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Part of the plan to make San Francisco run exclusively on sunshine and eco-righteousness, the city plans on erecting 360 new Muni bus stops "that'll further the causes of both solar power and blanketed Wi-Fi at the same time." According to the September issue of Popular Mechanics, the stops will be kind of cool. Details are as follows:
Serving the Public: San Francisco’s high-tech bus stops will channel an estimated 43,000 kilowatt-hours per year into the city’s grid. Built-in Wi-Fi routers will help the city create a comprehensive wireless Internet network.Paying Its Way: Each bus stop costs about $30,000. City officials say Clear Channel Outdoor has an installation and maintenance contract with the SFMTA. The company foots the bill and gets saleable ad space.
Conserving Juice: The new shelters’ LED lights use 74.4 watts—four and a half times more efficient than the 336 watts used by the old shelters’ fluorescent lighting.
Woo hoo, right? But, the free Muni wifi won't be with us until 2013. And, by that time, we'll all be using the computers implanted in our eyeballs and brains, rendering today's laptop and wireless connectivity useless.
Thanks, periqueblend, for the tip.
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I'm even more excited about those Burning Man LED lights all over the MUNI stop.
Id be scared of getting mugged while using a laptop at a MUNI stop.
It's not really getting mugged if they just grab your laptop and leave.
Thank you Gavin for letting us surf the web after the world has ended. (12/21/2010) Atleast the new stops don't look like Chia pets
Hey! That Chia Pet design made its way into NatGeo! Particularly, the one on McAllister and Larkin did. But it has since been de-Chiafied, ironic since NatGeo was playing up green aspects of the stop...
I'd be more excited if they actually had NextBus at them. Or if NextBus actually worked correctly. I'm getting pretty tired of it saying a bus is "arriving" only to have it go silent for a minute and then say the next bus is 15 minutes away.
Even with Muni's terrible reliability taken into account we should probably have a bus tracking system that doesn't skip buses (sometimes in the morning I've seen it say the next bus is 18 minutes away or so only to have two buses pass by in that time) or have phantom buses that never appear. Not just minor complaints about being a minute or two off, but completely failing to notice buses or reporting ones that don't exist (including them slowly approaching and supposedly arriving). It's one thing to have a Muni system that is erratic, but even worse when our only means of actually tracking it fails to work so consistently.
For actual stops wouldn't it also be nice if instead of just a bit of paint on a light post or a largely worn-away line in the road we actually just had signs where there isn't an actual shelter? I mean, we have signs in some places, primarily downtown, but even heavily trafficked areas with a high concentration of tourists (e.g. the Haight) don't often have proper signs. I can understand not having space for a shelter in some areas and perhaps wanting to save some money, but we have those signs for bike routes just about everywhere, is it too much to ask to have proper bus signs that clearly identify the stop, list the lines, and describe their route and hours?
I hate ghost buses that count down towards zero then never arrive. I can understand a bus not showing up on the arrival times because its gps cuts out, but what kind of error in the system could possible cause phantom buses?
Muni is acknowledging that the wait for a bus isn't going to get any shorter.
The message is that the waiting time won't get any better, so you may as well spark up the laptop, connect to a wifi network, and actually get some work done.
Has anyone seen one of these shelters with a solar panel in it? I thought all the red ones were suppose to have them, but one by Union Square and one at 16th and Mission don't.
I can't imagine they thought 16th and Mission wouldn't get enough sun to make it worthwhile :-/
I actually saw one today at Arguello and Geary that clearly appeared to have a solar panel in it. Seems about right. The Mission isn't sunny enough to be worth it, but the Richmond is filled with sunshine.
If MUNI can't get something as ancient as a BUS to show up at a BUS STOP within a reasonable amount of time, why would I believe that they can get WiFi to work?
Nice try and no, I'm not buying it.
Get the BUS to show up at the BUS STOP and then work on the other shit.
Baby steps you incompetent tards.
"Part of the plan to make San Francisco run exclusively on sunshine and eco-righteousness"
Brock, you've outdone yourself again!
Nat Ford and his pie-in-the-sky bullshit. Try doing something effective, Nat, instead of self-aggrandizement. Fuck, what an ass.
And how much will the wifi cost? Will it be as expensive as Bart's wifi?
Note that the word "FREE" is not mentioned in the original article or any other article on this subject. In fact, it's only mentioned here and on Gizmodo.
Talk about wishful thinking, guys. Get real.
No way WiFi will even be relevant in 2013. 3G is already good enough for idle websurfing while waitin for the bus.
I would trade all of this for a NextBus sign with two foot high letters that is easily visible from two blocks away. (And correct.) Make the whole damn stop a NextBus sign.
If you think AT&T will have fixed their 3G network by 2013...
Damn, son.
Ditto theo... also, 3G in SF? That's news to me. Edge (or nothing) is the norm along the J Church line.
AT&T has no Edge or 3G signal in many places in the city -- even in outdoor places with no tall buildings. The area around Haight and Stanyan is one example, 16th and Valencia is another.
And so far their vague promises to add more coverage haven't born any fruit.
You can blame the know-nothing, moronic neighbors who think that RADIATION will penetrate their tinfoil-hat protected brains for that one. Carriers have a very hard time putting up cell towers in SF.
We don't need wi-fi, how about an interactive touch map using NextBus data instead?
The connected bus had a good example where it showed you their location on Google Maps and would inform you of how long it will take to arrive at the next stop and how long your next bus transfer would be.
Also, the four digit codes for NextBus Muni stops (such as the one posted on the new shelter at Geary/Arguello) needs to be posted at every stop or at least program the damn NextBus signs to give you the stop code #.
These new shelters will generate 43,000 kWh per year for the city! Whoa! Enough to power one small apartment building or the Getty mansion! And windy wi-fi on uncomfortable, cramped, cold seats or better yet, standing up. Of course, these benefits for more, better lit saleable ad space is the answer! And these new shelters will only use about 250,000 kWh per year. Our brilliant Mayor McGreennose must be behind this.
Yeah, but at least they'll be able to power NextBus signs without the expensive PG&E hookup.