San Francisco public transit advocates have issued a challenge to city officials to ride Muni for 22 days starting June 1.
San Francisco public transit advocates have issued a challenge to city officials to ride Muni for 22 days starting June 1.
The San Francisco Transit Riders Union, a nonprofit organization that is working toward improving Muni, issued the challenge to Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors so that city officials could experience what riders go through everyday on Muni.
Each of the 22 days represents each year since voters passed Proposition AA in 1993 which stated that the mayor, members of the board of supervisors and other city officials, to ride Muni at least two workdays per week, said Thea Selby, chair of the transit riders union:
“Twenty-two years later this policy agreement has never been enacted upon until now.”
The group is asking for city officials to tweet their Muni adventures on Twitter with the hashtag #OnBoardSF. Photos optional. They also want city officials who did not take Muni that day to explain why.
Supervisors Scott Wiener, Jane Kim, John Avalos, David Campos, Julie Christensen and Eric Mar publicly announced they will take the 22-day Muni challenge during the board’s meeting on Tuesday.
Wiener said the challenge should not be hard for him since he rides Muni daily. He said he also wants to ride other Muni lines he has not been on yet:
“I’m going to try to identify a few other ones so I can see what it’s like for the lines I haven’t rode. I’m lucky that I live in the Castro when we have really strong transit access. It’s important to try some of the lines that are a little bit more challenging.”
Avalos said he just hopes his train does not turn back while taking the 22-day challenge:
“I will pray when I take the J-Church that I won’t be switched back on.”
Supervisor London Breed has already posted a photo on her Twitter account riding the 9-San Bruno:
@TheaSelby 9 San Bruno headed downtown. I ride muni a lot but I don't plan to take a lot of photos 4 #muni22days pic.twitter.com/wxC4YIa1q8
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) April 22, 2015
Still no word yet on whether Mayor Lee will accept the challenge.
Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.
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I mean, if politicians have time to travel to places through Muni, so can we!
However, what about exploring The City by foot first?
Here are some ideas:
• SF Historic Tour – http://goo.gl/Ulfst9
-OR-
• Mission Food Tour – http://goo.gl/rCRUKS
The 22-day Muni challenge is a FARCE and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union are wolves in sheep’s clothing. If you do a little research into the organization you will find that the Transit Riders Union is fiscally sponsored by Livable City an anti-car lobbying organization that was started by the former head of the Bicycle Coalition. http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/06/16/push-to-organize-sf-transit-riders-proving-difficult
Some people say its unethical that 501(c)3 organizations http://web.archive.org/web/20021119090925/http://www.livablecity.org/campaigns.html have been allowed to use their tax exempt non-profit status for unlimited lobbying of political candidates but in San Francisco the rules of lobbying are mostly ignored.
Do a little more digging an you will also find that many of these pseudo non-profits are in fact lobbyists http://web.archive.org/web/20100528120040/http://www.sftru.org/whoweare who use their 501(c)3 status to generate more “improvement” MUNI projects that will be paid for with passing bonds and adding to the public debt. Why is MUNI always under funded? The Transit Riders union is basically an extension of the SFMTA and the Supervisors are part of the “publicity stunt” to raise more revenue for bicycle lanes, pedestrian plazas, and the SFMTAs ongoing street scape “improvement” projects.
YES! Requesting that our LEADERS understand the transportation that they fund is a FARCE. How can we BLATHER on the INTERNET about our IGNORANT LEADERS if they respond to calls to EDUCATE themselves???
HOW DARE any organization mention PROP AA???
Don’t engage with sfparkripoff. He is his own farce – it’s better to just ignore his comments.
Too late you are engaged.
The 22-day challenge is a FARCE because The Mayor, and Board of Supervisors are Actually Required By Law to Ride Muni.
A 1993 ballot measure, sponsored by a group led by Jerry Brown, made it
official city policy that the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and
other top city officials must all ride Muni or other public transit to
work at least twice a week. It was approved by 65 percent of voters. Has
anyone been enforcing this in the last decade? The answer is no.
http://sfist.com/2014/08/06/mayor_board_of_supervisors_actually.php
FARCE: “Law”
I don’t think NON-BINDING POLICY means what you THINK it means.
Please EXPLAIN how one would ENFORCE a non-binding POLICY?
One way MIGHT be to ISSUE A CHALLENGE.
Amazing. 8 comments on the thread, and two of them are you copying and pasting the same verbatim responses. Are you paid to do this?
The 22-day challenge is a FARCE because The Mayor, and Board of Supervisors are Actually Required By Law to Ride Muni.
A 1993 ballot measure, sponsored by a group led by Jerry Brown, made it official city policy that the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and other top city officials must all ride Muni or other public transit to work at least twice a week. It was approved by 65 percent of voters. Has anyone been enforcing this in the last decade? The answer is no.
http://sfist.com/2014/08/06/mayor_board_of_supervisors_actually.php
FARCE.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.