Existing funds are available to save Muni NOW.
MTA Should Divert CENTRAL SUBWAY Funds to SAVE MUNI

In good economic times, wasteful transportation expenditures might be shrugged off as habitual pork- barreling. But in an economic calamity, like today’s multi-year budget deficits, transit agencies can’t focus only on service cuts and raising riders’ fares. Like anyone declaring bankruptcy, one can’t take financial assistance while concealing vast bank accounts and assets. Look at these numbers: The Central Subway Project has already been allocated $384 million in existing State and Local funds, including $124 million of our own Prop K Sales Tax Funds. City Officials and MTA management must prioritize riders’ needs and reallocate these funds to save the Muni System.
If this reallocation of existing funds were to occur, Muni would have ten years of budget surpluses while fixing the existing system, instead of ten years of ravaging deficits. Like the reallocation of funds from the equally bad Oakland Airport Connector and Alaska’s “Bridge to No Where”, existing monies can solve immediate and persistent needs. Ultimately, the Central Subway’s projected $636 million in State/ Local funds and $942 million in future Federal funds could revolutionize the Muni System. Economic crisis gives good reason to reevaluate transit priorities.
Even if built, the short 1.7 mile Central Subway does not solve Muni’s citywide problems. The Central Subway’s own EIR projects large reductions in surface buses to offset higher operating costs. Tens of thousands of riders, north of the Washington Street Subway Station, will have reduced service. Few riders will benefit from the one-half mile subway ride from Washington Street to Union Square. Far worse, from Stockton & Pacific Avenue, the total travel time to Market Street by bus is faster than the total travel time by subway.
Furthermore, the Federal Transit Administrator (FTA) deems the Central Subway a high risk project. In its letter to the SFMTA, January 7, 2010, the FTA requires that local funding cover all project cost increases, thus
placing San Franciscans in the path of extreme fiscal jeopardy. The letter specifically states, “The Central Subway Project is a high risk project located in a densely populated urban center. It is the largest, most complex project ever undertaken by SFMTA.” Like most large public projects throughout the country, the Central Subway’s cost estimates have already doubled from original estimates.
Before approving federal funds, the FTA is demanding that the MTA secure $164 million more in local funding and $88 million more in state funding. The MTA states that they are “turning over every rock” to find these funds. If such large transit funds are found, they must be used to save the Muni System. Meanwhile, Muni teeters on a multiyear death spiral of deficits.
The FTA explicitly requires proof that the Central Subway’s operating costs will not diminish the existing Muni System! But even the construction of the T-Line’s operating and maintenance costs cut back surface bus service, with more funds being sought to operate the new Metro East Maintenance Facility. Underground subway stations incur much higher operating costs.
Like a living organism, the rerouting of major blood vessel circulation away from major organs is nonsensical---as is the elimination of public transit to major urban nodes. South of Market Street, the proposed rerouted T-Line/ Central Subway will eliminate direct service to the Embarcadero Station (Ferry Building and ferry services), Montgomery Station (financial district, TransBay Terminal and future High Speed Rail), Powell Station, Civic Center Station and the entire Market Street Corridor---for perpetuity. From northerly Washington Street, the proposed subway goes to a new Union Square Station---requiring that riders walk up 8 stories and 1,000 feet to the existing Powell Station. The Central Subway would decrease connectivity to BART, Muni Metro, Ferry, High Speed Rail, crossing bus lines and major employment and commercial centers.

Norm Rolfe Dies:
SFT’s Voice for Sound Transportation Planning

For almost 50 years Norman Rolfe, transportation activist and dedicated San Franciscan, has been a strong and consistent champion of a more pedestrian-oriented and less car-oriented San Francisco.   He died on Friday, January 15 at the age of 84.
   
Norm Rolfe could be called the voice of Sane Transportation Planning in San Francisco.  With his well reasoned and strongly voiced arguments, he helped save the cable cars and the Muni J-Line.  He helped prevent Upper Market Street from being converted into a San Jose style, 8-lane "boulevard".  He helped block the Second Crossing (an ill-conceived scheme to build another transbay automobile bridge).

In the early 1960's, Mr. Rolfe joined others to keep a freeway from running through the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park and thus became an influential part of San Francisco’s campaign to prevent the California Division of Highways from ripping the City to shreds with freeways.  Years later, he was one of the first people to call for the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway.  He supported removal of the Central Freeway after it was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and worked for voter approval for construction of Octavia Boulevard.  He successfully fought against the auto tunnel proposed to run under Russian Hill. 
  
In 1970 he was one of San Francisco Tomorrow's original members and has long served on the Board of Directors of this city’s premier urban environmental organization as Chair of its Transportation Committee.  In 1971, he helped write San Francisco Tomorrow's transportation policy, which remains largely intact and current today.  He also was active for many years on the Sierra Club’s Bay Chapter transportation committee.

Mr. Rolfe studied every issue thoroughly and usually got to the crux of the matter while everyone else was still on the first page.  He strongly supported the return of streetcar service to Market Street and later to the Embarcadero (both now highly successful Muni lines).  In public hearings and in meetings with officials, he never minced words; he expected other people to be persuaded by his voice and was impatient when they did not see things as clearly, and with as much farsightedness, as he did.  He was incapable of sugar-coating an issue, or spinning it or making it more palatable for his audience.

A strong but fair-minded passenger rail advocate, Mr. Rolfe was a steadfast supporter of the Tranbay Terminal/Caltrain Extension Project who also foresaw the weakness of the lightly-patronized and money-losing BART/SFIA extension.  In recent years, he has strongly opposed the grandiose plan for building an unnecessary full-sized freeway through the Presidio of San Francisco.  He also was an early opponent of the ultra- expensive, marginally useful Central Subway and worked with others to block MTC’s ill-conceived scheme to expand Bay Area freeways in a major way under the guise of its so-called HOT lane program.
  
At the time of his death, Mr. Rolfe was a member of the Citizens Advisory Council for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Citizens Advisory Committee for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, and the Octavia Boulevard Central Freeway Citizens Advisory Committee.

 

ALERT! HISTORIC LIBRARIES THREATENED

 Easily taken for granted and too easily targeted for the wrecking ball, our modern historic Appleton & Wolfard Libraries warrant respect for their place in the history of the modern library movement, for their architectural quality, for their service and contributions to San Francisco’s neighborhoods:  Parkside (1951), Marina (1953), Ortega (1955), Merced (1957), North Beach (1958), Eureka (1960), Western Addition (1965) and Excelsior (1966).  Threatened with demolition are the Ortega and North Beach libraries.

WRITE to save our libraries:  Luis Herrera (City Librarian), Phil Ginsbury (General Manager, Recreation & Park Department) and Supervisor David Chiu (President, Board of Supervisors).

lherrera@sfpl.org <> , Phil.Ginsburg@sfgov.org <> , David.Chiu@sfgov.org <>