How to make the SFMTA more efficient — Muni Funding Working Group reflections

This is Part One in a series of posts reflecting on the San Francisco Controller’s Office’s Muni Funding Working Group.

For more context, follow our blog, where we will be writing a post-election overview of Muni’s current budget situation and providing further updates from the working group.

Muni is facing a crisis. Federal pandemic aid is running out and inflation is continuing to raise operating costs, so the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency (SFMTA) expects to run up to a $322 million deficit by fiscal year 2026–2027. Failure to address this deficit would unleash immeasurable harms upon our city and region, with service cuts and fare increases leaving hundreds of thousands of daily transit riders from across the Bay Area stranded at the curb. As San Francisco continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic, the shock of a Muni meltdown is a cost our city literally cannot afford to bear.

Recognizing the urgency of this issue and the importance of Muni to the city’s economy, the San Francisco Controller’s Office convened the Muni Funding Working Group. This group, which includes San Francisco Transit Riders, the Mayor’s Office, the Board of Supervisors, SFMTA leadership, advocates, labor, transit professionals, and other members of the public, will gather public input, identify solutions, and provide recommendations to address Muni’s fiscal cliff.

Over the next several months San Francisco Transit Riders will keep this blog updated with the latest from the working group, covering each of the four main categories that are proposed to address the deficit:

• Efficiency Improvements: How can the SFMTA streamline systems and processes to decrease operating costs?
• Service Cuts: Should the agency reduce transit and other services to decrease operating costs?
• Revenue Enhancements: How should the SFMTA increase fees, revenue, or taxes to increase its overall revenue?
• Service Enhancements: How can the SFMTA enhance services to win voter support for new revenue?

This post will focus on the working group’s October 17 meeting, which outlined potential efficiency improvements for the agency.