Make this September the best Transit Month yet! Get involved with TM activities today!

Our favorite month of the year is coming up! September is Transit Month, a whole 30-day celebration of Bay Area transit and the people who keep it moving. 

During Transit Month, groups, agencies and individuals around the Bay put on events to help show elected officials how important transit is to our communities and how much better transit could be if we invested in it. Events also highlight the importance of transit for the general public and help build transit joy, loyalty, and pride. We want our whole Bay Area to be proud of our transit system. So help us out by joining in!

If you are interested or curious in helping put on an event, let us know! You can respond to this email or click the button below. 

Here are some examples of events that are being worked on in the East Bay. We would be happy to help you put on your own event like any of these, help you put on something totally different, and also will gladly accept help in these events!

Example events from the East Bay that are in various stages of early development--let us know if you're interested in bringing events like these to San Francisco and we can help you make it happen!

• Cars & Incarceration, Transit & Freedom — partnering with various justice groups in the East Bay to help show elected officials the various ways that car dependency feeds into the poverty trap & mass incarceration; and how reliable, frequent, and extensive transit service can help!  
• Bus to the Beach — partnering with AC Transit to throw a party at Alameda Beach for people who bus to the beach
• Accessibility, Disability and Transit — partnering with various disability services groups to do ride-alongs with their community members and elected officials to highlight needed investments and the importance of reliability.
• Transit to Fairyland — one day event where Fairyland gives a discount to people who arrive by transit and getting AC Transit to offer free trips for people with the Fairyland Magic Key
• Don't Drink and Drive, Drink and Ride! Drunk driving is dangerous to everyone on the road and late night transit helping keep everyone safe

Other event ideas are things around making transit more accessible for different language speakers, transit to fun locations (hikes, beach, park, bars, etc), and simply doing a ride-along where elected officials take a transit trip with transit advocates is impactful.

We'd love your help planning more Transit Month events for San Francisco — it could be an event that helps advance an issue that's important to you, or just something that promotes transit and spreads joy.

Sign up to host an event during Transit Month, and come join us at Salesforce Park this weekend (see below)!

Share your transit story!

SPUR is developing a short video to advocate for increased funding for public transit service in the Bay Area and put a human face on transit riders, and we are hoping you would be willing to lend your voice and story to the cause.

Would you be willing to help them by making a 20- to 40-second self-recorded video of yourself sharing why public transit is important to you? 

Recently, the state budget helped avert a fiscal cliff but the Bay Area will only receive $400 million, which is enough to avoid major cuts for now, but not for very long. 

How to film and submit your video: 

In your video, please talk about why public transit is important to you and/or your family--and to use your personal stories to say why transit riders are worthy of more investment. Maybe you're vision-impaired and rely on transit. Maybe transit lets you live a car-lite life. Maybe you take transit because owning a car is very expensive and you put that money into something else you need and care about. Maybe your teenager has greater freedom since they don't require you to chauffeur them. What will you lose if transit agencies in the Bay Area don't have enough funding to keep running and have to cut back service? 

Whatever your story, the goal is to put a human face to transit and persuade decision-makers to invest in transit urgently. If you think someone you know has a great story to tell, please do send this to them! Please consider involving the children and seniors in your life, who often do not get a chance to tell their stories. 

The video should be filmed 'landscape'/horizontal style. It should be filmed in a quiet location, and make sure you are well lit from the front. You may use your phone to film this.

If selected, your video will be compiled into a short vignette that may be projected in front of legislators and shared on social media. You will not be identified in credits, unless you want to be. Let us know if you would like to be named in the credits. 

Make your voice heard about Mission Street at Highland Avenue Bus Stop & Infrastructure Improvements!

The SFMTA is partnering with Public Works to repave Mission Street between Appleton and Crescent Avenues. As a part of this project, we are proposing changes to bus stop spacing to improve reliability on the 14 Mission and 49 Van Ness Mission. This project would also improve vehicle access in the neighborhood. 

Proposed improvements include:

• Repaving Mission Street between Appleton and Crescent avenues
• Removing bus stops on Mission Street at Highland Avenue (both directions)
• Converting the existing bus zones at Highland Avenue to new uses, including four new metered parking spaces and a new commercial loading zone

There will be a hearing about this on August 4, and SFTMA is asking for the community to give their opinion! Learn more and join the meeting on Aug. 4 by clicking below. 

John- Become a member today! Your membership provides access to member benefits, special access to events, opportunities to inform our priorities, and to help us lead the fight for Muni funding!