The SFMTA oversees the management of streets and ground transportation in the City and County of San Francisco, delegating its authority to several divisions within the agency. These divisions are tasked with managing specific aspects of the city's transportation such as transit, street design, parking needs, taxis, and so on.
The SFMTA handles rail, bus, and other public transportation under its Transit division (the San Francisco Municipal Railway, commonly known as "Muni"). The SFMTA handles over 700,000 weekday boardings (707,590 in fiscal year 2017[4]) on its public transit services and serves 90 routes.[5] Muni provides transit services with its vehicle fleet of, as of 2015, 1096 service vehicles: buses (both diesel and trolleybus), cable cars, light rail vehicles, and historic streetcars. The agency and its board also set the fares for the system, with the last increase setting the general adult fare to $2.75 in July 2017.[6] As a unified agency managing both the streets and transit system, the SFMTA can use its authority over the city's streets to add bus lanes (the agency maintains 15.6 miles (25.1km) of bus lanes)[5] and transit signal priority in order to improve service performance for the transit system.
Though the SFMTA primarily serves the transit needs of the city of San Francisco, it also participates in regional transit planning efforts. For example, a representative of the SFMTA sits on the board of the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board which oversees Caltrain, a regional commuter rail system in the Bay Area.
Streets, Parking, and Taxis
Through its Streets division, the SFMTA is responsible for the planning and design of the streets of San Francisco. This includes responsibility over automobile parking, bicycle infrastructure, bus and transit lanes, sidewalks and so on. The agency maintains over 434 bicycle lanes and 4000 bicycle parking racks, and has jurisdiction over 1088 miles of roads.[5] Parking for automobiles is also managed by the agency, with 277,000 on-street parking spaces and with several parking garages around the city maintained by the agency.[5] The SFMTA operates the SFpark program to dynamically price metered parking spaces on the city's streets in order to regulate parking demand and ensure that parking spaces remain available for use. Some parking spaces managed by the city are dedicated to car-sharing programs such as Zipcar in order to reduce the necessity of car ownership.[7]
The SFMTA's Taxi and Accessible Service division oversees the regulation of taxis and paratransit services in the city. Nearly 2000 taxi medallions have been issued by the agency.[5] Private transit services, such as Chariot, are also regulated by the agency and are required to operate routes that complement the city's transit services rather than compete with them.[8] In addition to regulating private transit operators, the SFMTA has expressed interest in regulating vehicle for hire companies including Uber and Lyft, but the regulatory authority for in California lies with the California Public Utilities Commission.[9]
Funding
Operating and capital funding for the SFMTA comes from a variety of sources. On the operating side, funding comes from San Francisco's general fund, transit passenger fares, fines and fees the agency charges, grants, and revenue from parking facilities.[10] On the capital side, funding comes from at least 38 different sources at the local (San Francisco), regional (Bay Area), state, and federal levels.[11] Funding from the general fund is affected by the 2014 Proposition B ballot measure, which tied the allocation from the general fund to the population growth in the city.
The total operating revenue for 2017 was $1.063 billion, with around $206 million budgeted from transit fares, $293 million from the city's general fund, and $329 million from parking, fines, and fees.[10][12] The capital budget was $829 million in 2017, with the vast majority of the funds going to the Central Subway project, transit expansion, and vehicle procurement and facility improvements.[10] Specific sources of local and regional funding include the 2003 Proposition K sales tax, 2018's Regional Measure 3, and the 2010 Measure AA vehicle registration fee.
Current capital projects
The SFMTA is managing several large capital projects for improving transportation in San Francisco. These include:
The Central Subway, which extended the T Third Street line of the Muni Metro to the Chinatown neighborhood via a 1.7 mile subway tunnel, three new underground stations, and one new above-ground station.
Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit, the first bus rapid transit project to start construction in San Francisco. The project adds two miles of bus priority lanes on Van Ness Avenue.
Geary Bus Rapid Transit, a project to improve reliability on the heavily used 38-Geary bus line with bus priority lanes.
Better Market Street, a project to rebuild Market Street for improved bicycle, pedestrian, and transit access.
History
The SFMTA was established by the passage of Proposition E in November 1999, a measure which amended San Francisco's charter and established the semi-independent agency to combine and run Muni and DPT.[13] The measure, promoted by the transit riders' group Rescue Muni, among others, established service standards for the agency and made a number of changes to the laws governing it.[13]
Prior to the passage of Proposition E, the Muni was governed by the Public Transportation Commission and the Department of Parking and Traffic was governed by the Parking and Traffic Commission. Both bodies were dissolved upon the full implementation of Proposition E.
Proposition E established a seven-member board to govern the agency, its members appointed for fixed, staggered terms by the Mayor of San Francisco and subject to confirmation by the city and county's Board of Supervisors. Board members are limited to three terms.[14] The SFMTA Board of Directors is responsible for, among other things, hiring the agency's executive director.
At its inception, the SFMTA's Director of Transportation (a position referred to, at various times, in practice and by SFMTA Board policy, as "Executive Director" or "Executive Director/CEO") was Michael T. Burns. On July 15, 2005, he left the SFMTA for a position with Santa Clara VTA. Deputy Executive Director Stuart Sunshine, a former aide to Mayor Frank Jordan and Mayor Willie Brown, and a former head of the Department of Parking and Traffic, served as acting executive director until January 17, 2006, when Nathaniel P. Ford Sr., previously the general manager and CEO of MARTA in Atlanta, took over as the new executive director. On June 15, 2011, the SFMTA announced Ford would be leaving the agency effective June 30, 2011; shortly thereafter the SFMTA Board decided that Director of Administration, Taxis, and Accessible Services Debra A. Johnson would take over as acting executive director until a permanent replacement was selected by the SFMTA Board.[15][16] The board selected Edward D. Reiskin, the head of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, as the permanent executive director, effective August 15, 2011.[17]
The first chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors was H. Welton Flynn; he was succeeded by Cleopatra Vaughns. When Vaughns left the board, James McCray Jr. was elected chairman. Like two of his then-colleagues, McCray previously served on the Parking and Traffic Commission, which was abolished when the department merged into the SFMTA. A majority of the current SFMTA Board was first appointed by Mayor Ed Lee; Tom Nolan, Cheryl Brinkman, and Malcolm Heinecke were initially appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and later reappointed by Lee.[18][19]
Only once has the Board of Supervisors exercised its prerogative, under the charter, to reject the mayor's appointees to the SFMTA Board, when then-Mayor Newsom appointed Hunter Stern to a vacant seat. The Board of Supervisors rejected Stern by a 7–4 vote on September 27, 2005. Stern was an official with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Proposition E also established a 15-member SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council which must review the agency's budget and which makes recommendations on agency policy. The mayor appoints four members of the SFMTA Citizens Advisory Council and each member of the Board of Supervisors appoints one.
Proposition E allowed for the SFMTA to take over the functions of the Taxicab Commission. In 2009, the agency did so, as a result of legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by the mayor.
In November 2005, the voters of San Francisco rejected, by a margin of 35%–65%, a ballot measure which would have allowed the Board of Supervisors to appoint three of the SFMTA Board's seven members. In November 2007, the voters of San Francisco approved, by a vote of 55% to 45%, a charter amendment further expanding the power of the SFMTA Board, granting the agency more flexibility in its labor relations, providing more funding for the agency, and imposing new limits on downtown parking.[20] In November 2016 San Francisco voters rejected by 45%–55%[21] a second ballot measure that would have split appointments between the mayor and the Board of Supervisors. The measure would also have made it easier for the supervisors to reject the SFMTA budget.[22]
In November 2016, SFMTA was hit by hackers, using ransomware, demanding $70,000 in bitcoins, with fare machines reading “OUT OF SERVICE”, resulting in passengers riding for free.[23]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in San Francisco, SFMTA cut their bus service from 68 lines in February 2020 to as low as 17 in April 2020. In July 2020, SFMTA expected to lose over $568 million in revenue over the next four years. Along with increased pension costs and an expected annual $472 million maintenance cost, the transportation chief Jeffrey Tumlin has stated that up to 40 lines would not be reimplemented if the city of San Francisco fails to find new revenue sources.[24]
The city charter refers to this office as the Director of Transportation, though the alternative title "Executive Director" was more commonly used during the first decade of the agency's existence. In February 2006, the MTA Board adopted a resolution adding "CEO" to the title.[27] When Edward D. Reiskin took office in 2011, he opted to use only the position's official title.[28]
List of chairs of the SFMTA Board of Directors
Name
Service Began
Service Ended
H. Welton Flynn
March 7, 2000
January 20, 2004
Cleopatra Vaughns
January 20, 2004
May 2, 2006
Michael Kasolas (acting)
May 2, 2006
May 16, 2006
James McCray Jr.
May 16, 2006
February 3, 2009
Tom Nolan
February 3, 2009
January 17, 2017
Cheryl Brinkman
January 17, 2017
January 15, 2019
Malcolm Heinicke
January 15, 2019
May 19, 2020
Gwyneth Borden
May 19, 2020
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