MUNI's (Stealth) War on Transit-Dependent Populations

by Bob Planthold, 2006-11-20

Seniors, school-age youth, people with disabilities, and single parents ignored by MTA and its Transit Effectiveness Project

MUNI has churned out forests of paper touting its so-called Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP). Though much also has been published in Beyond Chron about the multiple problems with this TEP, the response from officialdom has been: SILENCE! Is that fair? Silence, though, doesn't stop MUNI from proceeding in planning and decisions adverse to seniors. school-age youth, people with disabilities, and single parents. Rather, by avoiding comment, MUNI plows ahead without alerting their City Hall patrons or the transit-oblivious media.

There still is rancor, from officials and from able-bodied advocates, over objections by seniors and by people with disabilities to the option to speed up MUNI by increasing the distance between bus stops. The same advocates who pushed months ago for this change, as well as the public officials on the Policy Advisory Group, still:

1] haven't explained how they can continue to support such a change when seniors and people with disabilities are so clearly opposed to it; 2] haven't answered the questions posed months ago of how the studies on spacing out bus stop distances can directly apply to San Francisco's geography and populations; 3] haven't answered whether other options have been considered--such as the special transportation efficiency enhancements that will be provided the # 1 California line, courtesy of personal complaints by Mayor Newsom and two members of the MTA board of directors.

The standard response to all the questions and problems posed? They haven't answered...

is that fair?

Let's address what seems to be the focus of the advocates and of the Policy Advisory Group--car-drivers. No other group is targeted with so much attention as needing effective transit to help the city. To get car-drivers to take MUNI, they project that speeding up the busses will suffice. Nothing much is said about making sure the busses are free of vermin and waste, that they run on time, and that all the equipment is operating and safe. Rather, this is a one-method approach to helping MUNI.

What's overlooked by so many of these visionary advocates and public officials is that they are treating the transit-dependent--seniors, single parents with young children, people with disabilities, and school-age youth--as a captive audience. Unlike City Hall officials and these visionary advocates, the transit-dependent have no transportation choices; so, little is done to benefit the captive transit-dependent populations.

This diminishment of the rightful mobility AND safety needs of these transit-dependent populations even showed up in a late September letter to the editor of Beyond Chron. Earlier columns had indicated how demographically and functionally skewed was the representation on the TEP's Citizens' Advisory Committee. The Sept. letter to the editor distorted this fact by implying to readers that somehow these columns were pushing for disproportional representation on the TEP CAC by groups / individuals working with seniors and people with disabilities. Yet this same aggrieved letter-writer somehow ignores the demographic information widely in circulation that seniors and also people with disabilities will dramatically increase, in the country and especially in SF, over the timeframe of the intended overhaul of MUNI by the Transit Effectiveness Project.

If both people with disabilities and also seniors ARE increasing in numbers faster than other segments of the population, then why aren't all sorts of advocacy and interest groups reflecting these changes by including these two populations on their steering committees and leadership bodies? Such seems only statistically and functionally fair and appropriate; yet even that bias is ignored by the MTA leadership, the MTA board, the TEP CAC, and elected and appointed City Hall officials.

Again, though, this is another occasion of: They haven't answered....

Is that fair?

Even though MTA / MUNI / DPT has made no policy decision on lengthening the distance between bus stops, staff are proceeding to remove bus stops on a piecemeal, neigborhood-by-neighborhood process. Most notable is the experience of seniors who attend and use the SF Senior Center in Aquatic Park's Maritime Museum. MUNI proposes to remove the bus stop on North Point at Larkin, despite a petition signed by nearly 500 [ FIVE hundred! ] seniors. MUNI's ridership statistics only deal with how few people get on or off the bus, rather than the ages and limitations of those who get on or off at a particular spot. That's a skewed analysis that ignores the hazards to vulnerable MUNI populations who have to travel farther to get to a MUNI bus stop.

Another example is the Geary line's mid-block stop between Van Ness and Polk. The target audience to be protected and favored was NOT the transit passenger, even though this is a transit-first city, but car-drivers. Because car-drivers turning right onto northbound Van Ness were turning into or blocking outbound 38-line MUNI vehicles, the bus stop got moved. Now, passengers have to work their way up or down a sidewalk that undulates with sidewalk-depressing driveways. Why and how didn't MTA / MUNI / DPT staff take into consideration passenger populations unlike themselves?

Is that fair?

Neglect of vulnerable transit populations in transit-planning analyses seems like it could mushroom into a litigation liability problem. Does the city / MTA have any liability for shoddy statistics that ignore injury hazards? Or, is this just another case of statistics being used to favor the interests of those in power?

Yet, even at this fall's strategic planning meetings of the MTA / MUNI board of directors, the MTA / MUNI policymakers and upper management are given information that population trends show a dramatic increase in the numbers of seniors in SF over the next 20 years or so--with an even greater increase in numbers of those over 85 years of age.

So, SF knows there will be more seniors but proceeds with bus stop deletion opposed by current seniors? What Bizarre-o world is this?

Even with regard to so-called bus stop improvements--such as lengthening bus stop zones so two busses can pull in, MUNI busses STILL don't pull into the curb. This forces seniors and some of the ambulatory-impaired to STILL step off the curb into the filth, muck, and fluids flowing along the gutter.

More bus zone space means less compliance?

What Bizarre-o world is this?

In planning and in practice, both in operations and in maintenance, MTA / MUNI is neglecting its vulnerable populations. Instead, the focus is on the NON-transit-user.

Such is this stage of the Transit Effectiveness Project.

All this neglect sets the stage for some overt demonstrations and political actions that will start in January. SF's transit-dependent populations have been ignored by the MTA board and management, by the TEP Policy Advisory Group, by the TEP CAC, and by others in City Hall.

It's now time for the voices of the transit-dependent populations to be heard.