CA: What S.F. looks like with Muni cuts: Traffic nightmares and no buses after 9 p.m.

Transportation leaders in San Francisco have released the most complete and sobering picture to date of how transit in the city would look if voters reject a pair of tax ballot measures in November.

Cable cars would be suspended. Up to 20 bus routes would be cut. Regular service would end at 9 p.m. each day, leaving fewer transportation options for people who work swing shifts, or for anyone seeking to go out at night.

Staff at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will present these potential changes to the Board of Directors on Tuesday. The board is set to meet all day to discuss SFMTA's next budget, a process that directors conduct annually, though it's become more urgent this year.

With COVID emergency funds exhausted, SFMTA is confronting a $307 million deficit that could swell to $430 million by fiscal year 2030. To fill that hole the agency would have to slash about a quarter of transit service unless the public approves a bailout.

Two funding measures will appear on the ballot this fall. The first, a "Connect Bay Area" regional sales tax, would generate $1 billion annually to be spread among several transit agencies, including BART, Caltrain and Muni. The second measure, a city parcel tax, would raise $150 million each year to balance Muni's budget, along with $10 million for improvements. Both appear to be polling favorably, though passage of neither is guaranteed.

Ergo, the need for contingency planning. SFMTA's slide deck conjures visions of San Francisco with severely crippled transit service, starting in fall 2027.

Traffic, which is already miserable, would slow to a crawl. Restaurant workers, security guards or night nurses in hospital wards would all struggle to get to their jobs. (An SFMTA spokesperson said the agency will still offer hourly owl service overnight.) A tenuous downtown economy could crater, as would the city's essential services.

Such forecasts trouble Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council.

"People need to get to work, no matter what their hours," she said. "And a lot of them rely on public transportation. The traffic gridlock alone would be just devastating."

Cyrus Hall, an organizer with Connect Bay Area, also feared that San Francisco could become radically different, and economically scarred, if Muni service were pared back.

"People without cars would have significantly less access to jobs," Hall said. "And those who do own cars may choose to drive them if Muni becomes less convenient. Which means everyone would be stuck in traffic."

Transportation chief Julie Kirschbaum was careful to note, in an interview, that the scenarios her team will publish ahead of the workshop do not constitute a "plan" per se, but rather a possible future.

"Our goal isn't to create scare tactics, but to be straightforward and transparent about what would happen" absent an economic life raft, she said.

Should one ballot measure fail, SFMTA would hatchet up to 900 positions across all divisions, from traffic signal maintenance, to engineers who design bike lanes, to tow yard workers who help people retrieve their cars on evenings and weekends. More than twice as many jobs — some 2,100 — would be at risk if both measures are struck down.

There is no way to downsize labor without also eviscerating service. Muni would likely target routes with redundancies, such as the 6-Hayes/Parnassus and the 27-Bryant buses. Lines that serve neighborhoods in the hills may also be on the chopping block, since these areas have less ridership than dense downtown corridors. Commuters in the Outer Richmond and Ocean Beach areas could lose the 18-46th Avenue. The 67 bus would stop running in Bernal Heights, while the 35-Eureka would no longer carry people from Glen Park to the Castro.

Whole swaths of San Francisco's west side could become transit deserts, as could the blossoming tech hubs of Mission Bay and SoMa.

Although many of the more essential Muni lines would be salvaged, wait times could double. Imagine standing for 20 minutes on a Muni Metro platform during rush hour, harried and late for work, watching nervously for the flash of train lights in a tunnel. For San Franciscans who are used to a fast-paced lifestyle, the thought is inconceivable.

Mayor Daniel Lurie can hardly fathom a sudden unraveling of the transit system, at a moment when San Francisco appears to be recovering.

"To support the families, workers, students, and seniors who rely on Muni — and continue San Francisco's economic comeback — we cannot let these measures fail," he said of the proposed local and regional taxes. "I will continue to work tirelessly to ensure we protect San Francisco public transit."

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