Better metrics, same streets: SF's gap between what it measures and what residents feel
Better metrics, same streets: SF's gap between what it measures and what residents feel
San Francisco had its best emergency response month in two years. Muni posted record satisfaction scores. Drug arrests are up 28%.
And yet: 323 Muni pass-up complaints in 8 days. Drug 911 calls up 37% year over year. The most violent week in three months.
The city is getting better at counting progress. Whether it's making progress is a different question.
Muni Says Riders Love It. Bayview and North Beach Riders Are Filing Pass-Up Complaints.
Muni is celebrating. Riders are complaining.
The city announced record Muni satisfaction ratings. Then 323 pass-up complaints hit 311 in the first 8 days of April — up 34% from March.
Pass-ups mean the bus saw you and kept moving. That's not a satisfaction issue. That's a service failure.
Bayview and North Beach riders are filing the most complaints — two neighborhoods where missing a bus isn't a minor inconvenience.
Drug 911 Calls Have More Than Doubled Since 2024. The Tenderloin Isn't the Only Story.
Drug 911 calls have doubled. It's not just the Tenderloin.
SF logged 2,937 drug-related 911 calls through April 9 — up 37% from the same stretch last year. Monthly totals have roughly doubled from around 400 calls per month.
The Tenderloin is always part of this story. But the spread matters. When calls double citywide, that's not a neighborhood problem anymore.
More calls also means more dispatcher time, more units diverted, more delayed responses to everything else.
The Mission Had 39 Violent Incidents in One Week This March
The most violent week SF has had in months.
The week of March 16–22 logged 191 violent incidents citywide — up 34% from the 12-week average. The Mission led with 39 incidents in seven days.
That's not a blip. That's a neighborhood where people walk to school, to work, to BART, absorbing a level of violence that doesn't show up in the annual crime report until it's already history.
The Tenderloin (34) and SoMa followed. Three neighborhoods. Most of the damage.
SF's Emergency System Had Its Best March in Two Years. Here's the Catch.
Emergency response improved. Here's what that hides.
Priority A 911 calls hit 4,564 in March — the lowest monthly total in 27 months of data. Paramedic response times dropped to 4.95 minutes. Those are real improvements.
But lower call volume isn't always good news. It can mean fewer people calling, not fewer emergencies. And response time averages hide the outliers — the calls where 4.95 minutes was someone else's lucky month.
Progress is real here. So is the asterisk.
The Compliment Hotline Nobody Knew About
There's a Muni compliment hotline. It exists.
Buried in SF's 311 system is a category called "Muni Employee Feedback: praise_employee." It is, functionally, a hotline for complimenting bus drivers. It receives actual submissions.
In a week full of pass-up complaints and doubled drug calls, this is worth a moment. Someone, somewhere, had a good enough Muni experience to file a formal compliment.
The city built the infrastructure for praise. Residents mostly use it for complaints. That ratio tells you something.
Get this in your inbox every week
Sign up to receive San Francisco, California’s weekly briefing for District 1.