Category: News

The Bridge to Bridge run is this Sunday and several Muni lines will be impacted. Me? I will be admiring the athleticism of the runners from afar, probably behind a haze of bacon smoke.

Polk Street Blues Festival

On Saturday and Sunday the annual Polk Street Blues Festival will be held on Polk Street between Jackson and California streets from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For event details, please visit www.polkstreetbluesfestival.com.

19 Polk Muni route will be affected.

Party on Block 18

On Saturday the third bi-annual “Party on Block 18” will take place on 18th Street between Dolores and Guerrero streets from noon to 5 p.m.

33 Stanyan Muni route will be affected.

Blessing of the Fishing Fleet

On Sunday the annual Blessing of the Fishing Fleet will begin with a procession at 2 p.m. from Saint Peter and Paul’s Church on Washington Square. The procession will proceed to Jefferson Street between Jones and Taylor streets via Columbus Avenue and Leavenworth Street for the blessing celebration at approximately 3 p.m.

The following Muni lines and routes will be affected:

· Powell-Mason Cable Car
· F Market
· 8X Bayshore Express
· 30 Stockton
· 39 Coit

Bridge to Bridge Run

On Sunday the Bridge to Bridge Run will begin at 9 a.m. from the Ferry Building. Both 7K and 10K courses will go north along The Embarcadero through Fisherman’s Wharf , up into Fort Mason and to Crissy Field. The 10K course will continue from Crissy Field to Golden Gate Promenade, then to Fort Point where it will turn back and finish at Crissy Fields. For event details, please visit http://bridgetobridge.com.

The following Muni lines and routes will be affected:

· F Market
· 2 Clement
· 6 Parnassus
· 14 Mission
· 21 Hayes
· 28 19th Avenue
· 31 Balboa
· 47 Van Ness
· 49 Van Ness-Mission

Mark your calendars: we’re putting on a Muni Haiku Battle like you’ve never seen before at this year’s Lit Crawl on Saturday, Oct. 13!

The Muni Haiku Battle is styled after the famed “Dirty Haiku Battle” at Tourettes Without Regrets in Oakland, where emcees battle it out with their best odes in 17 syllables. Tourettes Without Regrets host Jamie Dewolf will be our referee in the Muni Haiku Battle at Lit Crawl. He will be pitting three writers against Caitlin Gill, the nine-time Dirty Haiku champion herself.

Who will attempt to top Caitlin and take home the Muni Haiku Battle trophy? Our contestants:

Anna Pulley: Arts / Culture Ed. at/SF Weekly. Funny ”ha/ha” and funny “queer.”

James Nestor: James has written for Outside Magazine, Dwell, The New York Times, Men’s Journal, and more. He prefers the 24, shaken.

Will Reisman: you know him as the transportation reporter with the San Francisco Examiner. He takes Muni all the time and has only once witnessed someone throwing up on the bus.

We’re huge fans of Lit Crawl, and can’t wait to be a part of the fun this year.

Details:
Muni Haiku Battle at Lit Crawl, Phase II
7:15 – 8:15 pm, Oct 13,2012
Clarion Alley

Two security specialists have developed an Android app that could hack the paper Limited Use fare cards for a free Muni ride, SFGate reports. But this seems a bit ho-hum because the app is (of course) not available to the public, and the hack doesn’t work on Clipper cards, only the paper Limited Use fare cards, which only holds one or two free rides. Seems like quite a lot of work to save $2. And if you can afford an Android phone, you should probably pay for your bus ride, no?

Nevertheless, the security specialists, Corey Benninger and Max Sobell from the Intrepidus Group, have alerted the SFMTA as well as New Jersey’s PATH system, both transit systems that could be vulnerable to this kind of hack.

From SFGate:

Intrepidus staffers met with Muni and Path officials last year to notify them of the potential for abuse. The firm also presented the information at a security conference in Europe last week.

“We had hoped this would be fixed on both systems before we released this data, but our understanding is that’s not planned for possibly years down the line,” Benninger said.

Since other transit agencies could adopt a similar payment system, they wanted to highlight the security issues.

A limited version of Intrepidus’ app is available to transit agencies that want to test whether their smart cards are vulnerable. But it doesn’t have the capability to change or reset the cards’ data, Benninger said.

The SFMTA told SFGate that they have not noticed any discernible change in the use of paper Limited Use fare cards. A fix for the security hole could be costly, but one option could be to reduce the 90-day life of these types of tickets to discourage hacking, SFGate reports.