There was a press conference today at 11am with the Mayor and the head of Muni -- no major revelations, but here's the condensed Cliff's Notes version from our guy at the event: Gavin: Nat is as frustrated as everybody else. We want change on the margins. Eliminating bus stops. The line I take down polk never has more than 10 people; It takes 10 minutes. We will eliminate bus stops. Nat: This journey......

-- Rain! Nourishing, cozy, baptismal, layer-building, annoying, cold, revitalizing rain! [Weather Underground] -- Park it, SF. [Curbed SF] -- San Francisco weeklies pick up on our tete-a-tete. [SFBG, The Snitch] -- Mayoral debatzzzzzz. [BeyondChron] -- Gore nabs the Peace Prize. Presumably, could care less about it. [Examiner] -- Tool-y Governor vetoes homo-marriage bill. Again. Aw, thanks! You really shouldn't have. [Oakland Tribune] -- N-J on the Transit Effectiveness Project tip. [N-Judah Chronicles] -- Berkeley "mother"......

When not fending off rumors that he's been horking lines, Gavin has lately been running around proposing ideas to fix Muni, spurred on by the latest SPUR report and the Transit Effectiveness Project. ...

In today's installment, our Muni Driver takes a look at the Transit Effectiveness Project and gives us his thoughts on it. As always, drop us a line if you have any questions you'd like answered. ...

In the latest attempt to do something, anything, to improve the Muni's timeliness as dictated by the Transit Effectiveness Project, the Powers that Be are contemplating adding cameras to Muni buses to try and catch people who double park in bus-only lanes. The reason, of course, is that people blocking buses from going down the road cause some of the delays. Both Gavin and Ken Garcia looked at early footage taken and said they were amazed at all the double parkers they saw. They also agreed that while the dialogue in the footage was great, they thought the whole thing was too derivative of Godard. ...

You don't happen to have any opinions about the level of service on the J-Church, do you? Oh, you do? Why, that's marvelous. Muni wants to enlist you as their secret agent. During May, June, and July, Muni's going to be throwing every tool in their arsenal directly at the J. As one of the worst-performing lines, they're experimenting to see what it takes to turn things around. What works? What doesn't? "Oh Lord,......

People who ride the bus to work every day have nothing better to do than take a very long lunch -- twice -- and head over to SPUR's office to talk at length about public transit policy. Sounds like fun! There's two Muni-related and parking-related meetings coming up and open to the public (no snacks provided, but "feel free to bring a lunch"), so pencil them into your iCal now. If you're the kind......

It's a ticker-tape parade of awful file formats! Supervisor Mirkarimi offered up some Muni info in loathsome .doc, but N-Judah Greg helpfully converted it to slightly-less-loathsome .pdf. What's all the fuss about? Why, Muni's proven dedication to excellence, of course! After a town-hall meeting a few months ago, Muni officials committed to some rigorous timetables for Translink and NextBus and all those nifty time-saving gimmicks. Now it's our turn to make some notes on......

It turns out part of that Transit Effectiveness Project was taken out for a spin and tried out. For the past couple of months, MUNI has been testing out the 1 California to see if they could make things go smoother and have the bus line actually run on time. The good news is that they were able to do it-- from 81% on time to 88% on time. Now, not exactly an "A" but you could call it an "A" if you were talking about MUNI and deciding to grade everything on a curve. The bad news? It's a little bit more expensive to make everything run on time, about three quarters of a million more. And that’s just for one line. ...

hose warmongers at the Transit Effectiveness Project are taking this whole "listening to the people" thing to a whole other level . Mainly they now have an online survey for you, the rider, to fill out and tell them how you feel about MUNI. It's fun too. And the best part? There's a whole section where they want you to write anything that you wanted to say to MUNI. We're sure people are writing whole essays about the hell of 30 Stockton as you read this. ...

-The rain and all the usual stuff causing havoc on the roads. -Teachers to get Lunar New Year off. Oh, and students will too. -Vallejo cops shoot a driver for extremely reckless driving. -Thanks to activists in the Bay Area, people will be able to whack off to a more eco-friendly Victoria Secret's catalogue. -The Ex thinks the Transit Effectiveness Project should do a book report on how Portland does public transportation. -Berkeley U.N. Center......

Dear Martha, The war continues on and I miss you terribly. It's been many months since General Ford launched his war of MUNI aggression on us and I fear it might go on for ever and ever. The winter is here and it's getting colder and colder but we're told we must fight on against the able-bodied advocates with their Transit Effectiveness Project. Sometimes I wonder what we're fighting for but then I'm reminded it's for the transit-dependent. All the seniors, single parents with young children, people with disabilities, and school age youth, the huddled masses of San Francisco. Don't they know that it's their rightful mobility that's at questions? What would they do if that rascally Nathaniel Ford makes them walk an extra block or two? ...

That long-talked about Bus Rapid Transit system that was someday to go in effect on Geary Street is finally in effect. Kick off date was last Thursday. ...

We continue our conversation with Muni's executive director, Nathaniel P. Ford. When we last left Mr. Ford, he was addressing Muni's plans to improve the rider experience. NF: There’s an effort that’s going on right now which is the Transit Effectiveness Project, and it started before I got here. But similarly, we were doing something similar in Atlanta, where we recognized over the years between bus stop locations and the number of bus stops,......