Gavin Expresses Muni Thoughts, Our Eyes Roll
So, Gavin's been pretty chatty about Muni lately, hasn't he?
First up, he's alleging that some cable car operators are stealing fares, "because on three occasions he rode the cable cars and handed over his $5 cash fare but never received the required receipt."
He's also brought up hiring more fare inspectors, which we hope is not the same thing as the once proposed plan to allow Muni drivers to make fare citations.
The Mayor's two comments made him seem sadly out of touch with the Muni riding masses, at least to this SFist.
Photo of Gavin Newsom and New Muni Head Nathaniel P. Ford by Luke Thomas of the San Francisco Sentinel, from his story Atlanta public transit chief to head MUNI.
First, Gavin's basically admitting that he doesn't use a Fast Pass -- which makes us suspect that he rides the cable cars for purposes of visibility, not purposes of transportation (shocking allegation, we know). Why ride the N Judah with your actual, we don't know, constituents, when you could ride a cable car with folks from Wisconsin?
Second, if he really thinks that fare inspectors are the key to fixing Muni, we'll have whatever Gavin's smoking, because it's some really good s**t. As much as we enjoy that fare inspector who hops on the aforementioned N and SCREAMS (we exaggerate not) "PAPERS" (thus initiating some primal Jewish flight mechanism that leaves us sweaty and exhausted before we even get to work), we do not think that the solution is to get more guys like that on Team Muni.
If we had Gavin's number in our sidekick, we'd give him a call and tell him to contact City Hall's HR benefits administrator to get signed up for Commuter Checks (hell, we have some we haven't used yet, we'll give him some of ours!), then go buy a Fast Pass.
We'd tell him to take Muni as often as he can -- we don't just mean the fancy-pants Muni of San Francisco by way of Sweet November, he should take the routes that real people use to get to work, home, and the places we all go in between.
Say what you will about Gavin's former BOS buddy Chris Daly (and we know y'all will), but he's a man who rides Muni. (He doesn't always pay for it, but he does ride it.) Daly's use of our transit system makes him a far more reliable assessor of Muni's strenghts and weaknesses that someone who only rides it for photo ops (not that we're saying that that's Gavin's Muni motivation. But we kind of are.) Gavin, don't make us compare you unfavorably to Chris Daly!
But, seriously, right now Gavin sounds like his knowledge of Muni comes from reports he's had read to him by his advisors, and that worries us. Before Newsom starts making either the drivers or the riders out to be criminals, may we suggest that he show a greater familiarity with and use of Muni? If he still wants to blame the riders and drivers for Muni's problems after that, so be it. But for Newsom to imply that before he rides a mile in our bus just makes him sound like an asshole.