March 7, 2008
Muni Has No (Hybrid) Love for Hunters Point
Muni has decided to halt use of hybrid buses in the Hunters Point area because of "vandals" along the 54-Felton line. According to the Gate:
Muni drivers have reported over the last couple of weeks that people have been shutting down the power on their buses by flipping a switch that can be accessed easily through an unlocked panel on the outside of the bus.
When that happens, the drivers can't accelerate, they lose radio contact with dispatchers and the interior lights on the buses go out. The power loss does not affect the brakes.
Whoa. Fortunate thing about the brakes still working, huh?
Muni says they will not return Hybrids to that area until locks have been put in place to keep people from tampering with the switch. The regular, non-hybrid, less-tampered-with versions of the Muni bus will continue to run through the area and provide service.
In addition to having the electricity being switched off on the buses, drivers have reported that "teenagers and young adults have thrown rocks at the buses, breaking windows and denting the bodies" and "a couple of drivers [have been] assaulted." Police and Muni are teaming up to increase security along the 44-O'Shaughnessy and 54-Felton routes.
Maybe someone can explain this to us, but why would a switch that powers an entire bus be located on the outside of the bus and with easy access to any one boarding the bus, but not the drivers themselves? We don't even live in Hunters Point and we can say that we have Dennis the Menace moments/daydreams of flipping off that switch on the bus. We don't do it, but Muni shouldn't leave it up to chance.
French Dennis the Menace movie poster from impawards.com.
|
It's just the hybrid equivalent of pulling the trolley bus pick ups off the wires.
I am sick and tired of the uneducated, unemployed, gang banging idiots harassing the rest of us on a daily basis. When is Chief Fong going to grow into that police costume she wears and show some balls with these criminals?
I fear that San Francisco is about to become a vigilante city - much like NYC was in the 80's before they made violent crime reduction a top priority. How many times are you going to leave the house in fear that the back car on the T-Third is going to get loaded up with thugs and violent criminals that nobody wants to prosecute or imprison?
Unfortunately, city officials are not going to do anything until some elderly law biding citizen pulls out a 38 special and kills a would be robber on the streets. Then all hell can break loose.
I really hope that the test case is some barely breathing tiny 90 year old woman filling some 20 something thug with a lengthy record full of lead. Maybe then everyone will get a grip on reality.
One of my roommates form long ago had her parents out to visit from NY, and the parents turned out to be friends with Bernard Goetz.
"He was a nice boy! That boy got a bum rap!"
It's a small world! is all I can say.
What a bunch of jerks. Of course SFPD won't do anything to stop them.
RobinSF: Shouldn't that be spelled "gang switchers?"
the 44 runs from out there in HP all the way to the Richmond. So now , thanks to some folks who can't seem to follow society's rules, all of us near the 44 can't ride the new buses.
next time there's some "give more money to HP" thing on the ballot I'll be sure to give it a big who cares, and let 'em stew in it for aw hile.
Thank you, San Francisco Chronicle. Now every teenager in the city will be finding that panel and shutting down hybrid busses all over the city. Can't they just install a lock like I have on my gas tank?
Yeah, I thought ol Bernie got a bad rap, too. Until I actually read the case opinion. Um, kookoo, kookoo.
I hate to sound like the angry sfgate commenters, but it seems like every time anyone tries to do anything nice for that area of town, it gets torched, shot at, has rocks thrown at it, or is otherwise destroyed. Maybe we should just put the shittiest, most broken down buses on that line, since that's how everything out there ends up, anyway.
Cancel services to that part of town, including electricity.
The switch is probably on the outside so that rescue personnel can turn off the high-voltage parts of the bus before they start hacking through walls to pull survivors from the wreckage.
We can thank the residents of Hunter's Point the first time the fire department has to wait for the guy with the key to come from across town and turn off the bus before they can start working.
Probably for safety reasons. When it comes to electricity, it's a good idea to have an easily accessible OFF switch. Emergency considerations should override any convenience issues. BTW you could also stop a BART train anytime.. The emergency switches are out in the open (well, behind an easily broken glass window) at every station. Of course, BART has a police and station agents, etc. to catch anyone abusing it.
You just can't trust poor people.
"gang switchers" nice! Is that a new racist term we can all get behind?
yea. now everyone knows how to open the lid and turn it off! soon they won't run on a single route at all, and that's going to be bad on the 37 because all the old small buses got junked!
IIRC, the switch box can't have a lock on it per state law, likely because of rescue operation needs. Muni simply can't slap a lock on it for a good reason, and the buses weren't designed with the idea in mind that someone would maliciously flip the switch while the bus is in service.
Unfortunately for the residents of BV/HP, there are groups of trouble makers that make the entire neighborhood look like a cesspool. The community doesn't have enough neighbor buy in to fix this problem along with the fact that the SFPD is overwhelmed, under-trained, and understaffed.
SF needs to fundamentally look at how they handle poorer communities, such as creating mixed income dwellings, aggressive education and training programs, and individual buy in to the neighborhood.
Um...actually, i coulda sworn i saw new buses on the 44 and the 54 even though muni said they weren't going to run them at the area.
Aggressive education programs and MUNI? You must mean something like T-Third Street. You know, facilitating education by eliminating a direct route from BVHP to City College. Way to go Willie.
So these punks were causing a safety hazard as well as inconveniencing thousands of riders due to lack of "individual buy in"?! WTF is that?
If SFPD actually did its job "individual buy in" would follow.
I've decided that the best way to get community buy-in into the system is to tax everybody. Funny how you start to care how the money is spent when it's your money.
"SF needs to fundamentally look at how they handle poorer communities, such as creating mixed income dwellings, aggressive education and training programs, and individual buy in to the neighborhood."
Gosh, like I want these problems imported to my relatively nicer neighborhood. If these people can't follow a social contract with the rest of society I don't want them anywhere near me.
"SF needs to fundamentally look at how they handle poorer communities, such as creating mixed income dwellings, aggressive education and training programs, and individual buy in to the neighborhood."
Gosh, like I want these problems imported to my relatively nicer neighborhood. If these people can't follow a social contract with the rest of society I don't want them anywhere near me.
And as a neighbor to the Richmond end of the line, bummer as we now have to listen to the vibrating, wrattling diesel buses sit at the stop (even though they are supposed to turn them off while having their break!)