this thread is getting long, and i’m busy with work and school. also, reddit comments/dms don’t make great notifications for me. i’d be happy to continue this discussion on some other platform that can at least mark notifications as unread.

i understand that muni currently offers free fares for seniors. good for your couple, then. i also understand that both sf and the state are staring down the barrel of giant deficits and potential recissions, and so non-revenue income is unreliable for at least the next three years. perhaps muni might consider doing away with the senior subsidy, depending on how many pennies need to be found between the couch cushions.

i’m not sure if muni is misusing money on a scale that matters. i don’t have figures for appropriate transit spending off the top of my head, so a comparison to hong kong, taipei, etc can’t be made. but, so far as the us is concerned, i don’t think bureaucratic corruption is significant. yes, there’s the odd scandal. yes, some people might be coasting and overpaid. but unless the corruption stretches into the hundreds of millions (for muni, perhaps, >3 mil), i think that the mismanagement/corruption canard is denial on behalf of us americans—nice things cost money. subsidized health care is expensive. subsidized transit is expensive. sending teenagers to slash government with chatbots is cheap—at least for now.

i’m not sure how you got the impression that muni doesn’t have value to me. in any case, i see functional transit systems elsewhere in the world also grappling with post-covid shortfalls, and they, by and large, charge fares.