Potential cuts to San Francisco\u2019s public transit system would be significantly worse for the city\u2019s economy than the effects of a proposed parcel tax to fund it, according to a new analysis from the controller\u2019s office released Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The report analyzed Proposition H, which is on the Nov. 3 ballot<\/a> and would impose a parcel tax to raise money for Muni. The city would also net 800 to 1,445 additional jobs over 15 years and increase its GDP by between $310 and $400 million by passing the measure, but not doing so would result in a \u201csubstantially worse transportation system,\u201d the report warned.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the parcel tax carries an economic cost, this analysis finds it would clearly be a smaller cost than these significant cuts to Muni services,\u201d the report reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n City officials stand united in support for Prop. H and the measure is heavily funded<\/a> by the city\u2019s downtown businesses. It has become a priority for Mayor Daniel Lurie, who campaigned on reversing San Francisco\u2019s downtown decline.<\/p>\n Without the cash infusion from Prop. H, Muni would face steep service cuts that could include reducing frequency on certain routes by up to 50 percent, suspending less-used lines and reducing nighttime service. That would be devastating to downtown recovery<\/a>, which rests on frequent transit for workers, shoppers, and people about town.<\/p>\n The Municipal Transportation Agency faces a large deficit<\/a>, and Prop. H would generate an estimated $184 million in annual revenue, according to the controller\u2019s office and the SFMTA.<\/p>\n Homeowners would account for 25 percent of the tax revenue, while commercial property owners would account for 75 percent. The parcel tax would remain in place for 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n Separately, another tax measure is also on the ballot: a regional sales tax<\/a> that would raise funds for transit systems across the Bay Area, including Muni, BART and Caltrain. That measure was not factored into the controller\u2019s analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n The projections for Muni without the parcel tax are dire: Should the transit agency make cuts<\/a>, there would be an estimated 18 percent decrease in \u201cunlinked\u201d Muni trips (those are trips where riders don\u2019t transfer to BART or other transit) and over 15,000 hours of trip delay per weekday for San Francisco residents. Transit\u2019s share of all trips taken would also go down by 1.5 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n The SFMTA has relied on a number of short-term solutions to temporarily plug<\/a> its growing deficit<\/a>. Prop. H, as well as the regional tax measure, would provide long-term financial reprieve and let the agency maintain full service.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report details the number of ways in which a reduced transit network would affect the local economy. A system with more delays and fewer connections would reduce the number of people who can work in San Francisco, increase commute times and reduce labor productivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report acknowledges that, whether the measure passes or fails, property values will decrease. For residential properties, the drop is more severe if it fails:\u00a0The tax would drive residential property values down by 0.2 percent, the report estimated, but transit cuts would drive values down by 0.6 to 0.9 percent. <\/p>\n The opposite is true for non-residential properties: The tax would drive the values of non-residential properties down by an average of 1.9 percent, but the transit cuts would decrease their value by some 1.1 percent. <\/p>\n \u201cThis analysis suggests that the potential service cuts would be far worse for the local economy than the parcel tax,\u201d the report reads. \u201cThey would make it more expensive for employers to create jobs in the city, make workers less productive, and consume residents\u2019 leisure time, hurting their quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Potential cuts to San Francisco\u2019s public transit system would be significantly worse for the city\u2019s economy than the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[35072,26035,101,103,102,104,106,105,3766,1967],"class_list":["post-465601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-election-2026","tag-election-coverage","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-transit","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}