Why Should Muni Be Allowed To Double And Triple-Charge Farepayers?

The San Francisco anticar zealots have won. I have surrendered. Within SF, I have replaced driving with a combination of biking and public transportation. Last year, my Clipper card shows I spent $600 on public transportation. (Though I was on the D.L. (disabled list) for two months, and my fares are reduced because of my age or good looks. Maybe both.)

I don’t mind paying for public transportation. I appreciate the work performed by Muni’s drivers. I always thank my driver when I exit the bus. However, I question whether I’m a fool to pay for Muni’s services when up to 75% of Muni passengers are scofflaws. Perhaps, Muni, like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, ultimately wants ridership to be free. Isn’t that true Director Julie Kirschbaum?

The passenger (below) regularly boards a Muni within 50 yards of a neighborhood where the median home value is $3.6 million. She never pays.

Is she a nicely dressed homeless woman allowed to ride free? A Muni employee? An undercover SFPD narc?

What’s the fare evader mindset?

Tips are an essential part of a food server’s income. It encourages good service. Can you imagine walking out of a restaurant and not tipping? Surely, the woman (above) tips at restaurants, but then she disdains her Muni bus drivers?

How is walking past a Muni driver without paying a fare different from skipping out on a restaurant tip? Muni drivers’ salaries are dependent on fare revenue. Can Muni drivers bargain for a raise when Muni claims they are broke because the majority of riders do not pay a fare?

To compensate for uncontrolled fare evasion, Muni now is campaigning to double and triple-charge the passengers that pay fares

To bailout Muni’s fiscal dysfunction and $300+ million deficit, signatures are currently being gathered to position two propositions on the November 2026 ballot.

1. An 11.5% San Francisco sales tax increase, and

2. A parcel tax added to homeowners’ current property tax bills.

Sales Tax:

The proposed sales tax increase would benefit Muni and other public transit agencies (Bart, Caltrain, etc.) It is interesting that the proposal increases the sales tax for San Francisco residents at twice the rate of the surrounding counties. San Franciscans would feel a full percentage point bump, which equates to an 11.5% increase. Don’t be fooled by their spin that the sales tax is only increasing by a penny. One-percent divided into the current San Francisco sales tax rate of 8.625% is mathematically an 11.5% increase.

Parcel Tax

The parcel tax increase is only applicable to San Francisco homeowners and will be applied exclusively to the Muni Empire, including its tentacles:

• Traffic engineering,

• Painting polka dots on the streets of West Portal,

• Paying consultants $50,000 for a weekend of just counting pedestrians on the Great Highway,

• Constantly reconfiguring Valencia Streets bike lanes,

• Experimenting with converting two-way Kirkham Street into a rural one-lane road,

• Shutting down streets and thoroughfares, and of course,

• Muni’s Office of Racial Equity & Belonging.

Muni’s Office of Racial Equity & Belonging administers:

While Muni patrons fret about service cuts, the agency simultaneously drains funds for this DEI boondoggle? Ya wonder why Muni is broke?

Muni’s proposed tax grab

I can live with the fact that while I pay my Muni fares, some San Francisco residents cheat. But now, because of all the cheating, us farepayers will potentially be charged a second time (parcel tax) and a third time (sales tax) to compensate for the Muni’s rampant fare evasion? Really?

If the parcel tax passes, San Francisco homeowners would pay additional charges between $129 and $500 per year depending on the square footage of their home. Surely this will necessitate funding for a new division within the Muni Empire, “Office of Measuring.”

Landlords would also pay different rates depending on the size of their buildings. For instance, an 18-unit building would pay $2,200 per year more, while a 450-unit building would be billed at an extra $50,000. Large office buildings would have the proposed parcel tax increase capped at $400,000.

How the Mamdani/Weiner effect fuels the K-shaped economy

The proposed parcel tax will limit the expenses a landlord can pass through to tenants to $65 per year. This is designed to make renters more amenable to transferring their public transportation burden to their fat-cat landlords.

Don’t overlook the hypocrisy that this is the same crowd that wants to remove Prop 13 protections for Granny surviving on social security; while simultaneously capping rents for non-means-tested tenants that are earning more than $400,000 per year, own a residence outside San Francisco, and are writing off their SF pied-a-terre unit as a tax deductible office expense. Don’t laugh. It’s happening.

Scott Weiner and Zohran Mamdani are fueling this K-shaped economy where life becomes even more unaffordable for families to remain in their respective cities. The upper tax brackets’ larger and soaring stock portfolios, is sheltering them from the effects of inflation, cavalier city budgets, and underperforming public schools. Meanwhile the middle class is trading down to Walmart and dining more frequently at McDonalds.

The Wiener/Mamdani redistribution philosophy will double-up (triple-up after a parcel tax) the cost of public transportation for fare-abiding San Francisco families. Instead of correcting Muni’s abundance of waste and improving San Francisco public schools to be competitive with private schools, the Wiener’s and Mamdani’s misallocations will continue to drive families outside the perimeter of their respective cities. Ironically, it’s their proposed cures that are the cause of the affordability crisis.

Muni needs to rein in fare evasion before they ask for more money. Director Julie Kirschbaum, do you even care that passengers don’t pay fares?