Many San Francisco drivers encounter a classic city problem: Parking is tough to come by.

Now, San Francisco’s transit agency has been added to the list of parking complainers, as Muni is running out of space to park its buses.

Muni’s fleet has grown in recent years, as scores of shiny new grey-and-red buses make more than 700,000 trips a day — nearly twice the ridership of BART. But the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency only has so many facilities, and in a report written for the SFMTA Board of Directors Policy and Governance Committee, presented in June, staff outlined its parking woes.

If no new vehicle yards are built, staff wrote in a presentation, the SFMTA will have 55 more buses than it can park by 2025. By 2030, the agency will have 62 more buses than it can park, and by 2035, that number will grow to 87 buses without parking spaces.

By 2040, if no additional facilities are constructed, Muni will have 120 buses and 46 light-rail vehicles without space for parking, where repairs are also made.

Muni buses and trains currently are parked and repaired throughout San Francisco, from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Dogpatch, and from Masonic Avenue by the Presidio to Bryant Street, near Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. SFMTA staff reports obtained by the San Francisco Examiner do not detail proposals for new bus or train yard locations.

The price tag to fix this problem is far more than the average San Francisco resident pays for parking: $1.6 billion is the internal estimate to expand and upgrade its 15 or so citywide facilities.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the agency could work with other city agencies to find creative solutions to park vehicles should funding not arise, but that’s only half the problem.

“Parking vehicles is only one of the issues we have to find a solution for,” Rose said. “We are looking to develop facilities that will be future-proof and [have] the maintenance infrastructure in place to not only store vehicles, but to keep them in good working order for years to come.”

That issue is also outlined in SFMTA staff reports. Essentially, Muni’s new buses and trains are high-tech, which may be good for riders, who will enjoy a more stable experience (with hopefully fewer delays), but it also means much of the SFMTA’s existing facilities must be rebuilt to repair the fleet’s new, upgraded vehicles.

The SFMTA’s total facilities capital cost exceeds the initial $1.6 billion. Maintaining a “state of good repair,” additional equipment and transit reliability costs tops $2.5 billion, according to a staff presentation, which includes the prior cost estimate of upgrades and expansion.

Some of that funding could come from a future bond measure, which is one of the numerous ideas floated right now in Mayor Ed Lee’s transportation task force, Rose said.

Funding could also come from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is proposing raising bridge tolls by $3 to fund various transportation projects, though that funding has yet to be finalized.

That “would be a start,” Rose said.

But what about a doomsday scenario? If no facilities are built, would Muni drivers need to engage in the San Francisco drivers’ most hated ritual, the 30-minute-plus “parking go-round?”

Rose was firm on that point: “We have no plans to park buses on city streets.”

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