This is the archival website for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). It is not kept up to date. Please visit the SFMTA website for current information. SFMTA Continues Outreach on December 5 Muni Service Changes |
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Release date: 12/2/09 *** Press Release ***The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which operates the Municipal Railway (Muni), announced today the continuation of a comprehensive outreach campaign to inform San Francisco residents and visitors of significant Muni route and schedule changes that will take effect on Saturday, Dec. 5. “On Saturday Muni will begin the most significant changes in more than 30 years,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “The end product should be a more efficient, reliable and useful transit system.” “These changes are based on fact, on sophisticated, extensive data, not feel,” said Nathaniel P. Ford Sr., SFMTA Executive Director/CEO. “They are the results of months of work by SFMTA staff and countless stakeholders. We continue to apply this same diligence to ensure that all our customers understand these extensive changes.” Extensive changes require extensive outreach. Muni customers can find a master, trilingual brochure with detailed explanations and maps of the changes at www.sfmta.com, SFMTA sales locations, libraries, local government offices and community centers. Additionally newspaper advertisements, in-vehicle voice announcements and NextMuni alerts notify customers and the general public of the upcoming changes. Signs and banners, posted throughout the Muni system, proclaim the impending changes. At the transit stops, customer will find detailed service alerts telling them about the changes for that particular stop. The SFMTA continues to work with stakeholders, community organizations, large employers and City partners to disseminate the information on the changes throughout the month of November. Starting Dec. 1, Muni customers will see SFMTA Service Ambassadors deployed on the system to let them know about the changes, distribute the brochures and answer theirs questions. The more than 150 Ambassadors are easily recognized by their bright orange hats and vests. They are volunteers from throughout the Agency and the Citizens’ Advisory Council and the Muni Accessibility Advisory Committee. The Dec. 5 service changes will affect more than half of Muni’s bus routes and one rail line. The service reductions include discontinuing routes and eliminating route segments with low ridership, decreasing frequency on less crowded routes and ending some routes earlier. To help offset the reductions, service enhancements will be implemented. These include adjusting schedules and running times to improve on-time performance and reliability, increasing service on crowded routes, restructuring routes to make new connections, and expanding limited-stop service. “We want to ensure that the Muni service changes are implemented as smoothly as possible with minimum impact to our customers,” said SFMTA Board Chairman Tom Nolan. He added that the Board of Directors has requested a report back in six months’ time to evaluate the success of the service changes. Data on ridership, productivity and reliability as well as customer feedback will be central to this evaluation. These changes represent only one facet of the SFMTA’s comprehensive approach to bridging a $129 million deficit for the fiscal year that began on July 1. The SFMTA, like almost all transit agencies in the United States, faced an unprecedented budget deficit because of the global and national recession, and a complete elimination of transit operations funding by the State of California. To close that deficit, the SFMTA cut expenditures by $77 million through position eliminations and internal efficiencies and raised revenue by $52 million, in part through parking rate and fee increases and Muni fare increases. In April the SFMTA Board of Directors approved the Amended Operating Budget for fiscal year 2010. Negotiations between the Mayor’s Office, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu and other Supervisors and the SFMTA resulted in some changes to the budget in May, including the service enhancements on some of the busiest Muni routes and lines that are part of the Dec. 5 changes. While these service changes do not represent the implementation of the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP), an 18-month study of Muni and recommendations for service improvement, they have been informed by the data collected and the extensive public input received during the TEP planning phase. Additional data analysis and public feedback during the budget amendment process helped the SFMTA make informed decisions regarding these service changes and how to provide the best possible service with limited resources. The SFMTA has conducted extensive planning and testing for the Dec. 5 route changes and developed materials that will help staff better understand the changes and better assist customers. Additionally, scheduled running times have been adjusted on 60 percent of weekday routes and 35-40 percent of weekend routes. As a result, customers should experience less bunching and more reliable service. For more detailed information on specific route changes, customers are encouraged to visit www.sfmta.com or call 311 for trip planning and assistance in other languages. |
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