San Francisco runs on transit. Every morning, the city’s pulse flows through its veins: buses, streetcars, and trains. This network is more than just transportation, it represents the motion of our daily lives, how our nurses, teachers, builders, and clerks reach their posts to keep the city living and growing.

But that heartbeat is now faltering. The system that carries us through our daily grind, is being starved of resources. The SFMTA faces a $300+ million shortfall, and this year, our new mayor, Daniel Lurie, has cut Muni service on essential routes like the 5 Fulton, 9 San Bruno, and 31 Balboa. Meanwhile, BART confronts a catastrophic $400 million deficit that threatens night and weekend service. A city without reliable transit simply cannot and will not function.

These cuts fall hardest on those who already carry the city: working-class families, elders, students, and immigrants. For those who rely on transit, “service reductions” mean lost hours, lost wages, and closed doors.

For years, transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft have clogged our streets. According to the SFCTA’s 2018 report “TNCs & Congestion”, TNCs contributed approximately 50% of the overall increase in traffic congestion in San Francisco between 2010 and 2016.

Time and again, working people have been left hanging by politicians who spend endlessly on budget items like excessive police overtime or the ballooning budgets for the sheriff and DA’s office. Funding for fare enforcement has increased but not for transit itself, with fines disproportionately extracted from minorities. Meanwhile, Muni drivers must fight for their right to simply use the bathroom during their shift. City Hall is committed to spending public funds on punitive measures rather than vital services.

Transit is not a luxury we indulge in, it is a fundamental public service. And now, Mayor Lurie’s solution to this crisis? Allowing Waymos, Ubers, and Lyfts on what was supposed to be a Car-Free Market Street—a hard-won public safety initiative. These same corporations funneled massive amounts of money into opposing Prop L in 2024, which would have funded transit services through a tax on their operations. Now, a wealthy mayor, insulated from the working class and our reliance on public transit, is offering expensive, private luxury ride-hails as a substitute for affordable public transportation. 

The question before us is simple: will we allow public transit to be dismantled piece by piece? Or will we come together to defend it, demand investment, and build the future our communities deserve?

The answer will not come from above. It must come from us: the riders, the drivers, the workers, the people who make this city move. San Francisco can be a city that moves together, or it can be a city that leaves us behind. The choice is ours.

If you want to fight for public transit for the working class, join DSA.
See you at the bus stop!

Sincerely, the DSA SF Ecosocialists

This week, the residents of the Sunset District removed Joel Engardio from the Board of Supervisors. DSA SF didn’t lead the recall, but we didn’t try to stop it. Engardio is anti-worker, pro-cop, landlord-first, and fully backed by GrowSF and the real estate elite. He ignored the demands of working-class residents and DSA members in D4. He has been a mouthpiece for the owning class, and we won’t be sad when he’s gone. Good riddance.

Joel Engardio never represented the working class. In his three years in office, he introduced a paltry 32 pieces of legislation (DSA SF member and D9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder has already authored 21 pieces in her 10 months in office), none of which addressed the affordability crisis strangling this city’s working families. Instead, he backed a budget that cut funding for violence prevention in the Mission, slashed emergency shelter for survivors of domestic violence, defunded immigrant legal services, and eliminated good, unionized city jobs.

While working-class people are struggling to survive, Engardio pushed for money to pad the pockets of the police. He backed increased overtime for SFPD just months after an independent audit found a pattern of rampant abuse of overtime funds by the cops. 

He voted to strip money from Prop C (Our City, our Home), directly undermining the will of the voters and reducing the city’s ability to build desperately needed affordable housing. Capitalism cannot solve the housing crisis, and Engardio’s votes have made it worse.

As Engardio is well aware, the right to recall is not just a procedural tool, it’s a weapon. And like any weapon, it must be wielded with discipline. We believe it belongs in the hands of the working class, and the working class alone.

We’ve seen how recalls can be used as weapons by the right. Just ask our comrades in Seattle, where big business tried (And failed! Three times!) to unseat Kshama Sawant. These efforts failed because she was deeply rooted in labor and class struggle. 

A recall against a socialist organizer is an attack on the people, and the people will respond. A recall against a reactionary with no genuine base? That’s a very different story.

Unfortunately, our billionaire Mayor Lurie will not replace Engardio with a champion of the working class. But to whoever does get appointed, may you learn from Joel’s sorry tale: If you stand for nothing, nobody will have your back. 

If you want to build a working class movement with substance, join DSA.