I have several serious issues with Jim's proposal.
The most important one, which I will address today, is free Muni. We
simply can't afford it, and the negative consequences would be
significant if not staggering.
Today, fare revenues to Muni constitute around $100 million per year.
Losing this revenue would cut Muni's budget by 1/3. Not good for
service. (In contrast, there was a big to-do this year about increasing
the budget by around 1/4 that amount.)
Jim's proposal talks of looking for "new sources of funding" to cover
these costs - hotel tax, gas tax, assessment districts, this tax, that
tax are discussed in some detail. Under California law, all of these
(with the **possible** exception of a sales tax with a separate advisory
vote) are subject to Propositions 13 and 218. This means that they are
*at a minimum* subject to a 2/3 vote of the electorate and may be subject
to a vote of those targeted to pay (in the case of a special assessment
district).
To provide some perspective, the annual sales tax revenues in San
Francisco were $108 million a year in 1996-97, out of total revenue of
$3.2 billion. So we would have to DOUBLE the SF sales tax to get this
level of funding.
I have my doubts that 2/3 of SF voters will support this or a comparable
assessment, given Muni's track record.
Now suppose for the moment they get the money. Free Muni is a terrible
idea for another reason: it will encourage additional demand on a system
that can't serve current users. MOST rush-hour streetcars and buses are
crush-loaded and leave people behind on some portions of the route. Even
a few additional riders at those load-points will make service worse, not
better, for the hundreds of thousands of current Muni riders.
Since I joined RM because Muni service can get pretty awful as it is,
this concerns me a tad.
If service got significantly worse, which I believe it would if it were
free, I think we would see a new exodus of riders who can afford to drive
to their cars. That would mean more auto traffic, probably not something
we want. During Metro Meltdown, by the way, this happened: auto traffic
was significantly worse than I've seen it in years.
Finally, we can't ignore the impact of those who would, given the
opportunity, ride around all day on free Muni. If Muni turns into a
rolling homeless shelter, and I think it would if it were free, you would
see a very significant decline in ridership as people feel too threatened
to ride. Recent discussions by Robert Parks and others on this list make
it clear that today's Muni has a very difficult time policing itself, and
friends have told me of experiences where they felt threatened and the
cops on board (!) didn't do anything. Imagine this problem x 10 on many
lines.
Ultimately the question comes down to who should pay for services. My
opinion is that people should generally pay their way, except in cases
where some well-defined community need makes subsidies useful. Because
automotive transport is heavily subsidized, you have to treat transit the
same way - but in SF, which has one of the *highest* per capita incomes
in the region, it doesn't make sense to *increase* subsidies, except
possibly for the very poor for whom $35/mo or $1/ride is truly a hardship.
So I would not endorse Jim's proposal as it stands today.
Andrew
Andrew Sullivan
andrew@sulli.org - www.sulli.org
s u l l i . o r g
1668 Grove, SF CA 94117
415 673 0626