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Jeffrey Tumlin
Jeffrey Tumlin Photo courtesy of Streetsblog/Rudick

“Jeffrey Tumlin is exactly the type of forward thinking, results oriented leader that the SFMTA needs”-Mayor London Breed

JEFFREY TUMLIN:
THE REAL STORY

• • • • • • January 22, 2025 • • • • • •

George Wooding
George Wooding

Now that departed Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin has been heaped with political praise for his tenure with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), it is time to tell the real Jeffrey Tumlin story.

On December 12, 2024, Jeffrey Tumlin announced he would be stepping down from his position at the end of 2024. Tumlin had led the SFMTA since December 2019, and his five-year contract was due to expire at the end of the year.

Tumlin resigned from his $400,725 annual salary with benefits because newly elected San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie would probably not renew his Director of Transportation term. Without San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s protection, Tumlin was finished.

Tumlin to the Rescue!

TEXT
London Breed Photo courtesy of KGO

Mayor Breed had asked the previous SFMTA Director of Transportation, Ed Reiskin, to resign. Reiskin was brilliant, but he was a scapegoat for the SFMTA problems that had not been fixed for generations. Reiskin was blamed for issues such as aging buses, maintenance, lack of parts, malfunctioning bus doors, lack of revenue, a culture of sexual harassment, and ongoing operator shortages.

Mayor Breed did not like Reiskin, but she and State Senator Scott Wiener loved Tumlin.

Mayor Breed controlled the appointments of the seven-member Transportation Directors. The Board of Directors then appoints the Director of Transportation. When Mayor Breed said “jump” the SFMTA Directors said, “how high.”

“Jeffrey Tumlin is exactly the type of forward thinking, results oriented leader that the SFMTA needs and I am excited to announce his new role as Director of Transportation,” said Mayor Breed. “I believe Jeffrey is the right person to improve our public transportation, continue making our streets safer, and ensure that our approach is equitable and serves all of our residents across San Francisco. The SFMTA is an agency that requires a balance between managing an enormous day-to-day operation and developing the vision to help our city continue to grow without increasing gridlock. I know Jeffrey is ready to lead this agency.”

Tumlin was anointed as the man who would save the SFMTA. Future SFMTA budgets will show that he has actually helped cripple the SFMTA’s ability to generate adequate revenue and transportation throughout San Francisco city and county.

quotes

The SFMTA now reports that continuing inflation and the end of emergency State pandemic relief funding will leave a $260-million to $322-million deficit beginning in 2026 – and that massive system cuts in routes and operating hours are coming.”

Tumlin picked a great time to go on his so-called “sabbatical “[read: run away/quit]. Let the next Transportation Director fix Jeffrey Tumlin’s, The Board of Supervisor’s and Mayor Breed’s financial ruin of the SFMTA.

SFMTA Director Malcolm Heinicke, Chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors, noted the agency had conducted an international search to find a new Transportation Director. Tumlin lives in Noe Valley. This “international search” would be the equivalent of searching for a new Director of Transportation at the Serramonte Mall in Daly City.

“Jeff deeply understands the interconnectivity linking transportation to social justice *[read: DEI], economic development, public health, and sustainability,” said Gwyneth Borden, Vice Chair of the SFMTA and Board of Directors. “We are excited to leverage his experience tackling complex issues in a modern and technologically advanced era.”

* DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which is defined as follows: Diversity is the presence of differences in dimensions of human identity. What does this mean?

Tumlin was a mediocre, polarizing public servant. He was hand-picked by Mayor Breed and continually propped up by her, State Senator Scott Wiener, San Francisco Transit Riders, Walk SF (pedestrian advocate group), San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC-501C3) and (SFBC-501C4), the Board of Supervisors and several wealthy contractor and architectural firms that do business with the SFMTA.

Tumlin’s goals of “joy,” “public safety,” “transportation facilitation,” transparency,” and “revenue generation” all begin and end with getting rid of cars and parking spaces.

Tumlin failed in his attempt to tax Muni’s competitors—Measure M—in November 2024. He extended regressive taxes to 2050—2022 proposition L—by falsely claiming that the proposition was not a tax increase. Tumlin failed to pass proposition A, the June 2022 $400 million General Obligation Bond.

Cars used to be 19% of the SFMTA’s revenue; now, they will represent only 12% of the SFMTA budget revenue that they did in 2019. The SFMTA budget DEFICIT for 2025 will be $12.7 million. SF residents owe much of this “joy” to Tumlin and his COVID-19 and car safety and congestion policies.

39% of San Francisco’s annual general revenue fund is mandated to go directly to the SFMTA. San Francisco’s general fund is shrinking. The city currently has a budget deficit of $876 million.

The COVID-19 pandemic did not decimate the SFMTA transit system because the agency received $400 million in SFMTA emergency transit funding from the state in 2023. “The funding is intended to help avert service cuts and give operators some time to put transit on a more sustainable financial footing in the post-pandemic era. In return, lawmakers are also demanding a new business model and more accountability for transit agencies throughout the state—especially from San Francisco.

“San Francisco is the slowest urban area in the country to recover from the pandemic, and state funds are unlikely to cover the significant operating shortfalls for Muni and BART, the largest operators in the Bay Area.”

Once these one-time transit emergency funds are spent, the SFMTA will have an annual deficit of approximately $300 million per year from 2026 onward. The SFMTA now reports that continuing inflation and the end of emergency State pandemic relief funding will leave a $260-million to $322-million deficit beginning in 2026 – and that massive system cuts in routes and operating hours are coming.

Fare amounts will be increased. Parking fines will go up in both 2025 and 2026 of the budget. By 2026, tickets for street cleaning and parking meter violations will have gone up by $15.

Fare evasion has gone up from 12% to 20% since the pandemic. So, the SFMTA included funding in this budget for 36 additional fare inspectors. The more our fare inspectors are visible on Muni, the more people will pay their fares, so this investment will supposedly pay for itself.

The SFMTA has paid millions in grants to the bicycle coalition. Tumlin, some Directors of Transportation, and many SFMTA administrators are current or past Bicycle Coalition members. The Bicycle Coalition and Walk SF members are often the spearheads to supporting anti-car legislation.

Jeffrey Tumlin
Jeffrey Tumlin

The SFMTA’s motto seems to be that cars are always bad—and so is car parking and traffic.

If small businesses are hurt by SFMTA bike lanes or lack of parking—too bad. The SFMTA’s real equity is that they will put any small business out of business with impunity. It was the small business owners’ fault for placing their business near a future bike rack, bike lane, slow street, quick-build, MUNI construction zone, etc. SF streets are lined with shuttered businesses. This is Tumlin’s true DEI.

Streets that used to average one or two accidents every five years are being limited to one lane. Clogged or congested streets are becoming common. CO-2 is increasing as cars idle in congestion-clogged streets and/or circle streets several times to find parking due to slow streets or Quick Builds.

In San Francisco, the whole premise of Quick Builds and Slow Streets is idiotic. The data backs up what most commuters have likely long determined: San Francisco traffic is getting worse. In 2024, the average driving speed in San Francisco was 14 mph, 0.3 mph slower than in 2023, and the second-slowest mark of any major U.S. city. Only New York City (12 mph) was slower than SF, according to traffic data recently published by the Dutch-based GPS operator TomTom.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/transit/sf-traffic-is-second-slowest-in-us-and-getting-worse/article_ebe26770-d45c-11ef-9a49-5fba319c395e.html

SFMTA reports are designed to be misleading. Tumlin claimed that he had reduced crashes involving pedestrians by 32% and crashes involving bikes by 33% on streets where the SFMTA has installed Quick Builds. Quick Builds often force cars to use surrounding streets. The SFMTA does not keep track of the accidents on side streets. Thus, it always reports glowing safety reduction numbers on Quick Build streets. They should also keep track of surrounding street accidents, congestion and how many small businesses have closed due to Tumlin’s SFMTA safety policies.

Jian Huang, an 80-year-old San Francisco resident, was crossing Valencia Street at 18th Street when the driver of an SUV struck him. The driver was turning left from 18th Street onto Valencia going south, according to Erica Kato, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

This accident is the result of just one Quick Build, “Valencia Street was redesigned this Summer, with its curbside bike lanes replaced with a single bike lane down the center of the road. The new design stretches between 15th and 23rd streets. SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun previously told SFGATE that the design provided a “balanced approach” that “separates people on bikes from vehicle traffic and vehicle loading and allows the curb space to be retained for commercial and passenger loading activities.”

Luke Bornheimer, a sustainable transportation advocate and organizer behind the Better Valencia campaign, told SFGATE that the design is “dangerous and unintuitive.” “It’s a failure and it’s fundamentally flawed,” he said. “Drivers turning on and off Valencia, they’re confused. They’ve never seen anything like it before. I have talked to countless drivers who have said, ‘Yes this is confusing.”

Hiding under the mask of public safety, the SFMTA has taken over neighborhoods and spent millions of dollars changing streets. In 2014, SF created a program called “Vision Zero.” 32 people were killed in accidents on SF streets. The SFMTA was tasked with reducing the number of deaths to zero.

Under Tumlin’s five-year tenure, 153 people have died in street-related accidents. He has the distinction of having the two highest years of traffic deaths on record. In 2021, there were 39 fatalities. In 2024, there were 37 fatalities. For all the expensive SFMTA road upgrades and safety plans, the SFMTA cannot show that they have stopped even one traffic accident on streets where traffic has been diverted.

Neighborhoods and small businesses are particularly upset with Tumlin’s demeanor. Regardless of the situation or feedback, Tumlin always felt that he was the smartest person in the room. The SFMTA never talked with Midtown Terrace or the Twin Peaks Improvement Association, yet both neighborhood groups were placed in a report stating that they supported a project that would turn Twin Peaks Blvd into a figure-eight road. The surrounding neighborhoods were used as a prop.

The SFMTA’s own survey showed that the public wanted Twin Peaks Boulevard to remain continuous. Both neighborhoods were overrun by enormous crime increases.

This was Tumlin’s June 17, 2023 email response regarding Twin Peaks Boulevard’s new design to Midtown Terrace: “Public opinion was varied, with different patterns by geography and demographics. No option made everyone happy. Ultimately the MTA Board made a policy decision considering all of the channels of public input, as well as technical considerations. While I do not believe the Board is interested in revisiting its policy decision, as staff we are always eager to learn if roadway changes have created unintended traffic consequences that we should work to mitigate.”

Twin Peaks Boulevard was part of Midtown Terrace.

Tumlin did nothing to help the neighborhood’s problems. He did not care and never did any traffic congestion reports. The SFMTA had selected the Twin Peaks Boulevard road option, which was deemed to be the second worst in their own surveys.

On the bright side, the SFMTA and the Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) just held a skateboard championship sponsored by Red Bull Energy Drinks on the part of Twin Peaks Boulevard that they closed-down. Let’s hope that the sponsorship money was worth all of the problems surrounding the neighborhood.

The San Franciscans who could not stand Tumlin’s policies are car owners, small business owners, property tax payers, many transit riders, quietly some of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, MUNI operators (local Transportation Workers Union 250A), neighborhood organizations, transportation network companies, autonomous vehicle passenger services, taxi cabs and delivery trucks.

Tumlin’s first goal was to make SF streets more “joyful.” This might explain the Central Subway’s massive cost overruns during Tumlin’s tenure. The Central Subway has led to a one percent increase in SFMTA ridership. The Central Subway project cost $1.9 Billion. There were already two overland buses servicing the Chinatown area.

The Van Ness Corridor project is a 1.7-mile-long masterpiece of good transit planning. Unfortunately, the $300 million project had a cost overrun of $35 Million.

Tumlin’s real legacy

Undoubtedly, the pandemic threw the already tenuous existence of public transportation agencies into even more peril. Shelter-in-place orders gutted ridership and farebox revenues almost overnight, and systems in cities nationwide cut routes, closed stations, and reduced hours.

The SFMTA was desperate to keep its operators working. After receiving over $400 million in state emergency transit operating funds from the Sacramento legislature, Tumlin stopped servicing smaller lines and kept servicing downtown routes. Unfortunately, the downtown routes often averaged less than 30% occupancy.

After spending hundreds of millions in 2024, the SFMTA still retained some federal operating funds for one-time use in 2025. Muni was essentially broke. The SF general fund was also reduced by approximately $70 million with the passage of Proposition M, which increased new tax rates, forcing companies to reduce jobs, investments, and/or leave.

The SFMTA will be losing money and cutting services for years unless the agency receives funding from outside souces.

As Tumlin rides his bike into the sunset, the SFMTA will be sinking into a quagmire of debt, poor street design, congestion and bad management.

 

 

George Wooding, Neighborhood Activist Emeritus

January 2025

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