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2/26/08 - Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Executive Director/CEO Nathaniel P. Ford, Sr. today announced the draft proposals of the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP), the first comprehensive review of Muni in over a generation. The goal of the TEP is to transform Muni so people can get where they want to go more reliably, quickly, and safely.
"The work of improving public transportation and fundamentally reforming Muni is captured in these TEP proposals," said Mayor Newsom. "If Muni works the way it can, all of San Francisco is going to work the way it should, and our ultimate reward will be a great transit system that improves our environment by making public transportation our first choice."
The proposed recommendations include efforts to improve Muni’s reliability, reduce travel times, and create a comprehensive and improved Muni route network that better reflects the changing travel patterns in San Francisco. The proposals would also help address Muni’s structural budget deficit by making service more efficient, and would reduce traffic congestion and pollution by getting people out of their cars and attracting new customers to Muni.
"Today is only the beginning of a robust public process to ensure that the TEP will change Muni for the better," said Ford. "We know that before we make adjustments to our routes, our customers must have the confidence that we can make Muni more reliable, and we will work diligently to instill such confidence."
One of the key findings of the TEP is that close to 75% of all daily Muni vehicle boardings occur on the 15 busiest corridors in the City. By focusing more of the agency’s resources and attention on these corridors, Muni can improve the transit experience for the vast majority of its customers. Under the TEP’s draft service and route proposals, fully 80% of Muni customers in the morning and afternoon peak periods would have shorter wait times for trains, buses, and streetcars.
"There is no simple fix that will make Muni work better," said Gabriel Metcalf, Executive Director of the San Francisco Planning & Urban Research Association (SPUR). "What you are looking at with the TEP represents the real work of ‘reinventing’ a government agency: it is careful, evidence-based, and practical."
A joint project of the Controller’s Office and the SFMTA, the TEP’s recommendation are the result of 18 months of data collection and analysis, industry and market research, extensive community outreach, and customer and stakeholder input. The TEP overview, the draft proposals, and extensive route-by-route data and maps can be found on the project website at www.sftep.com.
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