This time the culprit was an articulated standard coach (non-trolleybus) 71-Haight/Noriega heading inbound on Market at 6th. A 77 year old female pedestrian was struck and later died at SF General.

6th and Market is a zoo of an intersection at best, made worse by Tenderloin-style pedestrians who seem to get personal satisfaction by running in front of traffic.

However, at this point in the route, the 71-Haight/Noriega has a purely straight trajectory — a path easy for both the driver and daredevil pedestrians to anticipate. Thanks to the mid-lane bus-stop islands the busses don’t even have to pull into a standard Muni bus stop. Given this simple trajectory, this vehicle should not have been turning, leaving little obvious clues as to how it managed to smush the elderly lady.

More data would be nice to enable the community to put pressure on Muni to prevent further similar incidents. Unfortunately, more data we will not have.

Link

I am so fond of ragging on San Francisco’s poorly managed Municipal Railway that I often overlook Muni’s remarkable, world-class achievements. (Yes, they really do have some remarkable, world-class achievements.) This post is a first attempt at fixing my glaring oversight.

Muni’s extensive trolleybus system is a modern treasure. Muni claims to hold the largest trolley-bus fleet in the US and Canada. Trolleybusses are efficient, consume little fuel, recharge via regenerative braking, require little maintenance, are quiet, and produce zero localized pollution.

• Electric motors are more efficient than diesel motors, especially climbing steep grades.
• Trolleybusses offer ZERO local emissions. Diesel fuel engines on the other hand, the most common local locomotive for municipal transit busses nationwide, produce a fine particulate matter byproduct that may be a health risk.
• Trolleybusses are not tied to any particular energy generation source. The local transit agency can purchase power from private generators, government-owned generators, create their own local power plant, use solely green power, etc.
  • San Francisco Muni’s trolley busses are powered exclusively by the City controlled Hetch Hetchy Reservoir O’Shaughnessy Dam. (Source)

Keep up the good work, Muni. Maybe the 38-Geary, the highest ridership bus line east of the Mississippi, can convert to a trolleybus when it hatches from its BRT cocoon.

Links

• Trolleybus Wikipedia entry
• SFMTA/Muni trolleybus information page
• This crazy electric bus page has more than you could ever want to know about electric busses.
• Check out this YouTube video of Chinese super-capacitor bus that charges at each stop instead of requiring trolley power lines all along route.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is a bureaucratic whale, containing, in separate stomachs, the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) and the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) public transit system.

Recently, the SFMTA crunched some numbers and said, “Uh oh, we won’t have enough money to cover our costs over the next two years.” Fair enough. Next step, “We need more money.”

Ideas? The Examiner and the Chronicle report the SFMTA has publicly discussed two classes of options: increasing transit fees and increasing parking fees.

Are these ideas justified? Most definitely yes — these fee increases are justified and necessary.

But, I believe the SFMTA needs to increase some fees significantly MORE than has been suggested. If we’re smart and look at the dirty details (below) we can find some fees that we can significantly increase. This has a multiple benefits — controlling traffic congestion, reducing total personal vehicle miles driven and rationing limited road real estate while ALSO generating significant revenue for the cash-strapped SFMTA. Win, win, win?

• Increasing transit fees: Monthly Fast Pass (unlimited bus pass) cards cost $45 per month and are priced below market. $1.50 each way to work plus 2 weekend trips per day makes a frequent Muni rider pay $90 per month if they pay per trip. The SFMTA’s analysis of neighboring communities’ monthly pass prices is wise and on par. An increase to $60 per month is more than reasonable given the value offered by the pass. At $60, the Fast Pass is still a bargain for regular transit users.
• Increasing parking fees:
  • Parking meters are priced at $.25/10 minutes = $1.25/hour = $12.50/day. This is below market value compared to garages. This could be increased.

    Idea: Why is Sunday meter collection or extended metered hours not discussed? Meters are not collected on Sundays. Meters are not collected after 6pm. Not only is this lost revenue but it causes inconvenience for City residents struggling to find spaces in highly trafficked commercial corridors at peak times. (This is the reason we have meters in the first place — to ration limited spaces. These spaces are still in high demand after 6pm and on Sundays in many metered commercial corridors. Just look at the Mission on Sunday afternoons; it’s a zoo.)

    Idea: Why aren’t meters priced based on demand? If meters had variable pricing, the City could collect significantly more revenue on Friday and Saturday nights, in addition to busy Saturday and Sunday shopping times on commercial corridors. This is a significant revenue opportunity lost that also serves City residents and visitors who are more than willing to pay market price for convenient parking.

  • Yearly residential permits are priced at $60/year = $5/month. Residential City parking permits are SEVERELY undervalued and could easily be doubled without approaching the true market cost of parking. Yearly residential permits should be priced $120/year immediately, with a yearly increase after that.

    At $120/year this is still an amazing bargain: I can park in my neighborhood ALL YEAR LONG for only $120? Remember, monthly private spaces cost as much as $250 per MONTH.

    People may complain, but even at $120/year this would result in no fewer permits purchased. Not until we pass $200/year will quantity demanded of yearly permits even begin to see a dent. Assuming about half of SF has a residential parking permit, just doubling this permit results in about $30 million incremental revenue per year.

• Congestion fees: Why is this not discussed as a revenue source? (Answer: The City can’t implement fast enough to be included as a revenue source for this 2-year projected shortfall.)

  Let’s change this. The City should implement congestion pricing within the next year.

  Variable City congestion pricing serves double duty as a significant revenue generator for the SFMTA AND as a traffic and transit speed increaser. It increases the speed of its public surface street-shared transit system and increases the convenience and utility of currently congested streets for frequent City street ‘power-users’ like delivery vehicles, taxis and persons with an absolute need for personal vehicle use.

So, SFMTA, go along with your plan, but let’s instead double yearly residential parking permits and let’s introduce congestion pricing immediately.

A week ago the Chronicle reported on some promising preliminary recommendations based on findings from the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP).

These recommendations are great. In many ways they are in line with common sense: improve highly used lines using BRT, ditch under-used lines.

Aside from the frustrating fact that it took Muni 40 years to figure this out, let’s focus on the positive: at least someone realizes what to do next.

But, I have a hard time being excited about these proposals. I cannot hide my fear that Muni is barely capable of managing its own operations, let alone managing a system-wide overhaul. They just can’t do things right.

This is an agency that claims multiple times in press releases and at public information events that they can’t seem to hire enough bus drivers. Yet, they don’t post bus operators as an available job on their website. (I would know too — I’ve looked many times, pushed by a perverse desire to drive a bus in the City.)

This is an agency that spent nearly a billion dollars to replace a bus line (the 15) with a light rail system (T-Third) that offered barely any noticeable improvement in service quality, or, by many accounts, a decrease in service quality.

This is an agency that has virtually zero accountability over its ground-level workforce due to extremely onerous union negotiated contracts. They can’t even immediately fire operators after they’ve killed innocent pedestrians.

This is an agency that, to operate most efficiently and implement changes suggested by the TEP, needs absolute access priority over roadway design and right-of-way for its transit vehicles. So far, no evidence has been shown that Muni’s merger with DPT has provided this level of absolute priority. Nor have the actions of the Mayor nor the Board of Supervisors shown that they have the interest or even the ability to offer such priority for our dear Municipal Railway.

So, rock on TEP. Just don’t write checks you can’t cash.

Link

Wow, it looks like Nat Ford might actually know how to run a municipal transit agency.

Let’s hope the Board of Supervisors gets off his back and lets him do it right.

Link

On my ‘to write’ list is a manifesto of how to fix Muni. Lay out what’s wrong. Lay out what we need to do to fix it.

Dave Snyder of SPUR beat me to the punch. I met Dave last spring when I served under his leadership with a group of volunteers to pitch for approval from the Board of Supervisors to pass the 38-Geary BRT project into the next stage, environmental review.

This article is SPOT ON.

Link

Dear Mayor Newsom

You didn’t have to spend City taxpayer money on private consultants. Anyone could have told you: Just like any other shared and limited public resource, public transit needs user fees.

Offering ‘free’ Muni is a destructive proposal. Muni rolling stock is not unlimited. Removing user fees distorts a natural and effective form of limiting the number of people that use Muni resources.

Muni needs to increase its quality of service. Removing user fees would decrease the quality of service. It would result in more crowded buses, leading to lower frequency and lower average system speeds.

Here’s the real Muni solution: increase quality (frequency, speed, reliability, cleanliness) on critical lines such as 38-Geary, N-Judah, or 14-Mission. Enforce real transit-only lanes that enable high speeds with true signal pre-emption. Prepare Muni to operate faster than a personal vehicle for trips on these ‘primary’ lines. Then, the City can increase user fees to $2 or even $2.50 for these primary lines.

Our residents don’t want free Muni. City residents are more than willing to pay for an effective transit system. It’s up to the City to provide an effective transit system and price it properly, not make a crappy transit system free.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m happy you’ve figured this out by now. It’s just silly that this advice cost tax payers $20,000+. I would have been glad to provide this advice for a bit less. Let’s say $10,000.

Let’s look on the bright side. At least you’re open to new ideas. Just talk to me next time and I’ll charge you half the rate of the consultants, and I’ll give you better ideas faster.

kfarr

Just one day before, Muni Executive Director Nat Ford expressed his desire at MTA’s January 15th meeting to address the dire pedestrian problems facing Muni.

In conjunction with Local 250A we are implementing a proactive comprehensive safety educational program regarding our pedestrians and pedestrian safety throughout the City. We will leverage a host of communication outlets and we are developing specific details that will be finalized in the near future and I’ll keep you apprised as they evolve.

One of the activities which we need to have you place on your calendar is a first ever pedestrian safety summit that will be held Thursday, February 28. We are attempting to provide a forum for stakeholders, members of the community, and industry experts to examine and discuss the status of, one, our pedestrian masterplan, pedestrian safety, and recent safety incidents in and around the City as well as other programs promoting walkability in the City. So we’d like for you to please save that date and additional information on all of our programs to enhance pedestrian safety will be underway.

We have a host of capital projects to improve pedestrian signals, countdown signals that are being installed and enhanced. We have operator training that is occurring with both our bus and LRV operators, and we are coordinating all of these activities with the SFPD and there is more to come so I’ll keep you advised as that program progresses.

Municipal Transportation Agency Meeting, January 15, 2008 [21m:33s]
(Agenda) (Video) (Audio RSS)

Nat Ford is taking a step in the right direction. But, let’s hope these planned meetings will have some teeth. What is teeth?

Teeth would be changing Muni employment contracts so that there is an immediate, financial repercussion for operators involved in pedestrian injury or deaths. For example, a one-week UNPAID leave during an investigation of fault.

Teeth would be creating true transit-only lanes on our City streets so our City transit no longer has to weave in and out of pedestrian and personal vehicle traffic. Bus lanes don’t work. Grade separated lanes with curb boundaries and rumble strips, those used for true BRT implementation, DO work. Transit, pedestrian and vehicle traffic do not mix well. We need to separate them as much as possible.

Mr. Ford is taking a step in the right direction. Keep going.

UPDATE: The N-Judah Chronicles blog has good coverage and discussion as usual.

Kudos to Muni for trying to address one of the two main causes of Muni’s notoriously low system-wide average speed: DWELL. (Dwell is a geek transit term for the time for loading and unloading of passengers.) The other cause? Busses receive lowest priority for signal timing and lane placement.

Muni’s dwell time is excessively high — higher than any transit system I ever saw outside of the US. There are a few causes of Muni’s horrid dwell:

• Non-level boarding: elderly or disabled passengers have difficulty navigating the high stairwells found in the majority of Muni’s rolling stock. We’ve all watched the old guy with a cane taking 30 seconds to walk up the stairs. Muni’s new hybrid busses feature a nice low floor. Not quite level, like a subway system, but it is a good start.
• Post board payment: queues always develop for passengers waiting to insert money into the machine.
• Excessive stops: Muni has about twice as many bus stops as necessary. This significantly increases dwell. I laugh every time when the 1-California stops TWICE on Sacramento between Polk and Van Ness. Ridiculous.

Allowing rear boarding is an excellent step forward. The article wasn’t clear about the specifics, but I assume this will allow FastPass and Muni transfer holders to board in the rear, while customers that need to pay for a transfer will still enter in front. Muni inspectors will enforce the requirement to have a proof of payment at random.

Keep up the good work, Muni. You too, Examiner. The Chronicle seems to forget that issues affecting our daily lives are the most important to report.

Link

This time the N-Judah tries to slice off an old lady’s foot.

Links:

• Nice coverage in Metroblog
• SF Gate
• N-Judah Chronicles blog eats this up.