:01pm

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board of directors announced Thursday that the Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin will become the next agency’s executive director. Reiskin arrives at a crucial time in the agency where Muni’s on-time performance fell slightly to 71 percent and the relationship between the agency and its drivers is increasingly strained. 

Supervisor wants to see results of new Muni contract

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Jul 1 2011 - 2:48pm

 An arbitrator-imposed labor contract for the city's Muni operators went into effect on Friday and is expected to save the city $41 million over the next three years. City Supervisor Scott Weiner wants the transit agency to show where those savings are coming from.

Weiner introduced a resolution at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting calling upon the transit agency's governing board to give periodic updates on how the agency is saving money from the deal.

Muni to start express bus to ease crowding on N-Judah

Jerold Chinn, Jun 9 2011 - 10:19am

Muni N-Judah streetcar riders may soon get some relief during their packed morning and evening commute home. A six-month pilot project to run an express bus between Ocean Beach and the Financial District will begin on Monday. With 38,000 daily boardings, the Municipal Transportation Agency says the N-Judah is the most used and crowded of all the rail lines. Complaints have been coming in to the transit agency from passengers who are not able to board the N-Judah during peak hours, according to the agency. The six-month pilot project will operate on weekdays during peak morning and evening hours making stops between Ocean Beach and 19th Avenue and Judah Street in the morning before heading to Montgomery and Bush streets.

Muni: In elusive quest for 85% on-time performance, computers are displacing eyes on the street

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Nov 18 2010 - 11:11am

Transit agency says tech will help it turn corner, but money remains tight

Multimillion-dollar vehicle-monitoring technology installed at Muni headquarters is at the heart of a new initiative aimed at solving the transit system’s never-ending performance problems.

By investing $13.6 million in the NextMuni satellite tracking system and a new 24-hour vehicle monitoring center, San Francisco transit officials promise major improvements in keeping the city’s more than 1,000 buses and trains running on schedule. Already this year, Muni Metro trains in the Market Street tunnel are speeding up, they said.

But Muni managers are still struggling with the question of how to get the most out of this new technology to increase performance at a time when budget pressures make it increasingly difficult to do that.

Muni planners say speed to come from untangling messy streetscape

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Nov 18 2010 - 10:55am

Transit planner calls the city's streets and tunnels 'a nightmare'

San Francisco transit planners say a recipe of small fixes could amount to big changes in the nation’s fifth-largest urban transit system. But without new sources of money, many of these ideas, some of which would change the way the city’s streets are configured, will remain on the drawing board.

The system is chronically slow and crowded in part because its diverse fleet of bus and rail lines operates on a rollercoaster terrain in a fully built-out urban grid. Street fairs and demonstrations, ball games and construction routinely clog major arteries, making schedules seem academic.

The Municipal Transportation Agency launched its Transit Effectiveness Project in 2006, to reconfigure the city’s streets and tunnels — where physical constraints notoriously slow basic public transit to what one Muni planner called “a nightmare.”

Finding the slow buses

Eric Fischer, SF Public Press — Nov 18 2010 - 10:53am

This map shows which San Francisco transit routes have the highest ridership and which adhere most closely to their schedules. Color indicates on-time performance; thickness of the lines indicates ridership.

The 1-California and 30-Stockton, traversing San Francisco’s northern flank, are high-ridership lines (green), with 80 percent or better schedule adherence.

The J-Church, K-Ingleside, T-Third, L-Taraval, and N-Judah Muni Metro lines, and the 14-Mission and 38-Geary bus lines, also have high reliability, with 70 percent or better schedule adherence (yellow).

Reporters’ Notebook: En route: 28-19th Avenue often off schedule

Monica Jensen, Jerold Chinn and Sarah Fidelibus, SF Public Press — Nov 18 2010 - 10:50am

Reporter Jerold Chinn, Multimedia Editor Monica Jensen and Social Media Editor Sarah Fidelibus rode one of the Muni bus lines that has the most trouble keeping on schedule — the 28-19th Avenue.

They documented the problems the bus faced while traveling on a recent Wednesday afternoon along the route from Fort Mason to Daly City. The bus travels for much of its route along 19th Avenue, or Highway 1, which leads to the Golden Gate Bridge to the north and Interstate 280 to the south.

Drivers take the heat for discontent of Muni riders

Sarah Fidelibus, SF Public Press — Nov 18 2010 - 10:48am

Operators face long hours, crowded streets and a sometimes hostile ridership

Proposition G, the initiative that voters overwhelmingly approved to change pay and work rules for Muni operators, focused attention on the system’s drivers, painting them as a reason that San Francisco’s Muni transit system is notoriously slow and unreliable.
And the drivers did little to help their cause on the public relations front — rejecting cuts that other city workers agreed to, boycotting the annual Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest and threatening to strike if the measure passed.
But on the job, drivers work in a high-stress environment, with long hours and, for many drivers, few breaks.

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