SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – Muni riders will have to stay on the bus for now.
That is because Metro Rail Service is not quite ready for prime time.
Officials at the SFMTA announced that a pair of major problems are forcing Muni to resume all bus service.
“We need to make sure that we are not stranding our riders in the subway in the event of an overhead wire failure during the time of COVID,” Muni Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin said.
A reoccurring equipment problem is one of the major reasons Muni will not be restarting Metro service as planned, says Muni Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin.
“Since we ended up having two such incidents in three days during our rail restart. We realized that the problem is not just the pantagraph. It is the actual material that the splice is made from. We are now working on a solution to that problem,” Tumlin said.
The second problem is a safety issue of a different sort involving COVID-19.
“At our transportation management center, the nerve center of our entire rail system we had an employee test covid positive. We followed our standard contact tracing-quarantine procedures. As a result of that we were concerned that we wouldn’t have the whole necessary team to be able to run the rail system safely,” Tumlin said.
In the meantime, the alternative for Muni passengers is to continue using the all bus system that has been in place since April.
“We’ve been able to provide a high level of service especially in our key lines, like the 8, the 9 and the 14, are running more frequently, with greater reliability and greater frequency than ever in Muni’s history,” Tumlin said.
Sorting out the two situations will give the transit agency time to resolve the equipment issue.
“With the subway shutdown we can go back all of those newer failed splices with a quality splice that will hopefully actually work,” Tumlin said.
However, SFMTA officials offered no timeline for when Metro service will resume, only that Muni will keep riders informed about efforts to bring rail back.
“Thank you for your patience and apologies for not delivering the services that San Francisco deserves,” Tumlin said.
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