On October 28th, your SF Bicycle Coalition turned out to a rally at City Hall with community leaders from the Tenderloin, Western Addition, and Japantown to call on the city for full restoration of Muni. Muni restoration is an effort we’ve supported since last year with the 27-Bryant and 31-Balboa and an effort we will continue to support because we believe a transit-friendly city is a bicycle-friendly city.
At the rally, speakers from different neighborhoods shared why Muni service is a critical lifeline for them and their families. “Muni restoration is important to us because we just got back to in-person learning,” said Vherny Rustrian, a faculty leader at Ida B. Wells High School. “How do we expect our students to get to school without the bus? The lack of buses has impacted class attendance and students’ ability to get to school on time.”
From Muni drivers to community leaders, the message was loud and clear: We need full Muni service now.
As bicycle advocates, we know that our mission of promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation becomes impossible if the only other viable option of getting around is for people to drive cars. We support strong, high-quality public transit because we know that when more people ride transit, we reduce traffic and congestion on our streets and open up more space for people to bike, walk, and enjoy our city.
The SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), the city agency that oversees Muni, has been going through a months-long process of determining how to restore Muni service. Throughout October, they conducted a survey asking the public for input on three service options that would roll out in February 2022.
With nearly 5,000 survey responses, the public made clear that they want the SFMTA to restore key pre-pandemic connections, especially in maintaining access for seniors and people with disabilities, and to establish new connections to connect certain neighborhoods together. You can see the SFMTA’s full update here.
Ultimately, it will be on the SFMTA Board to receive a presentation on this outreach and the public’s feedback and make a decision on what the next service change in February 2022 will look like. We expect that the SFMTA Board will make their decision next month in December, and we will make sure to keep our members engaged as these decisions move forward.
If you are with us and believe that a transit-friendly city is a bike-friendly city, join our movement today by joining or renewing your membership to receive regular email updates about what’s going on and how to get involved to make sure Muni remains a strong and reliable system for all riders.
