Six Muni bus lines will either be consolidated, or have their Market Street service eliminated, as the SFMTA Board of Directors voted Tuesday to lop off some Muni service in an attempt to put a dent in the agency’s budget deficit.

We’ve known for months that the SF Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) that operates Muni is staring at a $50 million deficit for the current fiscal year, which could balloon to a $320 million deficit in the next fiscal year, and the agency has already started reducing Muni service. But they’ve also been debating even more service cuts, notably the elimination of Market Street service for the 5-Fulton, 9-San Bruno, and 31-Balboa lines.

As the SFMTA board took their pivotal vote on these cuts Tuesday, Muni riders who object to these cuts found themselves an unexpected ally: moderate District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who showed up at yesterday’s board meeting to plead with the board members to not chop these Muni lines.

“Right now is not the time for short-term austerity measures, especially when the mayor just announced yesterday that Muni is bouncing back. The numbers are saying we’ve had the highest volume of growth in ridership since 2019,” Mahmood told the board. “If Muni is doing so well and bouncing back, we can’t be moving backwards on what’s been working.”

But the SFMTA board did not heed that advice, or at least, most of them did not. The board approved the Muni service cuts Tuesday afternoon by a close but decisive 4-3 vote.

The map above shows what’s being cut. The 21-Hayes and 6-Haight-Parnassus lines would be consolidated into a single route that stops and turns around at Civic Center. And the 5-Fulton, 9-San Bruno, and 31-Balboa lines would no longer cover Market Street, as other bus and rail lines already cover those Market Street stops. (The 5R-Fulton Rapid and 9R-San Bruno Rapid would not be affected, and those R “rapid” lines would cover Market Street when the regular 5-Fulton and 9-San Bruno buses do not.)

Obviously, public comment went overwhelmingly against the service cuts (people were limited to just one minute of comment because the board had already discussed these cuts at their March 18 meeting). And it was a common refrain among these commenters that the service cuts would only result in an estimated $7.2 million in savings.

“$7 million is like the salary of a VP at a tech company. That is not a lot of money,” commenter Teri Adams said to the board. (And notably, $7 million is also much less than the $9 million of his own family fortune that Daniel Lurie spent running for mayor.) Another commenter identifying himself only as Adam said these cuts would hurt the odds of a possible public transit funding ballot measure in 2026, “putting future critical transit measures in jeopardy, for the sole purpose of a warped definition of fiscal responsibility.”

Director Dominica Henderson agreed, saying “I have a hard time saying yes to any service cuts at this point.”

And another Director Steve Heminger said the $7 million could be covered by the agency's financial reserves. “What’s the purpose of having a reserve? It’s called commonly a ‘rainy day fund’ and it’s been raining. A lot,” Heminger said before the vote. “This $7 million is not going to fix our $320 million problem.”

But the board’s chair Janet Tarlov countered, “I continue to feel very uneasy about pulling from the reserve when essentially what it will mean is it will add to our deficit.”

Mayor Lurie’s newly appointed Director Alfonso Felder proved to be the decisive vote in favor of the service cuts, noting that the $7 million figure only refers to one year of savings, and avoiding the cuts would take another $7 million from the agency’s general reserve every single year.

“The choice that we may be forcing ourselves into making a year from now is just going to be a lot more difficult and a lot more painful” without the cuts, he argued. “And I don’t feel it’s responsible to put ourselves in that position.”

Tuesday’s vote was technically not the final vote on this matter, and was worded as a “Motion to direct [SFMTA] staff to pursue service cuts.” The final approval likely won’t come until board’s April 15 meeting.

But that vote is being described as merely “administrative approval,” and the cuts would be approved “on consent,” which means “on the consent calendar,” which is SF agency government-speak for saying it will be approved with no discussion and a simple bang of the gavel. So Tuesday was almost certainly the final debate on these Muni service cuts before they get rubber-stamped into action on April 15, and then implemented sometime this summer.

Related: Transit Groups To Rally Against Muni Service Cuts At City Hall On Tuesday [SFist]

Image: SFMTA