The San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI) is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California.

In 2018, MUNI, with a budget of about $1.2 billion, served 46.7 square miles. It is the seventh largest transit system—in terms of ridership—in the nation.

Its bus drivers are the highest-paid bus drivers in the nation.

The average MUNI driver makes $79,617, 51% above the national average bus driver salary of $52,730.

This pay is 27% higher than the combined average salaries of drivers in Dallas, Boston and Atlanta.

And yet: What are San Francisco residents getting for all that money being paid out?

Far less than they deserve.

Since the arrival of the Coronavirus plague in San Francisco in early March, 2020, MUNI has:

• Offered fewer bus routes
• Made it impossible to guess when a bus will stop
• Reduced the number of buses and
• Scrapped its underground lines altogether.

What does all this mean?

It means that, of MUNI’s 89 routes, all but 17 have been eliminated.

MUNI claimed that the cuts were made to allow for increased social distancing on the most vital routes. How riders were supposed to increase social distancing on fewer buses was not explained.

A MUNI bus

The 38 Geary bus line—which travels east and west—is the most heavily-traveled route in the city. In pre-COVID times, these buses were packed, often with passengers standing close together in the aisles after all available seats were taken.

Loudspeakers aboard MUNI buses regularly tell passengers to socially distance from each other—that is, put at least six feet between themselves and their fellows.

But with far fewer buses running, MUNI passengers can’t be sure when—or if—the next one will arrive when they need to catch it.

So residents don’t hesitate: They scramble aboard, en masse, the first bus that shows up.

This makes social distancing impossible on most rides. 

Cooronavirus

MUNI loudspeakers also tell passengers “You must wear a mask to board MUNI.”  And most passengers do wear a mask when they board.

But that doesn’t mean all of them do—especially those who board through the rear doors, out of sight of the driver way up in front. 

Even when passengers wear masks, they often do so just under their nose or chin—meaning they can sneeze or cough potentially lethal germs on anyone sitting near them.

Another drawback to riding MUNI: Buses don’t always stop when you pull the “Stop” cord. 

Suppose you board the 49 Van Ness at Sutter Street. Now suppose you’re a senior, or disabled, or have a couple of bags of groceries you need to lug up to your apartment. 

The 49 boards at Sutter, but it doesn’t stop until it reaches Jackson Street—which means you pass Bush, Pine, California, Sacramento, Washington and Clay before you reach Jackson.

And if your apartment lies somewhere between Sutter and Jackson, you’re going to have to forego riding MUNI and walk north to it, or you’re going to have to get off at Jackson and walk south to it.

Not content with making above-ground routes needlessly complicated and even dangerous, MUNI has eliminated its underground routes. 

These featured fewer stops over longer distances, thus reducing the amount of time you had to be on board.

MUNI’s official reason for this: To protect its drivers from the dangers of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the Bay Area Transit System (BART) which serves cities well beyond San Francisco, continues to use its network of underground and above-ground stations.

No one at MUNI has yet explained why its drivers can’t do what BART’s have done for the last year.

And while all this is going on, city officials—specifically, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors—are relentlessly pushing to make San Francisco “car-unfriendly.”

San Francisco City Hall

Sanfranman59, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

This has long been their goal. And COVID-19 has made it possible for city leaders to aggressively pursue it under the guise of helping restaurants.

Countless spots that once were reserved for parking have been turned into outdoor dining sites. This seems to makes sense for restaurants, which have taken a beating since indoor dining was banned due to COVID. 

But outdoor dining isn’t as safe as many people think.

Sure, you and the person(s) you’re eating with may not be COVID-infected. But what about the people at the packed table just a couple of feet away from you?

And what about the pedestrians who often must walk between unmasked diners on either side of a sidewalk? 

Offering a mixture of incentives and deterrents has long been a preferred method for winning compliance. In Mexico, this has been famously termed “Pan o palo” (“bread or the stick”).

San Francisco has chosen to offer a sticks-only policy:

• Allow its bus service to treat its patrons with infuriating contempt; and
• Make it ever harder for residents and tourists to use private automobiles to reach their destinations.

It’s a recipe guaranteed to cost the city dearly—in both residents and tourists.