San Francisco transportation officials have secured $41 million to modernize the city’s subway, chiefly to overhaul a train control system that still runs on floppy disks.
The money, awarded last month by the California Transportation Commission, came with rules attached. It’s targeted at efforts to manage congestion, including by making transit more reliable, and the funds must be directed toward capital infrastructure.
For leaders of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the timing seemed critical. Faced with a $322 million deficit next year, the agency has paused some projects and trimmed costs wherever possible to avoid drastically slashing service. Despite the obvious strain, SFMTA kept plodding ahead with an ambitious and desperately needed upgrade: a new $700 million renovation of Muni Metro train control.
Jokes about the antiquated technology that runs Muni’s subway have long made the rounds among riders. Automated train control surely made sense when San Francisco officials installed it in 1998, enabling computers to evenly space trains as they rolled underground between Embarcadero and West Portal stations, and later, in the Central Subway from Moscone Center to Chinatown-Rose Pak Station. Yet the software, stored on floppy disks that have to be loaded each morning, has passed its expiration date. Because automated train control transmits signals via loop cable wires, communication is slow and easily disrupted.
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