Muni fare hike to $2? Kiss my butt SFMTA (33% hike)

This is just absolutely stupid. A report from the "City Insider" (SFGate/Chron) reports that Muni fares could go up if the city's budget gets far worse.

Right now, the city's deficit is at $129 million dollars, and the mayor feels that raising Muni fares is the last resort to fixing this insane crisis.

If the SFMTA decides to raise the fares for Muni, this would be effective September 1st:

• Adults: $1.50 (old) to $2.00 (new)
  
• Youth/Senior/Disabled: $0.50 to $0.75

Muni is already raising prices of Muni passes as a way to raise more money, but is raising the general cash fare price a good idea?

Personally, I don't think it is even a smart idea. Raising the fare is sticking it to the customer to pay for more service while quality is still going down the toilet. Take a look at this report from the Golden Gate [X]Press (SFSU) talking about the terrible service on the M-Ocean View, a main trunk line connection for thousands of SFSU students. One-car trains don't work when you pass by a major university.

Surely Muni can find other creative ways to cut some of the pointless crap of their service instead of making us go through a painful colonic:

1. Kill off the CultureBus program. Sure, you are running two buses a day now, but how many people ride the bus with the insane $7 fare? Not many. That's at least a million dollar savings.
2. Start laying off at least 50% of your fare inspectors. Then start hiring "bouncers" with no ticket issuing authority and a low wage with no benefits (college students are perfect) to accompany a ticket writing person. Basically a "team" would consist of one ticket issuing officer, and one or two wage donkeys/enforcers.
3. Fire the drivers with the worst service records. If the driver was involved in an incident where the city had to settle for more than their salary, that's enough grounds to get fired. Employees with too many legitimate complaints spend more taxpayer money on hearings, people making reports, etc. than a good employee with no complaints.
   
4. Just fire Muni's PR team. They are just blabber mouths covering their butts every time something goes wrong. Remember Maggie Lynch and KPIX investigator Anna Warner? Maggie said and walked away from the interview: "What is this, 60 Minutes?"

Lastly, Muni broke a promise to their citizens. In my posting in 2007, the Chronicle wrote about Muni's wish list and proposed some new ideas (with my opinions). One of them was a fare hike, but promised to keep it 5% every two years.

So let me get this right... 5% added to $1.50 regular Muni fare is $1.57 (make it $1.60 to keep the pennies out of the fare boxes). They now want to make it $2.00 a ride? You said 5%, not 33% you ASSHOLES!