How to Fix Muni? District 10 Supe Candidates Have Some Answers

Think you know how to fix Muni’s problems? The candidates running for the District 10 supervisor seat seem to think they do. We can probably spend all day talking about Muni’s problems, so Muni Diaries reporter Christopher Rogers went to the District 10 Forum last week and gave the candidates just a couple of minutes to answer the question: What’s wrong with Muni and how would you fix it?

Candidate Steve Moss wants to see if we can “network together the Bauer buses that take people to Google and the vans that take people to UCSF Mission Bay campus and all the other kinds of the vehicles that are on our streets” to create a “more diverse transportation system.” (see his video response). For background, Streetsblog SF had an excellent story about employee shuttle buses in the city.

And why limit buses to just the streets? “I would like to see Muni explore water transit,” candidate Kristine Enea said.

Then there is candidate Malia Cohen, who wants a “multilingual approach” to running Muni and told us that from the riders’ experience, “poles need to be lowered, we also need to have more accommodations for mothers coming on with strollers.” (see Cohen’s video response)

As you know, District 10 covers the Bayview, Dog Patch, central waterfront, and parts of Potrero. If you live in District 10, what do you think of the candidates’ answers so far?

Check back tomorrow for complete video responses from the District 10 candidates and the story from Chris.

These videos are in collaboration of the YouTube/ABC7 uReport project, with which Muni Diaries is also a partner. You can read more about the YouTube project in this story by Matt Baume for Poynter.org.

6 comments

  • mikesonn

    More underground? I hope she isn’t talking central subway. If so, then she could use a briefing on horrible of a project that is.

    And water transit? Eh, sounds good on tape but not seeing any real cost benefit to running such a system.

    • Belgand

      In all fairness a real, well-planned subway system is what we really do need. The reliance on buses for a dense city is really a terrible idea.

      It’ll cost a lot of money initially, but it’s the solution we need. Not more compromises like light rail or BRT that fail to solve the problem and further fragment transit systems.

      Instead of the central subway as designed what if we had a line on Van Ness that went from Cesar Chavez all the way up to Fort Mason? A line running along California/Geary?

      None of these half-assed stations that don’t interface either, but real hubs on Market and, astoundingly, places other than Market!

      We’re one of the few cities of our size and density that don’t have an actual subway and while it might be a lot of initial expense it will pay off over time. It should also cost less than if we keep putting in these badly-planned one-offs.

  • These are some of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard. None of these people even ride Muni, do they?

  • The Muni Rider Voter Guide is up and running now…the idea was to give candidates more time to talk about what they would do about Muni and what they actually KNOW about Muni in the first place.

    Debates, especially when you have 10-20 candidates running for one seat, don’t really do much for the voter because candidates have to come up with 1 minute and 2 minute responses to Big Issues and Challenges.

    Anyway, check out the site at http://www.muniridervoterguide.org. So far we’ve had 2 candidates respond and expect more soon.

  • I’m not sure I would step foot on a Muni ferry without scuba gear.

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