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?

None of this will come as a news flash to anyone who actually lives here (Newsflash! The 30 Stockton is crowded!), and it's sort of depressing that the state of public transportation is so bad here that we're only just now, in 2008, possibly contemplating building a subway that hooks up to one of the city's most popular tourism areas.

In addition, the editorial, written by a public policy person at SPUR, is a little light on how we'd pay for this extension, or whether or not the moneyed residents in the tony Pac HeightsRussian Hill/Telegraph Hill area would actually agree to allow their streets to be hacked up for years to put a subway in (which is what we had always assumed had killed off any previous discussion of this idea in the past), but hey, we're just glad to see an actual opinion on the op-ed page that we're interested in learning more about!