Results tagged “announcements”

The Powell-Hyde Street cable car line shut down for the rest of the day today. The cable running beneath the car was "frayed," it seems. Frayed? That...sounds scary. We wonder if any cars have plummeted down one of our lovely hills due to frayed cables snapping.

You know how the Bay Bridge is going to be closed on this Labor Day weekend? And how that means there'll be fewer car-trips into San Francisco? A reasonable person might assume that that'll mean an increased demand for public transit -- but Muni's response to that is, "reasonable people? What on Earth are those?"

--Turns out rescuers totally missed the car of the missing Alameda County woman and her priest friend, even though they got exact directions from 911. [Chron.]

Hey did you know that sometimes Muni makes mistakes? It's totally true! For example, you might not know this, but the launch of the T line was not without the occasional snafu. We refer, of course, to the confusion with the 54-Felton: according to a source at Muni, speaking on condition on anonymity, the 54 was re-routed onto Newhall to make room for the Third -- but nobody noticed that the new streets weren't wide enough for buses.

Update: All Bay Area public transportation will be free tomorrow -- but does that means public transportation, including MUNI and Caltrain and SamTrans? We think so, anyways.

It's not as good as getting the trains running on time, but it's a start. Muni leaders have clearly been in over thier heads for the last few days, with trains running ridiculously unpredictably. The inauguration of the T line's thrown the whole system into a tizzy; and so far, dealing with it has simply been beyond the abilities of the people who are supposed to be running the show.

One of everyone's least favorite things about BART is the lack of information provided when things go down. At the station, those little screens saying when and which BART is coming never actually let's people know if there's a problem. And on the platforms and on the trains, the announcement about what's up either is inaudible or sounds like one of those teachers in the "Peanuts" cartoons. So get this, BART actually is doing something about it.

Remember awhile back when we wrote about this website that lets you get NextMuni predictions via text-message? The downside was that it would involve some manual labor by the community to set it up. Well, delightfully, you've responded; after the jump you can find textmarks for the 5, 6, 21, 45, cable cars, and more. Muni's working on getting those LED signs up, but many stops don't have them yet and never will; so this is the next best thing.

SFiS -- more than just SFist minus the T! We give the new glossy advertorial section of the Chronicle our patented By The Numbers treatment below. (Warning -- SFiS only appears in .pdf form so many, but not all, of the links featured here will require Adobe Acrobat.)

If you, like us, heard very stressed-out-sounding BART announcements on your commute home today about the Hayward BART station being closed because of a police action and needing to take Richmond trains to get to Fremont last night, that's because four people were shot in the area of the Hayward BART stop around 5:48 p.m. No one is dead, but one person was found injured on a platform and another in a bus zone (we don't know where the third one was). The station was closed and BART trains were allowed to go through but not stop, as the police cordoned off the area. They found one possible suspect in a nearby housing complex and took him into custody.

Hey, the new MUNI T Third line is finally open! That's the new light rail route that goes (.gif) from Castro Station down Third Street, through Dogpatch, down the Bayview, past Monster Park, and all the way to Sunnydale Avenue. We decided to spend our day off today checking it out.

-The world's creepiest man, John Mark Karr, was brought in for questioning by the SFPD because on his way to a press conference announcing the dismissal of child pornography charges, he stopped his limo to go stare into the windows of an elementary school.

This just in ... the Glen Park BART station was shut down approximately an hour ago due to police activity, according to SF Gate. Seriously, it was not the "police activity" as described in the link above, it was just another suspicious package. We're always intrigued when we hear the announcements about "police activity on the BART system," because it could mean so many things, though we are so often disappointed because it usually turns out be either the aforementioned suspicious package or an obstreporous drunk person who has lost their BART ticket.

If changes aren't made, there could be problems housing the athletes. What dumbass decided to put the athletes up at the old Hunters’ Point shipyard in an “Olympic Village”? Why house people in an area that already is saddled with impressions that it’s unsafe and filled with crime? The weather's warm, but it's a neighborhood said to be in need of re-developing -- more business, more programs, more support. On the other hand, maybe the Bayview Hunter’s Point district would magically get the funds, attention and police coverage it needs, along with more services for its residents. With the whole world watching, we’re betting the higher ups would get it all cleaned up just in time. In between our own elite training exercises of raising our fork and lifting beer bottles, we'll be watching.

Man, we need some extra cash to get us through the weekend. We hate it when payday is on a Saturday! Our couch doesn't have cushions to harbor change (stupid Ikea PS), and Oprah's debt diet series has made us so afraid of check-cashing places that we cross the street to avoid them. (Tangent: Anyone else ever think that Oprah could solve all our debt problems on what she probably would have spent at Hermes?)

For once, a BART delay not caused by "switching problems" at Millbrae -- those of you trying to cross the Bay this morning probably heard the repeated announcements about "police activity" at the West Oakland station, and the subsequent crawling-rate of the trains as a result. (We had a weekly with us through the stop-and-go, so tomorrow's We Read The Weeklies will be unusually thorough as a result.)

It's a good thing we had to shut down the labs last week, because it let us put off admitting that we were wrong a bit hasty in our dismissal of the Mac rumor sites. Not two weeks after we claimed there was nothing to the rumors of a home media-based Mac mini or an iPod boom box, Apple held a "special" event where the company announced an Intel-based Mac mini with better support for video, audio, and home media, and an iPod boom box. Possibly the only thing more embarrassing is the fact that it's 2006 and we're still using the term "boom box."

?

All the tech news this week is coming from the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, where the giants of the industry are assembled to play the slots, get drunk, and convince you to give them more of your money. In addition to the multitude of cell phones, MP3 players, and increasingly ginormous plasma and LCD televisions, all the giants are making a commitment to downloadable content and video on demand.

But even a tacit endorsement by the POTUS isn't enough to quell the hype surrounding Steve Job's keynote address and product announcements tomorrow. Also via Engadget, two eagle-eyed Italians on a sacred pilgrimmage to the Moscone Center may have have spotted billboards being put up announcing the new flash-based iPod that everyone says isn't going to happen. Also in the realm of possible hoaxes, this may or may not be video of the new headless iMac/Media Center from Apple (via Cult of Mac). So. Much. Unverifiable. Buzz. All the more reason to attend the MacWorld Blogger lunch.

The Giants announced today that will be helping out the tsunami relief effort by holding an online auction this Thursday and Friday to raise money. Things that can be bid on include throwing out the first pitch, a trip for four to spring training, taking a few swings at Giants pitching (hey, if it's Tomko you might be able to actually hit it), and other items. The big thing that will be auctioned off is the chance to hang out with noted good-will ambassador Barry Lamar Bonds before a game. If you're wondering just how much a meeting with Barry could net, keep in mind that people paid $7,500 last year to have private meetings with both him and Alex Rodriguez.