1 week Ago By By Greg Wong | Examiner staff writer |
San Francisco’s next mayor is staying mum about who should next lead its transportation agency. Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie will carry significant influence over whom the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s board appoints as its next transportation director following Jeffrey Tumlin’s announcement Thursday that he will be stepping down from the position when his contract expires at the end of the year. Lurie, who nominates new members to the agency’s seven-member board of directors, did not signal where The City should go from here following Tumlin’s departure.
“I appreciate Mr. Tumlin’s service to San Francisco and look forward to working with the next MTA leader to advance a world class transportation system,” Lurie told The Examiner in a statement Friday. Tumlin, a sustainability advocate who helmed the agency through an unprecedented economic shortfall following the COVID-19 pandemic, announced Thursday he will leave his post atop the agency that oversees The City’s ground transportation.
Those efforts include biking, traffic and parking infrastructure, as well as public-transit systems such as the cable-car and Muni lines. SFMTA Director of Transit Julie Kirschbaum will serve as the acting director of transportation beginning Jan. 1.
The mayor is typically consulted when the board appoints a new transportation director. Lurie will need to nominate a new SFMTA board member when he takes office next month following the departure of board chair Amanda Eaken. Outgoing Mayor London Breed appointed Eaken, and she was key in appointing Tumlin in 2019.
That new board member, then, will presumably have significant sway in determining the agency’s next transportation director. There is no timeline for when Tumlin’s longterm successor will be named, according to SFMTA officials. Tumlin called the serving in the position the greatest honor of my life.
” “I’m extremely proud of what the SFMTA has accomplished during my tenure,” Tumlin said in a statement. “While we’ve faced many challenges over the past five years, we’ve also made historic progress.” Tumlin did not cite a specific reason for stepping aside.
Formerly an executive at a sustainable transportation engineering and planning firm, Tumlin during his SFMTA tenure pushed policies that would incentivize San Franciscans to walk or bike and keep their cars at home. The City aims to be carbon-neutral — meaning it produces net-zero carbon emissions — by 2040. “Jeff has been a leader in building infrastructure, improving Muni operations, and making the hard decisions necessary for our city as we grow,” Breed said in a statement.
“Change can be hard, but Jeff was not afraid to make those decisions necessary to allow people to move safely and efficiently across this city,” she said. Tumlin led the proliferation of The City’s Slow Streets program , a pandemic-era plan which limited car traffic on certain streets in order to promote recreational neighborhood activity, events and increase pedestrian safety. He also championed the fight to install a controversial center bike lane on a portion of Valencia Street and permanently shut down a busy section of Market Street and the JFK promenade to car traffic .
Tumlin helped launch the biking and rolling plan , the agency’s blueprint to revamp The City’s biking infrastructure for the first time in nearly 30 years. But those projects also made Tumlin an enemy for many San Franciscans. The policies drew the ire of many local business owners, who argued the measures would drive down business amid an already-slow post-pandemic recovery.
Tumlin’s SFMTA stint up being largely focused on pulling the SFMTA from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic — which briefly shut Muni down and caused ridership to plummet — that sent the agency into a historic financial hole. Collectively, the Bay Area’s three primary transit operators — BART, Muni and Caltrain — face a $700 million deficit in 2026 , nearly half of which SFMTA will take on alone. Weekday Muni ridership in November was down to 68% of the average from the same month in 2019, according to agency data, although it was still higher than every November since 2020.
Tumlin and other transit leaders have warned that unless they receive additional support in the coming months, they will be forced to make wide-ranging service cuts . Last month, the SFMTA announced its plans to reduce the frequency of Muni buses and stops on a handful of lines early next year. Further service cuts are expected in June.
Tumlin also cautioned that some cable-car lines might eventually be on the chopping block, a possibility Lurie immediately shot down. He called the historic vehicles“untouchable” in a social-media post last month. “The SFMTA is a challenging department to run, and I want to thank Jeff for leading this Department and serving our city through the difficult years of the pandemic and after to get us where we are today,” Breed said.
California State Sen. Scott Wiener Muni has been “better than ever” said under Tumlin’s leadership. “Service is faster and more reliable due to Jeff’s focus on making Muni work, and as a result Muni rider satisfaction surveys are at historic highs,” Weiner said.
According to SFMTA data, major subway delays are down 76% and short delays have fallen 89% since Tumlin took office in 2019. Muni also recorded its highest satisfaction from riders since it started issuing an annual survey, with 72% of riders rating Muni as excellent or good in the 2023 iteration. Under Tumlin’s watch, The City has installed 75 miles of transit lanes and more than 100 miles of overall transit priority improvements, the agency said.
“San Francisco is one of the safest larger cities in the U.S. for walking and biking,” Tumlin said.
“And we have one of the strongest paratransit programs in the country. There is still far more to be done but I have full faith that our talented and highly motivated staff and leadership, working alongside city and state partners, will shepherd the agency into a successful new chapter.”.
