Where’s Gavin?

wheresgavinsticker2Good question, indeed. More broadly, where’s the leadership on Muni, outside of Supervisor Chiu and a few others?

This nugget arrived in our inbox today. It’s basically a contest for any of us to enter. Snap a photo of Gavin Newsom riding a non-cable-car Muni vehicle, and this group, Where’s Gavin, will buy your next (and the last $45) Fast Pass:

Dear Sir or Madam,

As riders of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (buses and trains), we were very disappointed that Mayor Newsom decided to push through a Muni budget that will cut routes and balance the budget on the backs of transit riders instead of making everyone share the burden.  We don’t think that Gavin actually gets it on transit or gets on transit, contrary to the comment in the Chronicle that said he goes incognito.  We’d like him to ride more, perhaps to get a feeling for what riders go through even on days when the budget hasn’t been cut.  As kind of a push to get him to take more transit, incognito or otherwise we started this page.  It’s basically a contest: be the first to get a picture of Mayor Newsom on Muni incognito (other than a cable car) and we’ll buy that person’s fast pass for the month after they win.  We think its a pretty good incentive, especially in these tough economic times.  We’re also going to buy some beers for everyone else that brings in a photo at the end of the run.  We hope you can help us in our quest.

Where’s Gavin?
http://wheresgavin.com

PS: We wish to remain anonymous as long as Gavin remains incognito on Muni vehicles

So dust off your cellphone’s lens and keep your eyes peeled. This type of mysterious-beast sighting could net you a sweet prize. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and report back when there’s a winner.

Muni Diaries iPhone App Review: iCommute

img_0010The way I see it, there are two basic methods of attacking the problem of getting around San Francisco on public transit: chance and control. Chance, I believe, speaks for itself. Control is what the rest of us attempt in neurotic fashion, day in, day out. We use NextBus, iPhones, BlackBerrys, crystal balls, bat droppings … whatever it will take to inform us when the freakin’ bus will be there.

It’s a crowded field, to be sure. But what if, just what if, some augur of reliability emerged from the crop to solve [most of] your woes? Here’s a first look at a series of apps that we’ll review here at Muni Diaries. Today, we’ll look at iCommute.

The first thing I noticed about iCommute was its groupings of routes (1-10, 11-20, etc.) on the right side of a list of all the routes, much the way iPhone apps like Contacts and iPod use “index-scrolling” (my term) for quick access to far-off parts of your list. It was then that I realized iCommute might just turn out to be a must-have app.

Like many GPS-enabled apps, iCommute asks your permission to use your location. Yes, please. Every subsequent use sensibly uses your location without being prompted. After you drill down to the route you want, it automatically highlights the nearest stop on that line, and tells you how far away it is.

Read more

What are your feelings about the Central Subway project?

fourth-stockton-modified-lpa-alignmentMaybe you live along the existing T-Third route and would like to see the line extended farther north. Maybe you live in Chinatown, and would love an easier way than the 30 or 45 to hop over to SOMA or Mission Bay. Maybe you don’t live in either area, and are concerned about the costs and/or environmental impacts inherent in this estimated $1.57 billion, massive-construction project. Or maybe you’re just a transit geek, like us, and love all things rail.

Give Rachel Gordon’s post on the City Insider a quick read, and let us know your thoughts about the Central Subway project.

Bronstein looks into cable car bell-ringing boycott

This just arrived in our inbox from Zoe Stagg:

Good morning,

Phil Bronstein just put up a new story today with an exclusive video [above] and story on Muni operators skipping out on the annual bell ringing competition
after what they think is shoddy treatment of a retiring operator by Muni higher-ups. The story is here in case you’re interested.

Thanks for the tip, Zoe!

If you’ve got Muni or BART news tips, stories, photos, or videos, please email us or use our Diary Submission form.

Poll time: Worst Muni line

caution: MUNIAt Muni Diaries, we don’t particularly like to quote-unquote go negative. But perhaps it’s just the nature of the beast — a site meant to reflect the goings on of a public-transit system in a major metropolitan city will, at least from time to time, contain nuggets of negativity like this one.

Last night around 11 p.m., an Examiner story caught my eye. The headline “J-Church line called worst performer in City” is kind of hard to ignore, no matter how much wine you’ve had throughout the evening. (Our friend Greg Dewar of N-Judah Chronicles gets a quote in the article.) So I threw it up on Twitter. Of course, I was looking for reaction from the community, as I am with this post. People definitely have their opinions of which line performs worse than the others, and are quick to defend some lines from the verbal spears of other riders.

In your opinion, what’s the slowest, least-on-time line in the city? Let everyone know in the comments. And let’s try to be constructive here and offer the agency some solutions as well.

Below the fold are the responses we’ve received so far on Twitter, in the order they were received (we’ll update the post if we get more).

Read more

1 376 377 378 379 380 410