by John Ferrannini : ebar – excerpt
Just as the historic streetcars are slated to resume service after being suspended during the COVID pandemic, a city plan to stop Muni’s F Line service to the Castro for up to four years is eliciting strong negative reactions in the neighborhood...(more)
No one can say the SFMTA does not excel in cutting service. It is one of their top talents. One must give them credit for that.
by Carly Graf : sfexaminer – excerpt
Supervisors say cost overruns and delays could jeapordize future ballot revenue measures
Some San Francisco supervisors are worried that The City’s transit agency has lost the public’s trust.
They point to a City Controller’s audit of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, released in February, that concluded poor internal and inter-agency communication, inadequate project management processes and a lack of accountability or consistency has cost The City millions of dollars and nearly two years in capital project delays…
Both the reauthorization of Proposition K, a half-cent sales tax designed to fund transit-related capital projects, and a separate measure that would provide a stable source of funding for SFMTA’s operating budget are currently under consideration for the 2022 ballot…(more)
By Auria Maleksalehi Perkins Coie : jdsupra – excerpt
A City municipal transit agency did not violate equal protection, substantive due process or state anti-age discrimination laws when it disfavored some taxi cab medallion holders from accessing lucrative airport pickups because, among other things, the law was rationally related to legitimate government interests. San Francisco Taxi Coal. v. City & City. of San Francisco, 979 F.3d 1220 (9th Cir. 2020)…(more)
Are there classes of taxi mediation holders?
By Jerold Chin : sfbayca – excerpt
At long last, San Francisco Muni subway riders will finally have Wi-Fi access throughout the subway when it reopens sometime in May.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced Monday in a blog post that Muni Metro riders aboard trains will be able to tell friends, family and bosses when they’re running late and check the SFMTA’s Twitter account to figure out why they’re stuck in the tunnel during delays…(more)
Surely they jest. Can’t people use their phones to call in without wifi? And who doesn’t assume the reason you are late is because of Muni?
By Marcelo Fonseca : 48hills – excerpt
Mayors Lee and Newsom sold pricey medallions to make money — then let Uber and Lyft make those investments worthless. The drivers deserve help.
In 2019, in a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations, The New York Times exposed how government officials stood by as a generation of cab drivers was exploited, victimized by predatory lending, trapped with unpayable loans, and driven to poverty and despair:..
The parallels of this human tragedy are all too familiar to San Francisco cab drivers. Former Mayors Gavin Newsom and Ed Lee sold medallions – the licenses that allow an operator to drive a cab — to balance budget deficits. Under Lee’s administration, tens of thousands of quasi-taxi Uber and Lyft vehicles — without medallions — flooded our streets selling rides below cost, which as a result, trapped cab owners with unpayable loans and drove the entire taxi industry into poverty and despair…(more)
