December 30, 2007
Muni Playing Catch-Up with West Portal Fix-Up
If you took Coolidge Corner and moved it to San Francisco, you'd wind up with something very much like West Portal, a nicely-kept secret neighborhood with folksy shops and restaurants and a theater, about a 10-minute subway ride from the Castro. And get this: it's about to get even nicer, thanks to some sprucing-up by Muni.
"Underinvestment in the Muni system has brought us to a point where we cannot postpone this work," says Muni boss Nat Ford. Apparently, while they were replacing the decrepit wiring in the West Portal tunnel over the last few months, they noticed that the track bed was falling apart, too.
They've worked out an "accelerated schedule" to fix it -- about 2 months, during which times they'll be running shuttles at night from WP to Van Ness. It's a pretty good way of dealing with that chronic underinvestment that Nat Ford mentioned; the result of Muni spreading itself too thin, trying over the years to cover too many bases while suffering a shortage of money and competence.
Anyway, the work will make trips in the tunnel faster and less bumpy. They're also going to prune a bunch of trees, abate the pigeons, polish and pressure-wash, and do a bunch of nice landscaping. They're saying they might even get a birdbath. A BIRDBATH! Could this neighborhood get any more Norman Rockwell?
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Finally, SF gets its own Einstein of transportation. Who would have thought the antidote to underinvestment and decrepitude would be...investment? Someone hire this guy.
It seems to me shuttles are almost always running at night from West Portal. They're always fixing one thing or another at any given time out there. I take that route often, and am pleasantly surprised when the trains run in the tunnels past 8pm.
I'm looking forward to seeing the birdbath. Let's hope it won't be mistaken for a urinal in it's first 24 hours.
What the hell? They already replaced the track there... this year.
Sorry, let me clarify. They already dug up and replaced the track surrounding the station under the guise of making everything quieter. It got noisier. Why they couldn't see fit to repair the track in the station whilst they had already closed the station boggles the mind.
Why they couldn't see fit to repair the track in the station whilst they had already closed the station boggles the mind.
Call me crazy, but I'm guessing the answer is "corruption."
The SFMTA actually has a separate budget for street improvements, which likely include things like the bird bath and tree cutting. The rail replacement is a different budget and probably a different project compared to the '07 rail replacement in front of the station.
The SFMTA is getting better my fellow riders, but fixes don't come over night with only a bargain basement $1.50 fare, weak car driver taxes, and decades of under-investment.