The SFMTA likes fare increases. A lot! It brings in the moneys so they can “have more of the moneys omg” as they keep saying over and over again. Funny, they don’t seem to like making people pay for parking on Sundays, or other things that “make more moneys” but that’s the SFMTA under the board appointed by “Boss” Ed Lee.
Fine. However, the latest bid to raise fares has found a way to weaponize convenience and the allure of a “faster Muni” with the proposal to raise cash fares. I’ve already gone over this before, but it was seeing the latest at the SFMTA webiste that exposed the “make Muni faster make cash fares cost more” line a total lie.
If you read carefully this post from a few days ago, it once again cloaks a fare increase as somehow making Muni “faster.” Here’s the line that exposes it for what it is:
We’re making changes to Muni fares in another step to make paying quicker and easier, so we can get you on board and to your destination faster. Starting January 1, 2017, single-trip Muni fares paid with Clipper or MuniMobile will cost 25 cents less than fares paid with cash on buses or trains or with the Limited Use tickets purchased in the subway. (emphasis added)
I know the technocrats and the bean counters can make up a PowerPoint that explains why anyone paying with Real Money is the sole cause of Muni’s legendary slow speeds.
However, if you buy a Limited Use ticket at a machine at the various subway tunnels around town, you’re not making Muni slower by buying and using it. In fact, buying such a ticket has no impact at all on how fast people board, and thus how fast the Muni buses and trains presumably run. Yet those tickets are getting bumped up in price, along with the “unwashed masses” who are supposedly the Only Reason Muni Runs Slow.
If this is starting to sound like nonsense, well, it is.
Add to this the fact that the SFMTA board is likely to capitulate to a handful of loundmouths, who are loudly proclaiming that bus lanes in the Mission are the reason for Armageddon Unleashed in the neighborhood, and you realize that the SFMTA’s changes in fares have nothing to do with “speed” at all.
If they were truly concerned about “speed” they’d be mounting a defense of improvements to Muni service – not bowing down and servicing said crazies with appeasement, rolling back improvements that have been in the works for TEN years.
I don’t see how the SFMTA can continue to ask those who advocate for a clean, reliable, reasonably fast transit system for “support” when they back down every single time a few angries, along with fading local politicians get some easy coverage from a compliant local media with their gripes. If Boss Lee’s SFMTA isn’t going to stand up for a decent transit service, why should we?