MUNI goes from bad to worse

San Francisco has two* major public transportation systems: BART and MUNI.

BART is a commuter train that shuttles passengers along elevated tracks and through subway tunnels to and from the East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley, and several other cities east of San Francisco across the Bay Bridge), the San Francisco financial district, and the two major airports. It is remarkably on-time, fast, and–if your destination is downtown San Francisco–very convenient. These benefits come at a high price, though: some trips are over $7, and most trips across the Bay Bridge (the bulk of the commute) are over $3 each way.

MUNI is an all-pupose fleet of buses and streetcars that provides transit throughout San Francisco itself. A subway runs through the downtown stations; as trains exit the subway they become streetcars bound for various residential neighborhoods. Gas and electric buses run along a grid of routes that covers everything else. The fare is a flat $1.50 to go anywhere on any combination of routes, good for about 2 hours.

I’m generally happy with BART, but I tend to avoid MUNI at all costs. Its buses and trains are crowded and slow, and breakdowns and congestion in the subway cause huge delays. During one of my recent commutes, it was often faster to walk 2 miles home along a major street than to wait for a bus during rush hour.

MUNI apparently never recovered after the ridership decline that accompanied the dotcom crash in 2001. The frequency of buses and trains has been cut; fares have been increased twice in the last five years: first from $1 to $1.25, and then to $1.50. You’d think that after these drastic changes, and with a rebounding economy that the situation would be improving. But as the Chronicle reports today:

San Francisco Municipal Railway officials revealed Tuesday that service continues to slip and that the agency faces a $40 million-plus deficit next year… A year-end service report shows a troubling trend in which buses and streetcars missed their scheduled arrival times more frequently and were more crowded, forcing drivers to pass people up.

If you live in San Francisco you experience these problems with MUNI all the time, but it is sad to read that things are getting measurably worse. For a typical MUNI horror story, check out this Municide rant.

* Two useful transit systems, that is. I didn’t include CalTrain.