Good news! The FTA says that building a Central Subway would be a great idea. The FTA, whose local website hasn't been updated in about a year, evaluated project justification, mobilitiy improvements, and land use; and they gave the project a "medium-high" to "high" rating in those categories. They're also supposed to rate alternatives analysis and local financial commitment, but those criteria aren't mentioned in Muni's chipper press release. Once category that doesn't appear......

Well, whaddya know. No sooner did we lavish praise upon the SF County Transportation Authority than Nat Ford, head of Muni, decided that he might be interested in committing a hostile takeover of the SFCTA... thereby making the TA as flawless as Muni. Good idea! If our agency was melting down, and there was another one making us look bad, we might want to buy it and run it into the ground, too! (That's......

Attention conspiracy buffs: There's a secret project underway to seize control all of San Francisco's traffic lights, just like how the terrorists did in Live Free or Die Hard. Well, okay, the civic initiative (called "SFgo") isn't TECHNICALLY a secret; while it's true that nobody talks about it and current information is hard to come by, that's just because the project is really really boring. But here's something to spice it up: President Bush......

-- And then Nancy was all, "Like, what the hell, you guys?" [SF Examiner] -- The Central Subway Project. [Transbay Blog] -- Now you don't have to leave your bedroom to travel. Ever again. Yay! [The Tech Chronicles] -- The seven rules for talking (and not screaming self-righteously) about gentrification. [Neighbors Project] -- Behold: SF Weekly's new food blog. [SFoodie] -- A censure-free DiFi. [SFBG] -- After it was revealed that he was, and......

While the Powers that Be continue to dicker around with the idea of a very expensive Central Subway that will go from Market through Chinatown, one man has an idea to save us all the trouble and expense. That man is Howard Strassner of Rescue Muni....

Here's a wrapup of today's news...

Yes, the Official Worst MUNI Line contest is over, and we have a wiener. It's the 22 Fillmore with almost 1/3rd of the vote. We have to consider that a bit of an upset as most of the comments we got bemoaned the hells of the 38 Geary more than the 22. On the other hand, we've all experienced the joys of the 22. We once had a job interview near California and Fillmore and after taking the bus from the Mission to the California stop, we realized we could commute to Oakland by BART in half the time. ...

Someday, we'll all sit around and be able to tell each other just where we were when Anna Nicole Smith died. -Board of Supes Rules Committee votes for grace period for paid sick leave. ...

-Nancy just won an all-expenses paid trip to Sandals Baghdad. -Study on proposed Central Subway that would connect the T-Third line to Chinatown says that it is a really stupid idea. ...

Part the fourth in our multi-part conversation with Nathaniel Ford, the Executive director of Muni. See part one here, part two here, and part three here. Eve Batey: Well, this is going to kind of put you on the spot, and, frankly, I don't know how honest you can be, but I have to ask: Is the Central Subway really a good idea? I’ll bet two thirds of the people who voted for it......

No, not the sewers -- the subway. Passions were set aflame among transit enthusiasts when a memo by the SF County Transit Authority [PDF] suggested that the Central Subway (an as-yet-unbuilt system, intended to connect the existing lines with Chinatown, SOMA, and elsewhere) might get built without any actual means of transferring between subway lines. For those of you playing along, yes, that would make the entire $1.2 billion project pretty much useless. But......