Transit Woe's

SFMTA to Declare Fiscal Emergency




The SFMTA, the mother of MUNI, will be asked to declare a fiscal emergency. This must be done in order to justify the one-two punch to the gut of Yay Area residents by both increasing fares and slashing service, and is a requirement of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This also allows MUNI to streamline proposed projects by skipping Environmental Reviews of new projects, which can be a long and costly step of development.

This is all being done to deal with eh $129 Milly budget deficit, but its not the first time MUNI has sang this song. It also declared fiscal emergency in 2005 for its $57 Milly deficit, and fares rose from $1.25 to $1.50. Now, the fastpass which cost $35 in 1999, will shoot to $55 in July, but will realistically rise to $60, and each trip will cost $2.00. Dang, that is what I paid to ride the Metro in NYC in August (To be fare, NYC is raising their fares too, but who wants to be fair!!).

I attended a SFMTA meeting a couple weeks ago, in which, it was noted that about 80% of all the MUNI riders own and use a fastpass. This is why the SFMTA is depending on the $60 pass to aid their budget shortcomings. Ultimately, MUNI is just broke, and raising fares and cutting service is a necessary evil at the moment. Not to mention that much of their funding is being raided by other SF departments. Yikes.

OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!!!!!!!! How about a lil Federal love over here!!