Sigh. For those of us for whom a MUNI FastPass is not enough (i.e., with commutes outside the SF city limits), we really have been eagerly awaiting The One Card To Rule Them All Translink system, which promised to let you buy one magnetic card that would give you access to all Bay Area public transportation systems. No more fumbling around for BART tickets, or waiting in line by the cable car to buy MUNI......

A reader in the field informs us that Caltrains are stopped both ways today, after a horrific accident at Palo Alto where a train actually ran over a car on the tracks. Yipes! Ambulances have been called, special tools are being used to extract the car, and bus bridges haven't yet been in put into place. Here's the first word we've seen online. There was also some kind of BART delay this morning, but we......

Maybe it's just because snazzy bullet trains are cooler than wheezy buses and screeching light-rails, but Caltrain rides on so much better goodwill than poor beleaguered MUNI. Both agencies are facing massive budget gaps -- but while MUNI's proposals are greeted with angry villagers waving pitchforks and torches, Caltrain gets high praise with only a few sighs of regret. Huh. Caltrain is raising fares by 17.5% -- so a one-way ticket from SF to SJ will go from $5.50 to $6.75 (as opposed to a twenty-five cent hike on MUNI), and Caltrain will also be closing three stations and significantly reducing hours at a fourth. So why no louder outcry? Well, to sweeten the deal, Caltrain has now scheduled 22 runs of the extremely popular express Baby Bullet train (from the previous 4) and is opening more Bullet stops, so current riders will have more options and new riders might be enticed to hop on board. Caltrain also pledged to revisit the issue in 6 months and see how the proposed cuts are doing, and will modify their decision if necessary. Wow, accommodating your customers actually seems to work! Maybe MUNI could try and take some tips from Caltrain -- it seems like people are more willing to pay for higher fares if they get better service back. (We know, it's a mind-blowing concept.) Maybe MUNI should introduce more express buses or light rails, or introduce skip-stops on the 38, or build dedicated bus lanes -- just to give some examples. Maybe that'd cheer us up. Or maybe the Caltrain rage stories just aren't making the news? Picture of the College Park station from The Bus Stops Here, by G. Araki...

It was a good year, it was a bad year. Here's my list of the so-best parts of 2004, in no order at all. So-Best photo: I'm not a super big fan of Norah Jones or anything, and it has no SF connection whatsoever, but I've been dying for an excuse to use this picture for months now. (I like the letter Y just fine, though.) So-Best city hall trend: Rate this year in local politics triple-X! Sex, violence, and foul language: F-bombs dropping like bunker busters, groping at the Gettys, and hand-to-mouth pumping action -- and that's just for two branches of the local government! Throw in some sizzling-hott judicial/executive same-sex marrying action, fights galore, plushie love, vandalism, computer hackery, and those ever-present Asian fetishists (you just love them for their money), and phew, you'd definitely have to prove you were over 18 to get into this movie! So-Best blotter entry/b>: The pranksters who stole the bronze Hermes outside the University Club. Runner-up: The angry Texas Ranger throwing the chair at heckling Mr. Bueno and hitting his wife in the nose. So-Best commuter tale: This was back in April, back when SFist was just a twinkle in our publisher's eye -- but remember that dude who threatened to kill himself on the Bay Bridge and tied up traffic for thirteen hours? And then they proposed shooting a big Spiderman net under him? The highlight of your westbound commute. Runner-up: The Baby Bullet/BART hookup finally working out is saa-weeeeeet. It could only be better if it actually went at like 200 miles an hour so when you looked out the windows, things go all blurry. So-Best makeshift top 40 radio station: I'm still torn up about the death of Z95.7. But now that I've finally gotten MTV Hits from my cable company RCN and TiVo DVR and an ipod to go, I'm completely up to date. (Damn you, Max Martin, and your catchy new Kelly Clarkson tune.) Runner-up MTV Networks so-best: Have you seen the new VH1 Classic show The Alternative? So-Best things I've learned at sfist: How to reserve books at the Public Library. Who this band the Arcade Fire is. How many different crime movies and TV shows were set in San Francisco. And all these cool people I have the privilege of writing with (awwww). Keep reading in 2005!...