A tax intended to put San Francisco’s public transportation finances back on track has received enough signatures to make it onto the November ballot.

Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Stronger Muni for All” tax for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is backed by a range of tech companies, labor organizations, local lawmakers, and transit advocates.

The funding mechanism is a form of real estate tax known as a parcel tax. It is based on the unit of property, rather than its assessed value.

The proposal comes in addition to a regional sales tax measure called Connect Bay Area that would divide funding between several agencies—including Muni, which runs buses, light rail and the historic cable cars in the city.

The mayor’s plan would bring in an estimated $160 million a year for 15 years by raising parcel taxes by various amounts. About 95% of residential properties would see an increase of $129, with larger properties seeing higher rates.

Budget deficit since the pandemic

The transit agency is facing ongoing projected annual deficits of over $300 million in the coming years. It has made deep cuts and would need to make even deeper ones to stay solvent. That could involve eliminating up to 20 bus lines and having less frequent service.

Ridership dropped drastically during the COVID-19 pandemic starting in March 2020 and was slow to rebound as the city’s downtown remained empty. It has increased each year but is still below pre-pandemic levels, with about 75% of the traffic on weekdays and 92% on weekends as of the end of May.

This year saw increases from 2025 each month, including a slight increase in May to 1.22 million average daily riders.

Lurie led a signature gathering campaign that secured well over the needed 10,600 signatures, a random sampling of which were verified by the city’s Department of Elections to ensure they matched voters registered in the city.

“Cutting Muni would drive up costs for working families, set back our economic recovery, and clog our streets with more traffic.”

— San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie

“We are one step closer to securing the future of Muni and San Francisco’s economic recovery,” Lurie said in a statement.

“Muni connects every corner of this city, and without dedicated funding, the service cuts would be devastating. Cutting Muni would drive up costs for working families, set back our economic recovery, and clog our streets with more traffic,” he said.

Supporters back funding measure

The measure is backed by multiple local chapters of the Service Employees International Union, including those representing local government workers, Teamsters, AFL-CIO, emergency responder unions and transit advocacy organizations such as San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The top funders of the mayor’s ballot measure committee are OpenAI, Anthropic and. Ripple Labs, at $500,000 each, according to its website.

It is also endorsed by eight members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, both Democratic assemblymembers that represent the city, Catherine Stefani and Matt Haney, and state Sen. Scott Wiener.

It would raise parcel taxes in the city for residential and commercial properties using a range of rates, starting with a flat increase of $129 for single-family residential properties under 3,000 square feet, which would cover about 95% of residential properties, according to a statement from the Stronger Muni For All campaign.

Mixed-use parcels up to 5,000 square feet would pay $799 more a year under the increase. The largest commercial property owners would pay up to $400,000 more a year, according to the campaign.

Rents could be increased by about $65 a year for renters under allowable passthrough costs from landlords to cover a portion of the increase. It would go into effect in the 2027-28 fiscal year.

Despite its prominent backers, the campaign qualifies as a citizen-initiated measure. Current state law allows local citizen-led initiatives to pass with a simple majority but requires 2/3 majority if the measure is put before voters by the local government.

A pending ballot measure would amend the California constitution to raise the threshold for passing such local special taxes from a simple majority to 2/3 of votes cast.

The state constitutional amendment, tentatively titled the Local Taxpayer Protection Act to Save Proposition 13, would also invalidate any such local taxes that were passed with less than 2/3 voters’ approval.