Category: News

Photo via SF Streetsblog

Last week a driver drove into the Duboce Muni tunnel again, despite numerous warning signs. And again, Muni riders got out to lift the car off of the tracks. SF Streetsblog‘s Aaron was on the scene and captured it on video. Here’s Aaron’s account of what happened:

Last night, the N-Judah train I was on with my fiancee (whom I happened to meet on the N) was approaching the east portal of the Sunset Tunnel when my fellow riders and I spotted a set of tail lights up ahead. We pretty much all knew what it meant — another driver tried to enter the transit tunnel.

We all got out to find the woman’s car lodged on the edge of the concrete. Pretty soon, another train showed up headed in the other direction, and she was blocking Muni’s busiest line, both inbound and outbound. Fortunately, some good Samaritans from our train decided not to wait for a tow truck — seven men lifted the front of the car back on top of the ledge, allowing the woman to drive the car away (I don’t know if she got a citation).

This is by far not the first time that a driver accidentally entered the tunnel, and not the first time that riders got involved to get the car off of the tracks. Last June, Haighteration reported a similar incident. And at Muni Diaries Live in 2010, Derek Powazek told the story of stranded Muni riders rising to the occasion (go to 11:07 in the video).

Seriously, though, what’s it gonna take to get drivers to stop driving into these “DO NOT ENTER” tunnels?

Photo by torbakhopper

• Late night transit options up for review, expansion (Castro Biscuit)
• Transit Researchers Want Your Videos of Tech Shuttles at Muni Stops (SF Streetsblog)
• SFMTA officials announce promising budget outlook (SF Examiner)
• SFMTA seeks community input on commuter shuttle fee locations (SF Examiner)
• Muni Metro moving faster, breaking down less (SF Bay)

Photo by cbcastro

It’s indisputable: More changes are afoot for your favorite/least favorite transit system.

SFMTA wants to hear from you ahead of public meetings scheduled to begin next week. In fact, the first one is a week from today. It’ll be at the Richmond Police Station at 6 p.m. on Feb. 12, regarding proposed changes to the 2, 28/28L, and 38L.

In the meantime, go to Tell Muni and, uh, tell Muni whatever it is you want to tell Muni. It would be nice if there were a way to also show Muni, but that’s another story.

Do it.

Photo by Dave

In an announcement that probably surprised San Franciscans the most, our fair city ranks second in Walk Score’s new ranking of Best U.S. Cities for Public Transit, just a tick below New York City. How does this compute?

According to Walk Score, they determined the ranking of cities this way:

Our ranking is based on the average resident’s access to public transit in a city. To compute our ranking, we calculated the Transit Score of over 1.9  million locations in 316 cities. We use a population-weighted methodology to compute the average Transit Score for a city. Our top 10 cities list includes cities with populations over 500,000 people.

Unsurprisingly, New York ranked first in the study. On the West Coast, the top best cities are San Francisco, Seattle, and Oakland, in that order.

To be fair, I think it’s pretty reasonable to live without a car here, but the study doesn’t taken into account reliability, which really affects the quality of transit for everyday riders (preaching to the choir, aren’t I?)