Whether San Francisco stays affordable depends on whether people can get around without a car. Muni and BART have been living on borrowed time since the pandemic emptied their trains, and the two candidates for Congress in District 11 responded in very different ways.
What Scott Wiener has done
In 2023, with federal COVID relief running out, Muni and BART were staring at a multi-billion-dollar fiscal cliff and deep service cuts. Wiener formed the coalition that won a $5.1 billion state transit rescue, which sent $660 million to Muni and BART.
That rescue bought time. BART now faces a $376 million deficit and Muni says closing its own $300 million gap without new money would mean cutting frequencies by up to 50%. Wiener’s answer was SB 63, the Connect Bay Area Act, which put a regional transit measure on the same November 3 ballot as this race. It would raise roughly $980 million per year to keep trains and buses running across five Bay Area counties. He has done this work twice now. In Congress he wants to fix how the federal government funds transit so that money can keep existing service running, not only build new lines.
What Connie Chan has opposed
In July 2023, as Wiener was assembling the rescue, the Board of Supervisors voted on a resolution backing his bill to raise bridge tolls and keep Muni and BART running. It passed 10 to 1, and Chan cast the one no vote. The Examiner covered the vote.
It was not a one-off. In 2020 she opposed Measure RR, the one-eighth-cent sales tax that kept Caltrain running after ridership collapsed; San Francisco voters passed it with 74%. In 2022 she voted against keeping JFK Drive car-free after introducing two competing plans and refusing to compromise on either; voters kept it car-free that November with 63%. That December she was one of two supervisors to vote against extending the weekend car-free Great Highway.
Chan does support the 2026 regional transit measure, which 58% of San Francisco voters back; it is the one transit question on which the two candidates agree.
Why it matters in Congress
Changing how the federal government funds transit, so that money can keep trains running and not only build new lines, is a job for Congress, and it takes someone who has rebuilt a transit budget before. Wiener has. Chan’s full record, with every vote linked, is in Everything Connie Has Opposed.