Some Muni Routes Suspended Due to Vaccine-Related Service Changes: SFMTA

Monday is the deadline for San Francisco’s employee vaccine mandate and at least one city agency said it will be modifying service.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said that beginning Monday some Muni bus routes will be suspended.

A spokesperson for SFMTA said 123 employees have not complied with the vaccine mandate. Out of a workforce of 6,000, that's a small percentage, but officials said it's enough to temporarily affect a few bus routes.

The affected routes include the 1 California short route from downtown San Francisco to the Presidio and the 14R Mission Rapid short route.

Next weekend, the 30 Stockton short and the 49 Van Ness short routes will be suspended. Those are both weekend services.

SFMTA said it will re-evaluate those lines very soon because it was still getting last-minute vaccine verification documents over the weekend.

The suspended routes supplement other existing routes on the system; passengers will not lose the ability to get around, officials said. SFMTA said passengers should expect buses on those routes to be more packed than usual.

Some riders who use the affected routes told NBC Bay Area’s Sergio Quintana that they were not very sympathetic to the employees who haven't submitted their vaccine verifications.

"It should be enforced because I feel that reasons that people have are not following the science,” said Linda, who uses the 1 California bus route.

"People may or may not be afraid of the effects of the vaccine. I'm fully vaccinated myself, and I haven't noticed anything thus far,” said Welsey Thomas. "For most people that are working every day, it's mandatory."

NBC Bay Area also reached out to San Francisco police, San Francisco fire and other frontline departments about their employee vaccine compliance but received no responses from those agencies as of Sunday evening.

San Francisco’s Department of Public Works said it doesn't anticipate any service interruptions.

San Francisco is not the only big city that's enforcing the vaccination requirement.

In New York, the fire department with 11,000 said they have 2,000 firefighters on medical leave because they have not complied with the vaccine mandate.