In Los Angeles and New York City, organizations of bus and subway riders successfully fought to improve services and fight fare hikes. But Muni riders in San Francisco have been less well organized, and unless this changes fares will rise to $1.50 and service cuts may occur. Activists should insist that no fare hikes be considered until Muni analyzes the revenue potential of a Downtown Assessment District, and until fees on car owners and garages are increased.
The MTA can immediately take two logical steps to raise funds before considering a fare hike.
First, the MTA should raise annual residential parking permits from $27 to $63.00. This increase of only $3 per month would raise at least $3.2 million in new revenue, and will not be felt by car owners. San Francisco car owners continue to get the benefits of reduced vehicle license fees, a move our elected representatives did not support.
Second, as much as $1.5 million can be raised by increasing rates at city garages. This is a no-brainer that MTA almost certainly will adopt.
Raising an additional $4.7 million is easy. Addressing the systemic funding shortfall at Muni is harder, as it requires a grassroots campaign and a new and permanent funding vehicle.
Back in 1980, a broad coalition of groups led by the San Francisco Gray Panthers launched a huge grassroots campaign against a proposed Muni fare hike. The effort came within one vote on the Board of Supervisors of a complete victory, but did win some reductions in proposed fares.
In the past 25 years, no parallel grassroots effort against fare hikes has been waged. There was a major campaign by Rescue Muni to improve service, but this did not centrally involve a coalition of low-income bus riders to prevent increased costs to the system (and fares rose along with better service.)
The best longterm solution to Muni’s woes is the creation of a Downtown Transit Assessment District. This option is currently missing from the Municipal Transit Authority’s (MTA) list of revenue options.
A Downtown Transit Assessment District (DTAD) fulfills the longstanding progressive goal of making downtown corporations pay their fair share for Muni. The theory is that the construction of a highrise office building puts new demands on Muni service (in the form of employees bussing to work) and that the corporations employing these workers should provide ongoing transit subsidies.
The reason many San Franciscans are unfamiliar with the idea of a DTAD is that it has an unfortunate political history. The creation of a DTAD was the basis for Prop O in 1994, and went down to a major defeat in an election where progressive candidates and issues otherwise won huge victories.
Tom Ammiano supported the DTAD, and was attacked for this stance during his 1999 mayoral campaign. The combined defeats of Prop O and Ammiano put the proposal for a DAD on the back burner, with many still believing it is unwinnable at the polls.
Organizing could change this political calculus. I do not want to revive past tensions by delving deeply into the Prop O campaign, but most would agree that it lacked a broad-based grassroots campaign, was hampered by internal divisions, and committed the major error-a la Prop K—of taxing small businesses along with the large corporations.
Prop O also lacked the self-interest component necessary for initiatives facing big-money opposition. The connection between its enactment and improved service/lower fares was not immediately evident, a critical factor that could change if voters saw the DTAD as the only way to avoid fare hikes.
The Muni leadership may also have left the DTAD out of the options because they assumed it could not go on the ballot until June 2006. But it is my understanding-and please correct me—that a statewide special election in November 2005 would allow San Francisco to put the DAD (or other tax measures) on the ballot. With such a special election increasingly likely, an analysis of the revenue potential of the DAD should proceed immediately.
Winning anything from the MTA, the Board of Supervisors, or the voters will require the creation of a broad-based citywide campaign. Essential to this campaign is the mass participation of low-income and working-class residents who will be most affected by proposed fare hikes.
Bus service is a class-issue. It often does not appear that way in San Francisco, since many people of high incomes also ride Muni. But those on fixed incomes or low-wage workers are already having trouble meeting ends meet, and will feel the fare hike most.
Like the campaign to raise the minimum wage, the push to adequately fund Muni without fare hikes is about economic fairness. Large corporations have been the chief beneficiaries of Republican tax cuts at the federal and state level, and voters are likely to heed the call to make them pay their fare share.
