Author: jeff

The Good Ol’ 39-Coit Will Keep Truckin’

3 comments

Reposted, with permission, from Tony Long’s North Beach Examiner

The 39-Coit has been saved.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of neighborhood activists and a sudden moment of lucidity from the MTA board, Telegraph Hill’s bus will live to drive another day. Not only that, but the Union Street leg of the route, which was to be lopped off in any case, will be preserved, too.

And not only that, but Muni now favors extending the line to Pier 39, something 39 advocates have been beseeching them to do for some time now. (Numerology alone would seem to favor this extension, wouldn’t it?)

The MTA board took the action Tuesday, finally acknowledging that a viable bus up to Coit Tower is the best way to reduce traffic on the hill. As part of the plan to extend the line to Pier 39, the Muni said it expects Fisherman’s Wharf merchants and the community at large to help publicize the 39-Coit to help increase the ridership.

Keeping the Union Street leg is especially good news for hill residents. Try walking up to Montgomery with a couple of bags of groceries sometime and you’ll know what I mean. Try it with a couple of balky Achilles tendons and you really know what I mean.

Anyway, I don’t get to say this often but I’ll say it now: Thanks, Muni.

More on our reaction to Tuesday’s TEP vote coming soon. — Jeff

Category: News Tags:

Documentary About London Underground Maps

3 comments

We don’t talk about Muni transit maps on this site much. Perhaps we should.

But I came across this riveting documentary about the maps for the London Underground. (Thx: Kottke)

The documentary is really more about design than transit per se. But maps affect our understanding of how a system works. Therefore, in my mind, the maps are key to the efficient use of any public transit system.

Now, if only we had a world-class system here in San Francisco …

– Jeff wishes we could start San Francisco over, SIMS-style, and give it the transit-first layout it truly deserves.

Category: diaries, reflection

Fleeing Fleet Week

6 comments

Okay, okay, yes, we went to Fleet Week. And by “go to Fleet Week,” I mean we grabbed some sandwiches at the pretty people’s Safeway and plopped our asses on Marina Green for free to watch a bunch of screaming planes do tricks. A friend had never experienced the glory, and being the nice people that we are, we chose to humor her.

Getting over to the north side of town from the Mission was actually a pleasant exercise. The 49-Van Ness zipped us right down to where we needed to be. The bus was neither crowded nor slow. We got there in about 20 minutes, I’d guess.

Getting back home was a different story altogether.

We waited things out a while at a friend’s house on Chestnut, then boarded a nearly capacity 49, only to stand there for what seemed like a eternity (seriously, something tells me, hours later, that that bus is still there). We got off at the next stop, after peering up Van Ness (to the south) and seeing nothing but stopped cars with their brake lights on.

So we walked. We walked from Greenwich to Market, passing at least three 49s and three 47s. We walked all the way to the heart of the Mission. God knows whatever became of any of those Van Ness buses.

Anyone else experience meltdown over the weekend with all the hullabaloo? Please share.

Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: , ,

BART fight! BART fight!

Leave a comment

So you think Muni riders have bad manners? Looks like BART can very much hold its own in the bad behaviors category. I came across a blog post that made me laugh:

The fight began, as all things worth fighting over do, with a heated discussion over WHO REACHED THE LAST AVAILABLE SEAT FIRST. The aggressor, a man who looked as though he worked in an auto shop, began by pushing and yelling at the unfortunate businessman who had chosen to cross him, “What the fuck!? What do you think you’re doing, man?” The businessman, who was equally incensed over the situation, screamed repeatedly, “You’re crazy! You’re crazy! I’m calling 911 on ou!” The lame verbal argument degenerated into a physical fight, complete with both men windmilling their arms and slapping at each other in the manner of two teenage girls.

Read the rest of Bart Adventures: Grown Men Slapping Each Other.

Oh how I love a good, awkward fight between male urbanites … kind of reminds me of that scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary where Mark Darcy punches Daniel Cleaver in the face and the two clumsily wrestle each other, tumbling into that Greek (?) restaurant.

Category: BART
1 … 395 396 397 398 399 … 410