Opponents of Muni Discounts Miss the Point

The disagreement centers around a proposal authored by Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, which is backed by many organizations including the Youth Commission. Though they claim to be champions of fiscal responsibility and common sense, both detractors have arguments that hardly hold up.

In a February 27th op-ed piece, Ed Jew challenges the notion that youth between the ages of 18-24 are deserving of a discounted pass, arguing that many other individuals and families face fiscal hardships regardless of age. This, of course, is true and is the reason why MUNI offers a discount to certain poor individuals -- called the Lifeline Pass.

But he fails to appreciate the strain of suddenly paying 450% more for monthly transit needs because of a birthday; young adults are discriminated against in the job market, can’t work full time because of school, and are still growing into adulthood.

Jew goes even further when he says: “Why should we discriminate by basing subsidies solely on age? The bigger question is why we should be subsidizing anyone at all.” By this logic, we could revoke passes for our 4-17 year olds, begin charging fares on 0-4 year olds, then move on to ripping away the subsidized support MUNI gives to our venerable seniors and the disabled.

Jew raises a valid concern in all of this -- where is MUNI going, how do we stop the bleeding, and how do we protect services? But it’s unclear how anger at MUNI overall got funneled into this one issue.

And it does lead me to wonder if Ken Garcia – who wrote a piece in yesterday’s Examiner -- understands the makeup of City government. Garcia begins his attack by putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Board of Supervisors, which would have been fair if he had limited his screed to the proposal at hand. Yet this is not the case.

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