If the city is going to bargain away the ability to run the system, the
city shouldn't be surprised that the voters issue more specific
instructions. The Muni employee unions have plenty of options here,
like, for example, bargaining for more scheduled time off instead of
unscheduled absences.
In private industry, an employer bargaining with its unions can set
certain dealbreaker issues over which it refuses to budge. So can the
unions. That process is short-circuited in city government because the
city employee unions are so politically helpful to many of the same
people with whom they negotiate. It's reasonable, when the process
fails to provide transit service (which is, after all, why Muni exists),
that the voters choose to place limits on what their negotiators can
offer.
As for "liberal" and "conservative," I'll just say this: Visibly
inefficient operation of government services breeds opposition to
government generally. Every time someone sees nine M-Ocean Views in a
row while they're waiting an hour for an L-Taraval, they become a little
less inclined to turn, say, their health care or their kids' education
over to the same folks who let that happen.
> To substantiate my claim that the Muni fare is too high,
> I'd point out that S.F. has one of the lowest rates of subsidy per passenger
> mile in the
> country. The following is the order of major cities in the U.S. in subsidy
> per passenger mile, adjusted for differences in cost of living, as of 1995:
[snipped]
There are a lot of ways in which suburban systems are favored over urban
systems for subsidy. One is the way in which federal vehicle
replacement money is dolled out. The feds provide subsidies for vehicle
replacement when the vehicle reaches a certain age. If you're a
suburban system where the vehicles provide mostly peak-hour service,
your vehicles age more gracefully than they do in a round-the-clock
urban system like Muni, where vehicles put in long hours with lots of
stops and lots of hills.
I don't know if I think the Muni fare is too high; I do think suburban
mass transit subsidies are too high, and should be transferred to
systems providing more total service (which would generally be urban
systems like Muni, of course). Some of the suburban systems right here
in the Bay Area cost a fortune to operate and provide relatively few
passenger miles *or* boardings. They exist because enough suburban
voters hope someone else will take them, relieving the freeway
congestion they face when they take their sport utility vehicle to work.
-- Daniel