Budget officials in San Francisco studied, then quietly scrapped, a novel idea to convert private car infrastructure into a funding spigot for public transit.
The pitch was simple: Charge any property owner with a driveway $100 a year. Spend the money on Muni bus and rail service.
It originated from the Muni Funding Working Group, a sprawling task force formed to brainstorm solutions for a projected $322 million deficit. Though highly imaginative and almost certainly controversial, the driveway fee could have been a reliable source of revenue: Public records reviewed by the Chronicle estimate that billing people for driveways and “curb cuts” — the term of art for a ramp carved into a sidewalk — would net $15.4 million in the first year, and $16.5 million every year thereafter…