Muni can be a frustrating experience for most of us. If we want to lead the way in reducing our carbon footprint and being good stewards of our planet, then Muni needs to be a viable option for all people to use.

• Muni is a complex system that can only be improved by data driven solutions. This data has to be open and transparent so that everyone has the best information in real time.
• The people who ride Muni need to be given the opportunity to fix Muni. Using a crowd sourced model, where the community and riders actively fix the little things, will allow Muni to be restored from the ground up – not the top down.
• Crews (drivers and maintenance staff) need to be empowered to fix the problems they see daily. They, not some committee or panel, need to be able to adjust their approaches, schedules and tactics based on the dynamics they experience daily.

A world class city needs a world class transit system and Muni can be that system if we breakaway from our traditional approaches and attitudes and get creative.

According to AAA, owning a car costs more than $8,487 per year. Most of this money does not stay in the city but rather goes to gas and insurance companies. This money could be better spent locally and would add a tremendous boon to our local economy while decreasing our carbon footprint.

Almost all San Franciscan’s are frustrated with Muni. Most are frustrated with the lack of improvements over the last decade even though studies like the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) provided wonderful data and recommendations that just never get implemented. It’s time to get creative and  implement both TEP and other ideas that riders and crews come up with.

Improving Muni will take unique and creative solutions that come from collecting and analyzing performance data, getting Muni’s customers (riders) actively engaged and empowering the crews (driver and maintenance staff) to solve problems on their own.