New Muni Pricing Seen to Penalize the Poor & Elderly

SFMTA declares cash no longer king.

No Cash, No Peace! or No Cash, I’ll Ride My Bicycle! Whichever.

The agency plans to charge Muni riders who pay cash a 25-cent surcharge. Proponents argue that incentivizing Clipper Card use will save commuters time currently squandered away by old ladies, poor people and Luddites smoothing dogeared bills and dropping change all over the goddamn place.

People who keep track of these things estimate that up to half of Muni’s ridership still stubbornly refuses to jump on the Clipper Card bandwagon. Their hope is that by changing the bulk of riders over to the Clipper system buses will finally be able to maintain a reliable schedule.

Opponents raise a number of concerns. Some see the charge as unfairly discriminatory, arguing that elderly, poor and homeless populations often lack the resources to buy a Clipper Card ($3), keep it preloaded, access the website, or make the trip to one of the few stations where cash loading is possible. Others cite the move from anonymous, tangible cash to trackable, shareable data as a privacy concern.

Orwell Knew

What’s missing from the conversation is how batshit fucking insane you have to be to think that 25-cents will do anything to help the SFMTA not suck at public transportation. Take BART for instance. While they managed to swap out those old semen sponges for shiny new plastic seats, they still haven’t quite figured out how to keep the entire system from crumbling under its own archaic weight. Or what about the fact that to get from one side of the city to the other you have to take a bus to a light rail to a subway to a ferry to a trolley? Wait, it’s after midnight? Well, I hope you have a smartphone or one of those fold-up bicycles in your pocket, otherwise find a nice warm bench to curl up on because your ass isn’t going anywhere until the morning.

If you’d like to let the SFMTA know that you think their plan is just another step toward the oncoming Orwellian nightmare, click here to sign a petition that expresses a similar sentiment.