Private Transit Vehicle Program Update 2/13/18

Dear San Francisco Neighbors and Stakeholders,

We’d like to give you an update on the private transit vehicle (PTV) permit program. In October 2017, the SFMTA Board approved the program, including application requirements, permit conditions, fines, and fees. One of those permit conditions requires that any new PTV routes complement rather than compete with public transit. The criteria to determine whether a PTV route duplicates Muni service are laid out in a separate memo issued by the Director of Transportation. When the Board approved the program, they asked staff to come back to present on this memo after discussing it further with stakeholders.

In December, many of you attended a public meeting at the SFMTA’s offices to provide feedback on these criteria. We also met with a number of key stakeholders to discuss the issue of route duplication. Based on the feedback that we received, we’ve put together a revised version of the route duplication criteria memo and will present it to the SFMTA Board at their meeting next Tuesday, February 20th, 2018, which starts at 1pm in City Hall Room 400.

The revised criteria compare the stop locations of a PTV route to those of any similar Muni route and permit the PTV route if these stop locations are substantially different. This stop spacing analysis was included as an exemption in the previous version of the memo, whereas this version makes stop spacing the basis of the route duplication criteria overall. As in the previous version, exemptions from the criteria are granted for routes that travel outside the operating hours of the comparable Muni route, routes that serve communities of concern in the southern third of the city, and routes that connect to regional transit hubs outside the Market Street corridor and Downtown Core. The exact language of the criteria and a diagram showing how they work are available in the documents section on our webpage.

Chariot has applied for a PTV permit and the SFMTA is currently reviewing the application. In the coming months, the SFMTA also expects to bring legislation before the Board of Supervisors to prohibit PTVs from operating without a permit. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Philip Cranna at Philip.Cranna@sfmta.com.