The board that oversees Muni, traffic, and parking meets Tuesday/18 to consider spending cuts that could include the elimination of school crossing guards—a move that would undermine the city Vision Zero plan to fight traffic fatalities.
Union leaders say the crossing guards routinely prevent accidents—and the city could lose a lot more than the $2.9 million cost of the guards just in future lawsuits.
Another proposed cut: Reduce the subsidies car owners get when their vehicle is towed after being stolen and abandoned.
Sticking car owners with the cost of having a stolen car towed and eliminating the crossing guards would save a little more than $6 million.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is struggling to find $50 million to balance the budget this year—and the deficit grows to more than $300 million next fiscal year.
All of the options that the SFMTA Board is considering are bad. The agency has already eliminated 295 jobs, and (like most city departments) is facing a hiring freeze. At a certain point, the cuts will have a dramatic impact on service.
From the presentation CFO Bree Mawhorter will give the board Tuesday:
SFMTA held non-operator positions, like track and overhead line workers, vacant to continue to hire operators and maintain service schedules. SFMTA is at a tipping point, where further deferred hiring could lead to unreliable service and compromise trust. To maintain service quality, SFMTA is pursuing options, like service cuts, to increase non-operator hiring.
The agency also has $141 million in reserves; spending a small amount of that money could prevent the cuts to crossing guards.
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The San Francisco Unified School District long ago cut many of its yellow school bus routes, so the majority of students get to school on Muni, or get driven by their parents, or in some cases walk.
School buses can pull up right in front of a building, and by law drivers have to stop if kids are getting off and crossing the street.
But for most students, that isn’t an option, so the crossing guards are an essential part of school safety.
School Board Member Alida Fisher told me:
Many of our students and their families depend on public transit to get to school. Crossing guards play a pivotal role in not just ensuring public safety, but helping our students and their families start their days off on the right foot. They are part of our larger community and highly integrated into our schools. Our crossing guards know our students by name. They can act as equal parts attendance officers and cheerleaders. … A budget is a value statement. If we believe in Vision Zero, we need to prioritize crossing guards and the important role they play in keeping students, families, and our entire community safe.
Joel Kamisher, who has been a crossing guard for ten years, told me the program goes beyond just school kids. “In the mornings, a lot of adults are also rushing for the bus, running errands, shopping, and crossing the streets,” he said. “In a busy intersection, we help prevent a lot of accidents.”
Kamisher works at 19th and Judah. “Sometimes drivers push through the intersection as the light is turning yellow,” he said. “Sometimes they make illegal turns. We can’t stop them [the guards are not , but we can get the pedestrians back on the sidewalk.”
Many of the guards, who are not law-enforcement officers, say they have seen close calls with cars, including robotaxis. They work about 12.5 hours a week; many are retired and use the income to subsidize their limited fixed income.
San Francisco is a long way from its “Vision Zero” plan to eliminate traffic deaths; 24 pedestrians were killed by cars last year, and many more were injured.
If the driver in a fatal crash has only limited insurance (or none at all), the city can get sued, and those settlements add up quickly.
Meanwhile, the city routinely tows abandoned and illegally parked cars, and some of them were stolen. The owner is still liable for the towing and storage fees, which can exceed $1,000. SFMTA now reimburses people whose cars were towed through no fault of theirs; that could end.
The main issue here: Under Mayor Daniel Lurie, the SFMTA is looking only at cuts, and not at any new sources of revenue. There are all sorts of options to raise money for public transportation by charging fees or taxing tech shuttles or Uber, Lyft, and Waymo.
Instead, the SFMTA is looking at maybe a regional sales tax or parcel tax measure, which would go on the ballot in 2026. That’s the same ballot that affordable housing activists hope to use to fund a bond of as much as $20 billion.
Consultants are doing polling now on those options. A sales tax is by far the most regressive; a parcel tax is better, but it would tax, say, homeowners at the same rate as giant commercial properties.
Mayor Lurie was in Sacramento last week seeking help for San Francisco. Among the items on his agenda, according to his press statements, was not a bill authorizing local or regional income taxes.
The budget discussion will take place sometime after 2pm in City Hall Room 400. It’s also on sfgovtv.
