Dear Martha,
The war continues on and I miss you terribly. It's been many months since General Ford launched his war of MUNI aggression on us and I fear it might go on for ever and ever. The winter is here and it's getting colder and colder but we're told we must fight on against the able-bodied advocates with their Transit Effectiveness Project. Sometimes I wonder what we're fighting for but then I'm reminded it's for the transit-dependent. All the seniors, single parents with young children, people with disabilities, and school age youth, the huddled masses of San Francisco. Don't they know that it's their rightful mobility that's at questions? What would they do if that rascally Nathaniel Ford makes them walk an extra block or two?
Oh, we lost Smitty last night. He was out waiting for the MUNI to come and it didn't come. So he jumped to the other side, screaming for more MUNI and faster MUNI and express trains. That happens a lot here in the Great MUNI War. One soldier after another joins the cause but after waiting hours they jump ship. It's brother against brother. Driver vs rider. General Ford says it's because he's doing a great job in winning the war, but I think it's the opposite. That things are so bad everyone gets mad and wants something to happen. Anything to happen.
It's like what Beyond Chron says, that the whole T.E.P thing is for getting people out of cars and riding buses. They come at us with stats and charts about how people want things to run on time and quickly and where we should make cuts to stops, but what are stats and charts? Do they really tell you who is riding and getting on and off? Do we really want to sacrifice MUNI to get more people to ride it? What about those people who occasionally have to walk through driveways! And why don't they respond to our entreaties asking them what they're planning. Why, war is what they declared and war is what they'll get. That'll show them for not responding to our e-mails and sending us letters.
Either way, I sure wish this war would end.
Yours always,
Jedidiah
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Have you been on the 14? It's packed front to back with overweight mexicanitos. They need to walk a couple more blocks, that would increase bus capacity considerably!
why is it so hard for them to put an n-judah in the tunnel toward the caltrain station more often than 20 minutes in the afternoon?
unbelievable!!!!
Okay, James Jones, this is your second anti-Mexican comment and your first comment board warning. Future comments on the topic will either be edited or deleted.
Before everyone starts complaining or writing their District Supervisors about the TEP, please make a note that the TEP has not made any recommendations yet.
In fact the TEP is still taking feedback on what you think is most f'd up about Muni. You should give them your complaints... er " feedback" on what's not working for you.
Any of the proposed stop removals mentions are not part of that process.
jash - you have to stop fighting the power.
The N-Judah is a myth. Get off at Powell and
walk down 4th, and if you are super lucky a
30 or a 45 will come to your rescue!
The nutjobs who protest about how much a burden it is to take away a few measly bus stops and have people walk an extra block or two are just that...nutjobs. They're instransigence is going to ruin BRT along the 38 line.
If these were subway stops instead of bus stops, we'd be grateful if the stops were only 3 or 4 blocks apart.
This is complete BS.
MUNI CANNOT cater to every single individual. It has to spread out the stops so it can be more efficient. When I was a kid, I took the 45 home from school. It stops EVERY block from Columbus to Van Ness, that's ridiculous.
Walk people! It's exercise, and makes the entire system run faster.
For those who complain about the transit dependent, if MUNI does not change it will be shut down. It needs to attract more riders by being faster, and cut its deficits. If it goes out of business, how does that help the transit dependent?
What sort of acid was this guy taking? Was it the orange and brown, or the new strawberry and grey?
Either way, he makes no sense. Hopefully, his nonsensical stream of consciousness rambling is not how he wants the city to run our public transit system. The SFTEP is very very necessary to improve Muni's current state of affairs. Unfortunately, some may not like the results, or the way that the data is massaged, or the color of the uniforms.
Do us a favor and move to Detroit, Denver, or San Jose if you think that Muni is waging war against transit-dependent riders. Experience what it is like to live in a transit-free (as in without transit) city then come back and tell Muni it is doing a crap job for any of the groups he mentioned.
Muni is far far from perfect, but when you compare it to other agencies around the nation and the world, I think that it does a great service for SF's low income, youth, seniors and people with disabilities.
If you ever want to know wny muni is the way it is, self appointed ranters like the one in BC are why.
Somehow we're supposed to assume this guy speaks for every single senior and disabled rider. Not likely. More to the point - as it stands now, MUNI still has leftover duplicate service from when the big merger happened after the war. There are a lot of ways MUNI can make the system respond to the needs of the city and try and plan ahead for the future. Unfortunately, ranters like this tend to catch the ears of politicians, and the result is half assed planning.
Let's all speak up so we can drown out the loudmouths who speak before they read up on what it is they seem to hate so much.
It's good to see that people recognize the short-sightedness of what this fellow is suggesting. He's advocating policies that keep MUNI service poor for everyone, rather than improving it for the vast majority of riders.
If he's really so egalitarian, then I would think that he'd like to see changes that benefit everyone...
certainly a few stops could be eliminated, far more critical issues are dumb Stop signs where there is no stop, lack of signal pre-empt usage, auto congestion in diamond lanes, etc.
Kick the autos off the streetcar tracks PERMANENTLY and replace ALL STOP signs on transit routes with transit favoring stoplights
A series of transit only lanes in selected areas and expanded limited/express/rapid routes