Muni underneath stress to totally restore bus strains, particularly in underserved San Francisco communities

October 29, 2021

0 1 2 minutes read

Muni underneath stress to totally restore bus strains, particularly in underserved San Francisco communities

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) – It’s been a year and a half since the San Francisco transit system was badly hit by the pandemic. Although most of the bus and subway lines have been restored, things are not running as usual.

City officials and community leaders are urging MUNI to fully restore lines, especially in underserved communities.

RELATED: 40 SFPD officers on vacation for failing to get a COVID vaccine

In April 2020, MUNI had to close 51 of its 68 transit lines.

“Our service will be deeply unreliable. There will be long gaps in service,” said the then SFMTA director.

“Today there are five bus routes that are still temporarily suspended and serve all parts of Western Addition and Japantown,” said Jeremy Chan of the Japantown Task Force. “Lines like 2 and 3 are especially important for our seniors.”

Japantown has a high density of senior citizens and senior services.

VIDEO: SF In-N-Out sends a strong message against the COVID vaccine mandate

Pressure from the community was paramount in forcing Muni to announce that service would resume on three of the five lines from February next year.

“We will not use the pandemic to weaken and permanently get rid of buses that are critical to our public transport system,” said San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston.

MUNI told ABC7 News that they made an average of 344,000 trips just last week, compared to an average of nearly 750,000 before the pandemic. This is because the passenger numbers have not recovered.

“It could be partly because people are still working from home, it could be partly because people are concerned about the rise in anti-Asian violence,” Chan said.

RELATED: 120 SFPD officials could lose their jobs because of vaccine mandate

In a statement, MUNI said, “Looking ahead to the next 6 months, our goal is to restore more once we can address long-term funding.”

While MUNI has suffered losses, the transit system has received millions in federal aid.

“This is a question, are we going to take a savings approach where we don’t spend the money we get from the federal government because we’re saving it for a rainy day, or are we now spending aggressively to make sure we? restore bus traffic so people can have their buses and the economy can recover, “said Supervisor Preston.

Some routes have been closed due to operator bottlenecks due to the city’s mandate that after November 1st, only vaccinated employees are allowed to work.