Hey, you know those awful flatscreen maps in the subways? The ones with the confusing station names and the pixelated Alcatel diagrams that look like a screengrab from an Atari 2600? Don't get too accustomed to them, because Muni and NextBus are working on something better. It'll take a few weeks -- at least -- but eventually, they'll be replaced by nicer, prettier, more accurate, comprehensible data. Hooray! That only took, what, a billion......

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......

Just prior to last week's No Pants Subway Ride (AKA: No Pants 2k8), a few improv-appreciating activists went on a mooning spree of the blue kind. The nerve! But don't take our word for it, check out all of the shocking naked-butt action, above. And in front of the Irish Bank, no less! (Brilliantly brought to you by Viddyou's nahduhlee's.) To check out some photos of the naked BART riders, do visit No Pants......

Let's get a look at your legs, San Francisco! Saturday, January 12 is the annual "No Pants" subway ride, as originated in NYC by Improv Everywhere and elevated to fame by Ira Glass. The details are as follows: When: Saturday, January 12 at 3:00 PM, Sharp! (Over by around 5:30) Where: I'm thinking we should meet across the street from Embarcadero station, but I'm open to ideas here. Bring: A backpack or other place......

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......

Apparently 511 just installed new arrival-time screens at a kiosk somewhere around Embarcadero, but we're skeptical. (Surprise!) Muni has scrolling LEDs in all the subway stations, but most of the time they're just reminding you about Proof of Purchase. And BART has the same problem: info screens so cluttered with reminders about tickets and pickpockets that they almost never show arrival estimates, or even the current time. But hey, this is 511 we're talking......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

-- 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......

From our Muni Security Guy-...

-- Oh dead God: "Hearts in San Francisco" returns. Sweet cuddly baby Jesus, help us all. [Curbed SF] -- Prop A passed. And? [BeyondChron] -- Siamese Conjoined twins separated. Pft. Please. Wake us up when they sprout eight limbs. [Chron] -- More Dan Noyes! [The Snitch] -- BRT and subways in Beijing, China. (Have you ever seen a cleaner subway in your entire life? Sob.) [N-Judah Chronicles] -- Crab season hurt? Boo! Tourist season......

Oh this is just hilarious. Muni is predicting bus disruptions in the Castro on October 31st; but they can't say that it's because of Halloween, because the city continues to pretend that Halloween isn't going to happen this year. So now, in a semiotically treacherous move, they're saying that the disruptions are due to No-Halloween. "No Halloween in the Castro. Possible delays and re-routed lines," says the MTA website. "Due to the cancellation of......

On our way to Subway Whole Foods for lunch this afternoon, we noticed this headline in today's Examiner. And we must say: we love it. The paper is finally living up to its tabloid size and format via these risky (and dare we say, SFist-like) headlines. ...

Recently we featured The Kin in the weekly music column, New Tunes Tuesday #4. We did this for a reason - they've recently become one of my favorite bands. Just as we were impressed when we saw them for the first time at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia in June, we were equally impressed with their West Coast debut performance this week at The Independent. Instantly the audience responded positively to the well-blended vocals,......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

This settles it for now. Wagner's Tannhäuser, the first new production ordered by SF Opera general director David Gockley, opened last night, initially making us a bit nervous. Why? Well, Gockley had announced the end of the fedora, and the return of glamorous period productions. Since last year’s most compelling production was Iphigenie en Tauride, a timeless rendition in a naked black cell, we fretted: is this season going to be the return of kitsch?......

At three o'clock today we tried to take the M out to SF State. The overhead sign at Church Station switched from showing only "K in Seven Minutes" to "Next Trains In Subway - Delayed." We left the station in disgust. Looks like it's not a whole lot better two hours later. That shot is from 4:45 pm today. There are now nine M trains bunched up on the east side of West Portal,......

Send your Bay Area finds to found [at] sfist [dot] com, or tag them sfist and found on Flickr! Let us know where and when you found the item and any other helpful info. SFist reader The Default Attorney sent us this item, which s/he found taped to an N-Judah stop at Arguello and Irving at the end of June. The note sounds like your typical missed connection, but it was taken a step......

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....

Banner week for SFist as the site's new editor introduced himself -- hooray for Brock! While the NY Times weighed in on SF's mayoral race, only SFist had the (insert tongue firmly into cheek) hard-hitting latest on candidate/activist Josh Wolf. Coverage of a protest vs. gentrification spawned a fantastic debate amongst SFist's readers. Finally, from the sublime to the ridiculous: video of a man that confused a Board of Supes meeting with "open mic......

Our security guy returns this week with a post about the measure taken before a big event as well as some more answers to recently posed questions. ...

If you're a subway rider, you've probably already noticed that Muni's running on manual today. Their signaling system -- the one that run on OS/2 -- is, as always, experiencing problems. They're waving the trains through the tunnel by hand. And the delays aren't too awful -- as it turns out, having no system at all isn't all that much worse than using Alcatel's dreadful ATCS. But here's where we slap our foreheads: Muni's posting......

Breathe easy, San Francisco; KPIX's Mike Sugarman is paying his debt to society. According to a tipster who passed along the results of a Sunshine request, the crime baron was spotted onboard a subway train without his Proof of Purchase. "Caught red-handed," he is reported to have declared, possibly while typing a damsel to the tracks. According to our source, the villainous fiend volunteered to do some community service -- perhaps a little song?......

Oh how we hate that high-pitched whine generated by held-open subway doors. It hurts, but of course, that's the point -- it's supposed to make you let go of the door so the whole train doesn't have to wait for your giggling gasping slowpoke friends. But maybe it hurts a little too much. Here's an item on the SF County Transit Authority's agenda for tomorrow's meeting (10:30 am, Room 263, City Hall): ...Chairman Dufty......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

Service changes! Yay! Who doesn't love service changes? Communists, that's who. The point is, Muni's announcing some service changes. You're just going to have to take our word for it, though, because as usual the information isn't on their website yet. (We once asked a Muni spokesperson: who takes care of putting info on the website? Nobody could answer that.) We'll post a rundown of the changes below. Are they good or bad? Who......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

Hey check out these totally sweet NextBus thingies from Melbourne! Man, those rock. Anyway, how was your subway ride this morning? Awesome? Was it awesome? We bet it was awesome. Awesomely MELTY! "It should reduce the delays,'' says Muni about some software switches they made this morning, in response to complaints from people who don't live here. But uh-oh, our informants tell us that the clogging was worse than ever during today's commute. Reader......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. ...