Will Cuts to Muni Stop SF from Hitting Climate Goals?
San Francisco is relaunching a climate action plan. It’s setting the stage for a major showdown between an administration that promises to make SF a leader in California values and transit advocates who are being left out in the elements.
Wednesday, April 16th, 2025: Within the minty walls of the Green Room at the War Memorial, the Mayor and the SF Environment Department gathered the people most able and willing to save San Francisco from impending climate doom. The event was a kickoff; several months of community engagement will culminate in a renewed Climate Action Plan.
The last plan, created in 2021, wasn’t bad, but the Mayor is new. And like anybody new, he wanted to put his own stamp on it. The plan is set to get updated every five years. But as the mayor waltzed across the floor to the podium in San Francisco’s Tiffany Box, ready to give his prepared remarks, the crowd shifted ever so slightly.
The protestors were everything Mayor Lurie values: nice and quiet, with little signs that they held at chest level. Nobody raised their voice, but they were indeed brave. Their signs read: “Protect the environment. Fund Muni.” Transit advocate Jaime Viloria, the Outreach and Organizing Manager for SF Transit Riders, was one of the people holding a sign. He’s been trying to reach Lurie since January.
Running Quiet
Like many nonprofits and city agencies fearful of budget cuts, the Muni Forever campaign knows the only one with the power to keep our public transit running is Mayor Daniel Lurie. It’s his budget that we’re waiting to review. But so far, he hasn’t connected with the Transit Riders. Instead, he shuffled them off to staff members.
Funneling these questions off to lackeys isn’t the same as engaging with a major constituency and giving them a seat on the proverbial bus. So when the group got word that the Climate Action Plan kickoff was happening, they organized a small action.
Cuts to Muni
Lurie is guillotining several lines at Market. As one commenter put, “these jabronis are thinking on a map instead of 3D.” These lines connect historically disenfranchised neighborhoods, and cutting them makes it harder for those with shared identities to connect. Isolated satellite neighborhoods have already been split in half by redlining, redevelopment, and even racist gerrymandering during the 2021 redistricting. With Lurie’s approval, this summer the most vulnerable San Franciscans will be the ones suffering consequences of fewer affordable ways to move around the City.
As the advocates raised their sign, Lurie acknowledged them and implied to the crowd of climate activists and environmental leaders that Muni would be funded. “We have to save Muni,” he said, to be exact. “It’s going to be my top priority.”
Timestamp: 6:31. Video embedded from SFGOV.
One of the sign holders was Viloria. “We sort of expected him to say something about [the signs] because word somehow got out. I think they were expecting a protest but that wasn’t our intention. I’m actually glad he addressed it,” Viloria confesses. But Lurie’s comments left more questions than answers.
At the climate action planning meeting, attendees included department heads like SF Environment superstar Tyrone Jue (the purple-haired badass and first Chinese-American and person of color to lead SFE); Scott Sampson of Cal Academy; Julie Kirschbaum of SFMTA; and tons of representatives from SFPUC to DPW. There were also nonprofits and NGOs like Recology, LEJ, California Native Plant Society, and the Sierra Club. All the right people to do the hard work we need to do to address climate change.
Despite the mayor’s initial move of placating the muted crowd by seemingly promising to fund Muni (“save” it), he immediately followed his comments with a warning that everyone would face cuts.
Perhaps in the mayor’s mind, ‘saving Muni’ means something different because shortly after the meeting wrapped, several news sources confirmed that Muni would be reducing services this summer to save nominal costs. This came on the heels of Lurie’s announcement that Waymo would be able to use Market Street as their testing grounds.
To be blunt, if these transit lines are snapped off at Market or bundled together in creative packaging like the 6/21, they won’t return. So either he has a different definition of funding, or Mayor Lurie gathered the people who can act the fastest to address climate change and then lied to them about how car far he’s willing to go for the people.
The mayor’s off-script promise to save Muni was met with strong applause, but Viloria is still unclear what the promise means. He says, “He’s been public about funding Muni but it’s not clear exactly what he wants to do or how he wants to fund it. It’s not clear to me if transit advocates are involved in whatever Muni plan he has.”
The lack of transparency plays into an ever-more-familiar caricature of Lurie, a virginal mayor without the experience in government to act effectively and without the communications chops to explain his plans to the public.
Viloria explains, “We were intentional not to be too disruptive yet. We just wanted to remind the mayor that one of the best ways to address climate change is to be a leader in funding public transit.” Vehicles, especially personal vehicles, emit harmful gasses that contribute to the greenhouse effect and cause unpredictable changes in the climate. Electric vehicles may help, but because of the mining and production facilities used in manufacturing, they aren’t the solution.
So why is public transit important in the context of climate action? “It’s what we already have that’s running,” Viloria explains. “It can carry people much more efficiently.” The Transit Riders were able to score a seat at the planning session, which is critical. Viloria details, “The other reason we wanted to make sure transit folks are involved in the discussion around climate is that previous years, Climate Week has always focused on electric vehicles. I remember last year we were doing an Earth Day event and there was a Tesla truck right there.”
The Mayor recently donated a Rivian so that he could have the more climate-friendly vehicle for official use. But when thinking of sustainable city-wide ways to reduce our climate footprint, EVs don’t fit. Not only are they expensive; they require extensive network-building and still don’t fully address the issues raised by personal vehicle usage. Viloria points out, “Building something up takes a lot of resources while maintaining what we have is actually cheaper in the long run. And it’s the most efficient way we can do it.”
Muni is a clear answer; throughout the climate action planning session, funding and even extending public transportation options was written on several sticky notes and even on pre-printed materials brought by SF Environment. But Lurie’s comments muddied things a bit.
“He said something about doing the most with the least resources and working with other departments to address our Muni funding,” Viloria says. “I don’t exactly know what that means. That’s the other issue I have. It’s not always clear what he’s saying about Muni. He said he wants to fund it but the MTA board cut services. And it’s also unclear how he wants to fund it.” But Viloria’s main concern is that Lurie is not involving transit advocates in his planning. “The deficit is coming really soon and we need to do something now.” He still hopes to meet with Lurie.
While we wait to hear more about the Mayor’s plans for our beloved public transit, Viloria says there are co-benefits to riding Muni. “We’re looking at emission reduction. Public transit is a great way to do it! And there’s other advantages to it, from reducing congestion, promoting other modes of travel… My favorite part is you get to sit in a bus with a bunch of other people. I know some people might not think that’s the most comfortable thing, but in our more isolated society, being on the bus with other people gives me a bit more life in the city.”
Viloria is not wrong. An artist we spotlighted last fall explained that a big inspiration for his show was public transit; now that artist has sold all of his recent productions and is flying high. All because he rode a bus and got inspired.
How To Get Involved
“The easiest thing is to go to MuniForever.org. You can sign up for our mailing list there,” Viloria says. “If you don’t want to do that, do something on your own. Talk to your supervisor. Elevate transit as a city priority.”
A Final Note
One final thing Viloria shares is around fare evasion. “People think we can solve our transit deficit if people just pay their fares. There’s a lot of focus on it and it takes away from where the funding is really coming from. Yeah, people should pay for their fair share, but the fares only bring about 7% and cause a lot of anxiety for a lot of people.”
If you’ve ever scrambled to open your clipper app or show proof of payment, that anxiety is very real. “If it were up to me, I’d change the way we fund transit and not rely on fares. Fare-free. If we can all just figure out how to fund our transit so it’s not a burden on a lot of folks and it’s also just more sustainable, we can keep running and expanding.”
Check SF Environment’s website for info about Earth Day festivities and ways to get involved in the climate action plan updates.
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