A week ago the Chronicle reported on some promising preliminary recommendations based on findings from the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP).
These recommendations are great. In many ways they are in line with common sense: improve highly used lines using BRT, ditch under-used lines.
Aside from the frustrating fact that it took Muni 40 years to figure this [...]

On my ‘to write’ list is a manifesto of how to fix Muni. Lay out what’s wrong. Lay out what we need to do to fix it.
Dave Snyder of SPUR beat me to the punch. I met Dave last spring when I served under his leadership with a group of volunteers to pitch for approval [...]

Dear Mayor Newsom
You didn’t have to spend City taxpayer money on private consultants. Anyone could have told you: Just like any other shared and limited public resource, public transit needs user fees.
Offering ‘free’ Muni is a destructive proposal. Muni rolling stock is not unlimited. Removing user fees distorts a natural and effective form of limiting [...]

During my shift today

The City was slow as usual for this time of year.
With just under one hour remaining on my shift, a lady hailed me in the Marina asking to head toward Tiburon to see her mother who was sick. I feared that it would push me over my time limit but just barely. [...]

This time the N-Judah tries to slice off an old lady’s foot.
Links:

Nice coverage in Metroblog
SF Gate
N-Judah Chronicles blog eats this up.

This is getting ridiculous. Rant.
Link (Examiner)
Link (SF Gate)

First, a surprising statistic about per capita car ownership. The USA doesn’t even rank in the top five!
First, a non-surprising statistic about per capita vehicle ownership. The USA ranks at the top!

(Source)
(Old Source - This data set was silly since it just measured cars and not motor vehicles per Bob’s comment below.)
Second, Americans spent [...]

I’m a big fan of Eric’s Transbay Blog. This Eric fellow never fails to impress.
A recent post posed this question: if we had all the money in the world to spend on transit (and sometimes it seems like we do) what would a comprehensive City subway system look like?
Link

Most transit maps of Bay Area and City transit systems suck.
Some are misleading. It seems like everyone that moves to San Francisco checks out the Muni service map (warning, large GIF file) and responds with joy! “Wow, look at how comprehensive the public transit is in the City!” The map does not express, however, the [...]

(Photo Credit)
Here’s another cool factoid from the amazing (out-of-print) book on the history of the San Francisco Municipal Railway.
We know Upper Fillmore Street today as a bustling commercial district with high-end shops and restaurants married closely with its residential community. This is a direct result of the great 1906 earthquake.
After the quake, the Fillmore Street [...]