By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC President

We are in the midst of San Francisco’s budget process.  The projected shortfall in the City’s upcoming two-year budget is $840 million.  City departments (except for the Police Department) have been instructed to reduce their budgets by 15%, and a hiring freeze has been instituted (except for public safety).  This translates into a $210 million cut for Muni.

On February 1, Muni reduced the frequency of the 43, 38, and 24 lines.  We are looking at the possibility of much more drastic cuts this summer, including the suspension of the 6 and 21 lines.  Here is one scenario:

Proposed Service Changes

• Suspend service (maintain parallel service)
  • 2 Sutter (keep 1, 38, 38R)
  • 21 Hayes (keep 5, 5R)
  • 31 Balboa (keep 5, 5R)
  • 55 Dogpatch (keep 19, 22, 48)
• Route Modifications
  • 19 Polk, no service north of Geary
  • 6 Haight suspend, but extend 52 Excelsior over Sunset Heights and 66 Quintara over Parnassus
• Reduce Time Spans
  • Metro (J, K, L, M, N, T), Reduce to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (currently 5 a.m. to 12 a.m.) 
  • Connector Routes (35,36,37,52,56,57,58,66,67), end service at 7 p.m. (currently end at 9 or 10 p.m.)

More detail on this and other alternatves is available at https://www.sfmta.com/projects/summer-2025-muni-service-cuts.

HANC’s position has always been that the best way to avoid service cuts is to generate revenue for Muni.  For our March meeting, we will be joined by Chris Arvin, who sits on the Muni Funding Advisory Group and is also the Vice-Chair of the SFMTA Citizen’s Advisory Group and Jaime Viloria of the SF Transit Riders     to give us their ideas for saving Muni.

Also at the March Meeting:  Page Slow Street 2.0

We will also have a presentation on the Page Slow Steet 2.0 project.  SFMTA  held a “Virtual Open House” for this project from February 14 to March 7 (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/31b4ed3f24f441b99451bd62fff7dca0).  We asked for an in-person meeting for our neighbors who don’t have internet access or find it difficult (and for those who missed the virtual open house).  We will be joined by SFMTA Transportation Planner Grant Broki,  who will share concepts and collect feedback.

Join us on Thursday, March 13, at 7 pm for information you won’t get anywhere else.  Bring a friend.  Information on how to join is in the accompanying article.