Well, it's been a tumultuous day in the annals of the Muni and the F-Line.
The operators, riders and Rescue Muni all helped in apparently preventing a
drastic 40% cut in weekday service from happening. Hard to believe.
The articles in the Chronicle and the Examiner were interesting in that
Muni flack P. J. Johnston made some dreadful mistakes which were both
misleading and inaccurate. These cannot be allowed to go unanswered. He
needs to separate fact from innuendo.
In the Chron article, in the very first paragraph, it was stated that
"Service on San Francisco's historic F line...may be cut by 40% under a
plan by [Muni] officials to beef up the Muni Metro." This is false. Under
the pending spring signup at Green Division, NO extra runs were added to
Muni Metro operations. In fact, our original signup--the one which
instituted full M-Line POP with 1 operator per 2-car train--called for only
117 Muni Metro runs, 14 fewer than current! (This signup was withdrawn
when the union stepped in and made management aware that there weren't a
sufficient number of serviceable LRVs to make M-Line POP work.)
Johnston says, "...The reality is that muni has limited resources and
limited [sic] demands. We're talking about a line that has fewer than
10,000 people vs. the N-Judah, which has 37,000 passenger trips each
weekday." This is true, but we're talking apples and oranges here. The N
Line already has POP and 1 operator for 2 cars. It's designed for greater
capacity. So does he propose to shift F-Line operators to the N Line? NO.
Johnston goes on to say that "the demands of the Muni Metro are 'higher
than ever before'". What does that have to do with a 40% service reduction
on the F? That would increase service on each line by less than 7% if one
operator were allocated to each of the five Muni Metro lines. Total
garbage.
In the next paragraph he asserts that "...our No. 1 responsibility is to
get commuters to work..." Well, Muni Metro fails miserably in this regard.
I won't even go into this because it'll make me go postal. The F-Line,
however, succeeds in getting people to work. And toward the end of the
article he re-asserts this with "...plenty of Metro riders are clamoring
for more service as well...if you ask someone on the J-Church whether they
think the five runs should remain on the F-Line, even if it means the
J-Church is going to stay crowded, then you'll get a different answer." He
made a poor choice of line here. In actual fact, dozens of J-Line riders
each weekday ride F-Line pullout streetcars instead of the J LRVs because
they get reliable service. And it isn't the fault of the F-Line operators
and our extra runs that there are shortages on the J-Line; it's because of
the ongoing LRV equipment crunch.
Now to the Examiner article: The headline reads "Muni backtracks on
cutting F-line". But if you read the fine print there's an awful lot of
hemming and hawing, and "gee whiz". In all fairness, this was written
before Mayor Brown's press conference today.
However, the article still misleads. Once again, Johnston makes the
mistake of stating that the five operators are needed to handle runs on
Muni Metro instead.
Toward the end there is a puzzling reference to "hourly" runs. I don't
think the reporter really understood this. An F car takes an hour and 10
minutes to make a round trip.
RM's Richard Mlynarik had a nice quote. "San Franciscans choose to ride
the F-Market rather than suffer another breakdown in the Stygian subway..."
My sentiments exactly. In the words of F-Line operators, "With a
streetcar...every day above ground is a GREAT day!"
Peter Ehrlich
F-Line Operator
Green Light Rail Division
<norcalrr@sprynet.com>