The Mayor has discussed the need to *eventually* raise fares. I actually
think he was spun rather nastily on this one by the Ex, since he
certainly didn't say that "fares need to go up now," but it's an issue
that we'll hear more about. My view is the same as what Rescue Muni has
said all along, which is that we certainly can't support a fare increase
now, when we can be assured that we're not getting our money's worth.
The New Muni Task Force proposal (which we have publicly opposed)
contains a curious provision that requires the railway to "charg[e] fares
sufficient to maintain a farebox recovery ratio of at least 36%" to get
the highest possible level of subsidy from the city. While the
matching-fund concept is an interesting one, it seems to me that you
should incent the railway to maximize *boardings* rather than fare
revenue if your ultimate goal is increased transit usage.
In any case, this does incent fare increases in the absence of
significantly increased (cash-fare) ridership.
For the record, the Rescue Muni/SPUR proposal establishes a Municipal
Transportation Fund that is not tied to fare revenue, and it allows the
Board of Supervisors to reject a fare increase (or route abandonment) by
a 2/3 vote. It also designs the budget in such a way that Muni benefits
from increases in parking and garage revenues.
Also, Tom wrote:
>Another comment that relates to our previous discussion about
>gentrification: To the extent that the
>income profile of the city continues to move upward, and it becomes
>increasingly a bedroom suburb
>for Silicon Valley and other suburban employment sites, the ridership of
>Muni will inevitably fall.
>Given the sensitivity of higher income riders to fare increases, mentioned
>above, this would be
>exacerbated by a fare increase.
This is an interesting analysis. My read on the Muni situation is that
ridership has fallen (though it went up last year) because of Muni's
unreliability. Reverse commuters probably have led to a small decline,
but I know many, many San Franciscans who drive within the city because
Muni might go kaboom when they need it most.
(By the way, the MOST price-sensitive people I know use CARS because
short-term parking can be had cheap or free, particularly in SOMA, and
time is precious. My richer friends take Muni because they can take a
taxi in case of trouble.)
A question for the message board: IF Muni worked like a charm, would you
pay more for premium or rush-hour service (as proposed by Tom) or would
you prefer the all-you-can-eat approach we have today?
Andrew
p.s. Sorry for the garbled title below:
>From: Andrew Sullivan <andrew@sulli.org>
>Subject: Rescue Muni
Can=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=b9t_Support_Mayor=b9s_Recommendations?=
It seems like I inadvertently pasted a weird character in the subject
line that the listserv didn't understand. Lesson learned.
Andrew Sullivan
s u l l i . o r g andrew@sulli.org - www.sulli.org
1668 Grove, SF CA 94117 - 415 673 0626