-The Chron discovers that there's plenty of fare-evading scofflaws out there in MUNI land. And not only that, it's one of the reasons for MUNI's budget deficit. Anyways, yadda… yadda… yadda… increasing the amount of fare inspectors has been proposed as a solution, as well as fixing the fare boxes that are often not working. But don't tell that to Ken Garcia as he thinks those darn fare inspectors do their job a little too well. So, then, what we need to do is to amend those new MUNI proposals to say this: no more fare evasion unless it's Ken Garcia. Oh, and Ken Garcia's family. And, hell, maybe Garcia's friends while we're at it.
-And speaking of fares, the Board of Supes today are voting on whether to give a discount to all the young dudes out there, that being anyone between the ages of 18-24. New Supervisor Ed Jew, however, is not on board (ha! we made a pun!) and thinks that it's unfair to base fares on age when some 24 year olds make beaucoup dinero and some 56 year old mother might be making minimum wage and calls the proposed resolution "discrimination." Jew also wonders how we're all going to pay for all this. On the other side, is Urban Habitat who calls the fare discount important because it will "aid their (the kids) transition into adulthood" as if not having fare discounts will lead to stunted growth, commitment problems, and years of unemployed slackerdom. Hmmm...maybe that explains SFist's twenties. And isn’t that what a bar mitzvah is for?
-Now onto the exciting world of FasTrak where a new study has come out saying that giving discounts on FasTrak would make more people use them which would help ease traffic and congestion. The problem here is that not enough people use them-- only 40%. In New York, around 70% of commuters have it. The study also went on to add that New York has better bagels and pizza.
-And finally, KCBS has a story (mainly in audio form) about congestion on the rails. Turns out so many people are using trains to commute and there's so many freight trains out there, that there's little choo choo train traffic jams going on.