An anonymous, well-placed source forwarded a memo along to us -- it's about a month old now, but its humor is of a special timeless breed: that of the toilet. more ›

The Taxi Cab Commission, fresh off their attempted coup, sent their long talked about proposal to the Board of Supervisors a few days ago calling for higher fares. Those fees would be an extra .75 cents to just get into a cab, meaning the starting fee would go from $2.85 to $3.60. They also asked that the "gate fee," the fees cab drivers use to pay the cab companies to rent a cab, go from $85 to $95. All of this makes a huge amount of sense considering all the recent talk about going green and making pub trans better and getting people out of cars. more ›

What did we tell you? Bay Bridge traffic was a nightmare today with the new reconfiguration of the SF offramps. Making matters worse, one of the contractors got a little delayed this morning and took an hour longer to get the cones taken down than he should have, which further backed things up. On the MUNI side, no one knows what the effect of the fare hike's going to be. The fare strikers released numbers that showed no real effect in money earned for the first three days of the month. The strikers take the position that this shows that the strike has had an effect (since numbers should have gone up), whereas MUNI takes the position that you have to wait until the end of the month to tell, because more people may have bought FastPasses instead. We're impressed that people can read so much into so little data -- but we will say, though, that for the first time ever, our usual FastPass vendors were reporting that they'd sold out of passes by Thursday the 1st. And hey -- they're finally opening the new Central Freeway! Ribbon-cutting ceremony today, new Octavia Street offramp opening Saturday, congestion back shortly after. Hey, did they take down that Webster Street temple yet? more ›

BeyondChron.org is reporting that a group of advocates and union leaders are thinking about taking the whole Muni fare hike battle to the voters. Yep, another proposition. The proposed proposition would call for a five-year freeze on fare hikes and lay-offs. One of things to be considered on the proposal would be if the BoS votes for the fare increases, whether or not the freeze will be retroactive, meaning will the increased fares be decreased as it were. more ›

So we had to go put our tale of "San Francisco Secret Service" callback woe up on Scott Stereogum's post requesting stories of calling the numbers in Paris Hilton's hacked Sidekick. While there, we noted that her friend "Nessie Traina," AKA Vanessa Traina, daughter of local romance novelist Danielle Steele, was also listed. She was last spotted at Fashion Week in New York. Of course, the number is a 310 number, which means she's abandoned us for the splash and dash of Southern California, so we didn't bother to call. more ›

...drunk! Last week's winner: the The Guardian. Muni fare hike, rrrrgh! The Guardian shakes its fist at you. Arlene Ackerman writes a defensive letter ("I have never claimed to be perfect and my staff and I make missteps like any other human beings." Nothing good can follow that statement.) Local politics: why isn't a sports agent attorney being prosecuted for stealing money from his client? (answer: well-connected). Burning Man, part 15 of a 78-part series. Cover article: Feel-bad romantic comedies. And Inside Deep Throat: the ultimate That's 70s Show. SF Weekly: We raced through the letters and Matt Smith so we could take the "Are you an apologist for Chris Daly?" quiz. God, this is So Fricken Good. We scored: "Please make this guy the next president of the Board of Supervisors. My TiVo would never be the same." Ladies, order your Mrs. Chris Daly t-shirts now! Cover article: Sweet Jesus, can this issue get any better? The cover article is about Journey!! Steve Perry is totally the emo-est singer alive. Meredith Brody sniffs disdainfully at the food at the Scharffen Berger café. Conor Oberst, making a run for Steve Perry's title. The clubs columnist goes to the Zeitgeist to think about Metallica. Savage Love: cancer survivor wants to have an affair, does kidney stone medication affect semen, and a complicated letter involving gurneys in Canada that we don't really quite understand. Don't stop believin', after the jump. more ›

As expected, the Municipal Transit Authorities proposal to increase fares by $.25 went over as well as Tara Reid's attempt to play a brainy archeologist in her new movie. So far, it's led to a protest, a rowdy committee hearing and some waffling on the part of the Gavster. Not to mention some spirited debate on SFist. The proposed fare increases are in an attempt to try and close a projected deficit of over $50 million for the upcoming year. more ›