Results tagged “publictransportation”

With an estimated 700,000 boardings per day, 1 out of 10 Muni riders jump aboard without paying. (For shame! Two dollars is a bargain for this kind of entertainment.) According to a report by SF Chron, "[f]are evasion on Muni occurs most frequently in the afternoon and at night ... Among the lines where the problem is most prevalent are the 9-San Bruno, 14-Mission, 38-Geary and 47-Van Ness."

On Friday night, a dead body was found on a 5-Fulton Muni bus. The body has been identified as Christopher Feasel of San Francisco. As the corpse showed no signs of trauma, investigators are still trying to determine the caused of death. (Our guess is the excruciating wait for an elusive 5-Fulton bus did him in.) According to police Sgt. Lyn Tomioka, "Workers discovered Feasel around midnight Friday at the bus yard at Presidio Avenue and Bush Street," but the bus was parked at around 6:30 pm that night.

Ever since lasts week's Muni bus brawl went "viral" -- a term MSM adores using repeatedly; speaking of which, a few news anchors have been using the term "cat fight" to describe the female fight, which, really? -- the clip has scored, as of Monday morning, well over a half million views. The video is disgusting yet enthralling.

This man us standing close enough to the bus stop that everyone -- including some kids -- cam smell him. If he reeked of garbage or beets, it would be considered rude, and he'd be embarrassed to know that everyone is edging away so they don't have to breathe him in. Smokers? Not so much.

Noting that today's warm weather throughout most of the Bay Area is simply unbearable, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has declared today a Spare the Air Day. "Hot temperatures and light winds are expected to produce unhealthy air throughout the region, so the district is encouraging commuters to drive less, take public transit, walk, bike, carpool, link necessary trips and postpone errands, if possible," reports CBS 5. And, as always, there will be NO free transit. (Alas.)

Remember the BART strike of September 1997? Which lasted an entire week? Turning into a nightmare. Well, what with BART officially announcing a strike, you should get ready for more of the same come Sunday night.

Mini office on Muni.

OK, so we know we've been bitching about MUNI more than usual for the past few days. But personal revenge? So unlike you. See, we happened to be on the T line (meeting a visiting relative at Caltrain) this evening, along with a full load of people who wanted to get to a train and go home. The train stopped in the subway for nearly half an hour, exhibiting all of the usual traits of an epic train failure

In about a month, you can officially get your TransLink card for BART. According to SFGate, "testing of the regional TransLink fare card on BART appears to have had no major glitches, providing a shot of good news for a project that has been hampered by years of delay." Come May 8, riders will get to test out TransLink for BART. Which, of course, is fantastic news. "It will be a major milestone once TransLink is operational on BART," chirped Ann Flemer, deputy director of operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Robert Cruz, 61, and Darwin Dias, 75, filed suit against San Francisco for being in gross violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. On May 26, 2007, according to reports, "Cruz and Dias, both in motorized wheelchairs, say they took an elevator down from street level to meet friends at Cable Car Coffee in Hallidie Plaza on May 26, 2007. It was a Saturday at about 2:45 p.m." When they returned to the elevator at 4 p.m., they found it shut off with a sign on it that said the elevator only operates until 3 p.m. on weekends. (!) So, they were stuck, "facing 20 stairs up to street level and six stairs down to the station." With little help from Cable Car Coffee staff or two SFPD officers (who suggested they urinate in a corner gutter if they needed relief), firefighters eventually carried them to the lower level. Tomorrow, the Board of Supervisors vote whether or not Cruz and Dias deserve $92,000 for this glaring oversight. What say you, do they deserve $92,000 for SF city employees' (chronic) lack of responsibility?

Inspired by Gavin's plan to close the Embarcadero to traffic two weekends later this summer, Chris Daly decided to see Gavin's plan and raise him a street or two by proposing that Market Street should be closed to cars from Octavia to the Embarcadero. The only sort of traffic allowed will be buses, taxis, delivery trucks and a few other very important vehicular thingies. The reasons for it include helping MUNI buses move freely, getting more people out of cars and onto pub trans or bikes, helping save the environment, and because it’s kinda a cool idea (see, most every city that is considered world class). Also, as everybody knows, driving down Market Street is kinda impossible anyways so why not?

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 Wharf?

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.

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., when the BART gates slam shut.) We almost asked a group of giggling youth on the platform "shouldn't you be in school?" but didn't want to go all Principal Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off on them. Watch out for Ferraris falling from garages later today!

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 passbooks, or frantically flipping around your credit card so the stripe faces the right way in the ticket-buying machine right as the Baby Bullet starts ominously clang-clang-clanging an imminent departure to the South Bay!

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.

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.

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 public transportation, including MUNI and Caltrain and SamTrans? We think so, anyways.

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!)

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.

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.

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.