Category: News

Well, if only it were so cut-and-dried. The Examiner‘s Mike Aldax has more on the proposal for Muni to run its trains at speeds up to 50 mph in certain stretches of the underground.

I was taking the J outbound from downtown to the outer reaches of Church Street a little after 6 p.m. for a class. The ride through the tunnels was mellow, the train was a little crowded, but everything seemed to be going OK. Then we came out of the tunnel, turned onto Church and got about halfway down the block toward Market Street when the driver slammed on her brakes and a bunch of people standing lurched forward.

I pulled off my iPod to see what would happen next.

“We’re gonna be here awhile,” the driver said. She did a few more things behind the wheel, then got out — and let us off the trolley if we wanted to get going.

I stepped down and only then did I see what had happened — the trolley had hit a van that looked like it had just pulled out from Safeway Mecca. The entire front of the train was implanted in the side of the van, which seemed to only have one occupant, the driver, who looked relatively uninjured.

I debated sticking around, but I really needed to get to my class. Passengers poured down to Market Street and made their way onward, talking on cellphones and telling other people about the event they’d just lived through. I hopped on the underground to Castro and took the 35 the rest of the way.

The odd thing is, after covering lots of Muni crashes, it was almost a non-event being in one (especially since nobody was hurt). It took me about two or three hours to realize, hey, I was just in a train accident.

I really hope that van driver is OK.

— Beth W.

Matt Yglesias, prominent blogger of politics and public transportation, takes on what it means to be poor and the question of car ownership in our nation’s capital.

It’s a good, quick read. Many of the arguments Yglesias makes apply to our situation in San Francisco. I especially liked this bit:

The progressive move isn’t to keep subsidizing cars, but the reverse — to use congestion charges and performance parking fees to raise funds that improve the quality of service on the bus lines that poor people rely on.

I am starting to come around on tax incentives for folks to buy hybrids and other ultra-fuel-efficient cars. But even with such lures, the poor will be left out. Similarly, I’ve been a fan of congestion pricing for dense, urban areas, but not without adequate public transit already in place. That caveat prevents such a system from being just here in San Francisco under present circumstances, as Muni/BART are ill-equipped to deal with so many people choosing not to drive.

As I’ve said before, I’m hoping governments (especially federal) will reprioritize public transit and give it the funding it demands. True, more money alone won’t solve Muni’s problems. But shoring up the agency’s deficit can prevent fee hikes, a terrible idea in our current economic state. I’m excited that the incoming Obama administration is talking of exactly this kind of infrastructure funding. Now our new local government needs to get serious about overseeing big changes at SFMTA, and to help fund those changes.