Reporting from CITY HALL
San Francisco leaders are forming a working group focused on ways to fund and cut spending at the financially strapped Municipal Transportation Agency.
The SFMTA plans to utilize the working group to address projected deficits ranging from $239 million to to $322 million in the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years, according to a financial update to the SFMTA board of directors by Chief Financial Officer Bree Mawhorter.
Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin and the Controller’s Office will convene the working group city supervisors, state transit experts, businesses, labor and transit advocates. Two SFMTA board directors will join the working group — Steve Heminger and Fiona Hinze.
Mawhorter said the size of the deficit will depend on the state of the city’s economy, the flexible use of funds for operations and capital projects, and policy decisions by the board on implementing measures to make transit more efficient that could make running transit service less expensive.
The working group will focus on ways the agency can reduce spending by improving efficiencies and possibly ideas to reduce service and programs at the agency. The group will also discuss ideas on how the agency can generate new revenue, and ways to improve Muni service that could generate revenue.
Ideas to fund Muni operations have been ongoing for years since the start of the pandemic as ridership fell, though bouncing back on several Muni routes, and the city’s slow economic recovery. At the Transit Month kick-off event at City Hall Thursday, community and city leaders expressed how important it was to fund Bay Area transit.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, who tried this year to authorize a regional ballot measure for the 2026 November election to fund Bay Area transit, but had disagreements with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority on the potential measure. Wiener said they will continue to work with all transit agencies for a path forward to 2026, adding:
“If we didn’t have good public transportation, we know that there are so many people who won’t be able to get to work or to school or elsewhere. We know that traffic congestion will be worse, our climate goals will be tanked, our economic growth will be stunted. This is so essential to the future of our city and our region, and we have to view it that way.”
Tumlin said said the agency must make Muni fast, reliable safe and clean in order to get passengers back, but added they will need help of transit advocates:
“We are facing a structural deficit that has grown to over $200 million. In order to close that, we’re going to need to reinvent Muni’s financial base, and that’s going to happen at the ballot, partly in November of this year, but really in November of 2026.”
Transit advocates have placed a ballot measure on the November ballot, Proposition L, to tax ride-hail and autonomous vehicle companies that operate in the city to fund Muni. If passed by voters, the tax could generate up to $25 million annually to help fund Muni operations. Prop L received several endorsements, including from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Prop L will need to get more than 50 percent of votes to pass and will need to earn more votes than Proposition M — a business reform tax measure that can nullify Prop L as written in a provision in Prop M. If both pass and Prop L receives more votes, both measures would go into effect.
Janelle Wong, the interim executive director for the transit advocacy group San Francisco Transit Riders, said that while Prop L will not solve the entire SFMTA budget problem, the measure is a start:
“It’ll be something we can rely on with regularity.”
Wong said the transit advocacy organizations will take part in the Muni Funding Work Group, adding that they will advocate for Muni passengers:
“We will continue to push the MTA around the funding to make sure that the riders’ service lines are maintained, that fares are not increased for the riders themselves, and that we try and find new opportunities and ways to raise revenue for our public transit system in San Francisco.”
Before joining the kick-off event at City Hall, Mayor London Breed, several city supervisors and transit advocates, rode the popular Boat Tram celebrating Transit Month. Several events and contests are planned around the Bay Area throughout September.
