Whether you take Muni daily or never take it at all, your ability to move through San Francisco depends on it.

San Francisco now has the dubious ranking as the third-most congested in the United States, behind Honolulu and Los Angeles. A single Muni bus, the largest of which can move nearly 100 people, takes dozens of cars off the road. It is hard to imagine what getting around the city would be like without Muni’s roughly 1,100 buses, trains and streetcars operating regularly.

But you soon might have to.

Faced with a $307 million annual budget shortfall, the Municipal Transportation Agency is considering eliminating 19 bus lines, making steep cuts to street and cable car service and drastically reducing the frequency of busy bus and Metro lines.

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The City Controller’s Office predicts these cuts would result in 15,000 extra hours of weekday travel time. This disaster scenario could dissuade people from working in the city — adding to staffing crises for both city departments and local businesses — and result in declining property values for homeowners.

Proposition H on the November ballot would help stem the bleeding.

It would generate approximately $184 million annually for transit, $10 million of which would be used for modest service-quality improvements. It would do so by imposing a new parcel tax beginning on July 1, 2027, and ending on June 30, 2042. Owners of single-family homes and condos would pay an annual base amount of $129 with rates adjusted for inflation, while larger residential, multifamily and commercial properties would pay more based on building size. (The Regional Transit Measure,........

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