As disgusted as we were by the fact somebody left the remains of their microwaved 7 Eleven nachos on the guard rail of the 38 Geary, we have to admit to being somewhat amused by watching rider after rider walk by and stare for a few seconds to determine if getting a seat on a crowded bus was worth taking the chance that one bad jolt could cause half-eaten beans to wind up in their hair....

We don't usually read the Op Ed pages of the Chronicle, because it's always either rehashed columnists from other papers or something like "give birth control pills to deer in Point Reyes" -- but can you believe it? The Chron actually got someone local to write about a local issue today -- if we're going to build out the MUNI underground, why not actually build it out and have a subway that runs to Fisherman's......

Due to budget problems, the Muni Powers That Be have decided on a possible solution, that being raising the Muni Fast Pass from $45 to $60 bucks. Suck on it, Muni riders....

Don't do this. Ever. Seriously. At last! An informative guide -- tutoring both rookies and veterans riders alike -- on how the hell to ride the headache that is Muni and BART public transportation. Neighbors Project brings you this nifty and imperative guide, which will help us all get along that much better. The guide touches on everything from commuter checks, to smiling, to letting "people off the train before you get on" (we want......

That idea of congestion pricing in San Francisco, meaning charging people to drive in certain places around the city, has moved from crazy pipe dream stage to crazy pipe dream planning stage. Recently, the city was awarded $180 million to study the idea and there are already two potential places being mapped out by the people mapping it out. Instead of charging cars to go downtown, the idea would be to take it to the bridge as it were. The first place would be on Doyle Drive, one of the roads that takes you to the Golden Gate Bridge . In fact, one of the conditions of all this money is that the city would just have to do such a thing. Another spot being considered is right outside of Treasure Island. They're thinking up the idea of maybe charging $1 or $2 a car and it could work by having people use the FastTrak system, or at least we hope so as being from the East Coast, having to stop constantly for tolls gets kind of tedious. Also a bad place to be if you've just started a mob war against the Tattaglia and Sollozzo families. ...

So the Chronicle says not that many people took advantage of free public transportation today for the first Spare The Air day of the season, but the BART train we were on was certainly pretty crowded. We love Spare The Air days, where all of a sudden the kids that everyone always says they never see in San Francisco materialize out of nowhere and ride the rails all day. (Or for today, until 1 p.m.,......

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......

The rumblings from a week ago have been confirmed: Josh Wolf, on his blog, has declared his intent to run for mayor. ...

And the Bay Area dominates your reality TV scene YET AGAIN!!! Danville's own Evan O'Dorney, sponsored by the proud-as-punch Contra Costa Times, wins this year's spelling bee on the word "serrefine," which is not a brand of drinking water but rather, is a small set of forceps used for clamping blood vessels. O'Dorney is home-schooled (but affiliated with a local charter school, and takes classes at various local community colleges), came in fifth in the......

J.D. Power and Associates, the well-regarded surveyor of customer satisfaction rankings and similar, has conducted its 2007 North American Airport Satisfaction Index Study. Guess which U.S. airport ranked the lowest in the large airport (those with 30 million passengers+/annum) category? Yeah, it's San Francisco International. ...

Nancy Pelosi is sticking up for her constituents, amidst all the recent news that San Francisco has the highest gas prices in the nation. She says that she's trying to make July 4th “Energy Independence Day" through a package of proposals. As a pedestrian/public transportation user, we don't personally feel a direct impact from these high prices, but we'd be fooling ourselves to think that there isn't a trickle-down impact -- on any goods......

So there you are in the morning. You woke up, you got out of bed and dragged a comb across your head. Then you found your way downstairs and drank a cup but when you noticed you were late, you found your coat and grabbed your hat and before you went to make the J Chuch in seconds flat, you went to NextBus to see just how long you'd have to wait only to see-- holy frickin' cow!-- the next bus will be coming in 47 minutes. ...

Update: All Bay Area public transportation will be free tomorrow -- but does that means all public transportation, including MUNI and Caltrain and SamTrans? We think so, anyways. People who drove to Oakland today despite the warnings not to reported very light traffic! You don't say! Schwarzenegger is coming to tour the scene and do a press conference around 10:30 pm tonight. Oakland FD used water and not foam to fight the fire because......

So hey, we've got some sad news. SFist is sorry to report that our beloved sports guru and fun-loving grammar anarchist Jon Shurkin is stepping down as editor. We're going to miss him and his dyspeptic-with-a-twinkle style. (No hate in the comments, please -- we're very sad!) BUT: our loss can be your gain! Do you want to edit SFist? Gothamist HQ is looking for an editor with a point of view about the......

In today's "No Duh" study of the day, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority determined that-- are you sitting down for this?-- a rapid bus system and better public transportation options will increase ridership along Geary Street. The study also determined that puppies are cute, Brooke on "the Real World" is crazy, and the Giants need more offense. ...

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

So in light of the recent homeless survey, the question everyone is asking is Col. Tigh? Really? And what's with "All Along the Watchtower?" Oh wait, that's "Battlestar Galactica." Where were we? Oh yeah, so the question everyone is wondering is what's with all the homeless people who came here from elsewhere?...

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. ...

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists....

It seems like every week, there's one of those Top 10 lists that come out trying to let everyone know what cities are ranked where and why. In fact, we've seen enough of these in the past few years to wonder if there are any Top 10 type lists that haven't been done yet. Top 10 Cities to Buy a Bong? Type 10 Cities to Get Drunk and Wind Up With A Tatoo In? Top 10 Cities to Get Gonarehea? Well, this week's Top 10 list is Top 10 Most Walkable Cities and guess what? San Fran clocks in at #3. ...

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as......

Oh, you Taxi Cab Commission-- first you whisper sweet nothings to us and add fifty new cabs, telling us that you get it, you really, really get it. But now that we've finally sat back and relaxed in the knowledge that some sanity had come to all things cabs, you announce that you just might need to raise the "flag-drop" by fifty cents, meaning it would cost $3.60 just to get into a cab. And for those of you keeping score, that would make our cabs the most expensive in the country. Oh, we're so proud. ...

As of April 7, the N Judah will no longer be the MUNI metro train that will take you to the Caltrain station and the ballpark. That will now the J-Church and the new T-Third line. ...

Hey, it looks like today's theme is MUNI. But who doesn't love stories about MUNI? Anyways, the Chron did a story and discovered that MUNI has a lot of problems right now, mainly that it's on time only 70% of the time. That's 15% lower than mandated by Prop E. In fact, only three lines approach the 85% mark....

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

We may occasionally bag on BART, but we have to say that in the most cases, we are more than happy with it. Mainly because it's not MUNI but that's a whole other story. We also think everyone else feels the same way because they keep on talking about extending it all over the area. Just look at those BART maps in stations-- there's all sorts of dotted lines representing proposed lines. Well, one of those proposed lines is getting closer to happening as a whole bunch of money was thrown BART's way to extend BART to Santa Clara and San Jose. Like $364 million dollars worth of money. ...

So San Francisco's Department of the Environment-- you know we had one didn't you?-- has come out with their plans to make this city go green. Or more like cutting down on those nasty, nasty greenhouse gases so we can cut emissions to pre-1990 levels. The report was called for by Gavin as part of his Climate Action Plan, which he introduced in 2004. ...

-Pelosi starts right in with the San Francisco values: bans smoking. -The Governor's health care plan could supercede San Francisco's health care plan. ...

You know how Gavin said we were "seconds" away from inking a deal with Earthlink/Google over providing free WiFi to everyone in the city? Well, "seconds" might have been a slight exaggeration but late yesterday, a deal was actually reached, the i's dotted, the t's crossed, and pen was put to paper. Soon the entire city will be a "hot spot." But we knew that already. ...