Muni eliminates nearly every route in SF

Muni will reduce most of its service this week, temporarily cutting roughly 70 lines across the entire network due to heath concerns related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“In order to maintain service levels to provide social distance, we must focus our available resources on the lines that most critically serve essential trips,” notes the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “This means temporarily reducing Muni service, and prioritizing routes in most critical need during the pandemic.”

Service will be reduced to Muni’s 17 core routes:

• N Judah Bus
• 22 Fillmore
• L Taraval Bus
• 24 Divisadero
• T Third Bus
• 25 Treasure Island
• 1 California
• 29 Sunset
• 8 Bayshore
• 38 Geary
• 9 San Bruno
• 38R Geary Rapid
• 14 Mission
• 44 O’Shaughnessy
• 14R Mission Rapid
• 49 Van Ness/Mission
• 19 Polk

“Our transit planners have been working all weekend to rebuild the entire schedule, a task that would normally take 4 months,” says SFMTA Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin. “We’ll be able to share details soon. The rollout will not be smooth.”

Tumlin goes on to remind passengers to treat the agency’s workers with compassion during this time, saying, “Our operators, mechanics, car cleaners and line supervisors are frontline workers, taking risks because they believe in public service. Do yell at me if you’re late for work, but please thank them for their heroic work in these times.”

Passengers should except major delays across the entire system starting Monday and Tuesday.

Routes that have been discontinued include the 2 Clement, 3 Jackson, 5 Fulton, 7 Haight, 10 Townsend, 21 Hayes, 30 Stockton, 45 Union, and 31 Balboa—just to name a few.

The full temporary elimination of said routes will be complete by Wednesday. According to the San Francisco Examiner, “SFMTA may re-evaluate which routes will run over the coming days.”

Muni further urges riders not to use the transit network if they are feeling ill, “except as necessary to seek medical care after consulting with your medical provider.”

Last week, Muni stopped all subway and light-rail car service, replacing all underground transit with street-level bus lines.

Curbed SF will continue to update this story as it unfolds.