Muni Diaries

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is so over Muni like you can’t even believe. Yes, he who raced Muni down Market Street has concluded that investing in Muni is “a waste,” and he has a much better alternative for you: Driverless cars. Can’t make this stuff up.

In his San Francisco Chronicle column, the ex-mayor first addresses the very important issue of texting while walking, then he makes this pronouncement about Muni’s budget:

Mayor Ed Lee just announced that we are going to spend $48 million to try to fix Muni. What a waste.

It’s time to accept the fact that Muni will never run on time, spend enough to keep the system from collapsing and start thinking about alternatives like driverless cars.

SFist’s Eve Batey points out that Brown was the one who, in 2014, reportedly stepped in and ended that Muni operator sickout. But clearly he’s had a change of heart:

Obviously you want bus systems that will take people out of their cars. But, just as obviously, people aren’t getting out of their cars easily. That’s why San Francisco should volunteer to be the testing ground for driverless cars.

Get Google or whoever is building them to offer 100 cars to the city and let us see how they work. Think about it. You step outside, punch in a phone number and catch the next available car. They go from one stop to the next. They don’t need parking. They just keep moving.

And you don’t have to worry about them hitting anyone. Traffic is so gridlocked downtown, I doubt a driverless car would ever go faster than 10 mph.

Not that I’ve had the years of experience running a city or anything, but a transit option that requires a smart phone? Kinda reminds me of something else you recently hated here.

Photo by Steve Rhodes