I wasn’t so sure that we needed another street closure, especially on a Sunday when so many tourists rely on the Embarcadero to come downtown or to the piers to spend money in our City.

So I’ll admit I was surprised to find so many people participating in the second iteration of the Mayor’s “Sunday Streets” program when I went out yesterday to shoot this quick story. I wasn’t surprised, however, to find folks in their cars a bit peeved about the closure.

As I concluded in the piece, it’s a tough balance to meet the needs of all transportation modes in a shared City.

I’m happy that the City was able to pull this off without too many problems. I’ll be interested to see what happens next year — will they do it again? Will they extend the hours? Will they perhaps have better signage warning incoming visitors and regulars to avoid the Embarcadero?

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 out, let’s focus on the positive: at least someone realizes what to do next.

But, I have a hard time being excited about these proposals. I cannot hide my fear that Muni is barely capable of managing its own operations, let alone managing a system-wide overhaul. They just can’t do things right.

This is an agency that claims multiple times in press releases and at public information events that they can’t seem to hire enough bus drivers. Yet, they don’t post bus operators as an available job on their website. (I would know too — I’ve looked many times, pushed by a perverse desire to drive a bus in the City.)

This is an agency that spent nearly a billion dollars to replace a bus line (the 15) with a light rail system (T-Third) that offered barely any noticeable improvement in service quality, or, by many accounts, a decrease in service quality.

This is an agency that has virtually zero accountability over its ground-level workforce due to extremely onerous union negotiated contracts. They can’t even immediately fire operators after they’ve killed innocent pedestrians.

This is an agency that, to operate most efficiently and implement changes suggested by the TEP, needs absolute access priority over roadway design and right-of-way for its transit vehicles. So far, no evidence has been shown that Muni’s merger with DPT has provided this level of absolute priority. Nor have the actions of the Mayor nor the Board of Supervisors shown that they have the interest or even the ability to offer such priority for our dear Municipal Railway.

So, rock on TEP. Just don’t write checks you can’t cash.

Link

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 from the Board of Supervisors to pass the 38-Geary BRT project into the next stage, environmental review.

This article is SPOT ON.

Link

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 the number of people that use Muni resources.

Muni needs to increase its quality of service. Removing user fees would decrease the quality of service. It would result in more crowded buses, leading to lower frequency and lower average system speeds.

Here’s the real Muni solution: increase quality (frequency, speed, reliability, cleanliness) on critical lines such as 38-Geary, N-Judah, or 14-Mission. Enforce real transit-only lanes that enable high speeds with true signal pre-emption. Prepare Muni to operate faster than a personal vehicle for trips on these ‘primary’ lines. Then, the City can increase user fees to $2 or even $2.50 for these primary lines.

Our residents don’t want free Muni. City residents are more than willing to pay for an effective transit system. It’s up to the City to provide an effective transit system and price it properly, not make a crappy transit system free.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m happy you’ve figured this out by now. It’s just silly that this advice cost tax payers $20,000+. I would have been glad to provide this advice for a bit less. Let’s say $10,000.

Let’s look on the bright side. At least you’re open to new ideas. Just talk to me next time and I’ll charge you half the rate of the consultants, and I’ll give you better ideas faster.

kfarr

• The revelers were out full swing when I started my shift at midnight. I had constant fares until 3 am.
• Unfortunately, when the well ran dry at 3 am it never filled up again. Nobody had to go to work. Everyone in town slept in until, apparently, after my shift was over.
• I took a lot of drunkies to and from other bars and their homes. It was a good time. Most of the time the drunkies are nice and tip well, but sometimes there are exceptions.
• I took a load of guys from a bar near Church and Duboce up near their apartment toward Twin Peaks. They were dicks. Choice quotes, “God, cabbie, you actually listen to this music?” “Hey, ” (to one of his friends in the cab), “do you mind if I call your girlfriend and f*** her?” Nobody laughed. Weird.
• I picked up two yuppie girls from a Broadway / Polk bar. At first they asked to go near Lombard and Scott. Then they wanted to go to the Walgreens 2 blocks away at Lombard and Divisadero. On the way they kept saying Lombard and Scott, Lombard and Scott. So, I turned on Lombard and Scott. They started yelling, “No! We want the Walgreens!” I turned the corner (literally) to reveal the Walgreens. One got out to get some waters, the other sat in the van and waited. The girl who left to get water didn’t shut the sliding door. The girl in the van said to me, “Can you close the door?” I wanted to smack her. Can I close the door? Is your arm broken? Do you have difficulties moving more than 2 feet at a time? I should have asked her to get out then, but I was too nice and I closed the door. I kept the meter running for the next 5 minutes while she proceeded to call her ‘friend’ and desperately beg him to sleep with her. It was pathetic. Choice phrases included, “I think we have a real brain connection not just physical. If you sleep with me we can prove it to be true!” “I know it’s a long drive but it’s worth it so we can make out for a few minutes while my roommate takes a shower.” When the friend got back in the car they had me go TWO BLOCKS AWAY to their house. TWO BLOCKS? You had me wait five minutes for TWO BLOCKS? They didn’t tip at all. I have a tip for you, yuppie girl, respect people around you and maybe they’ll want to sleep with you. As a public service, here is a photo so other cabbies can be careful not to pick her up in the future:
  
  So THIS is why I don’t like going out in the Marina!
• I did have some very nice drunk fares. Right after I dropped off the yuppie girls from hell, a large group of 20-something hipsters flagged down my van. They were ecstatic that they found a vancab. I took them all the way across town to the Safeway at Church and Duboce where they purchased supplies for further partying. They were so much fun I though it’d be cool to join them and ditch the rest of the shift.
• I took home a nice French guy from the City and his visiting friends. They were a kind and lively group. I always score instant brownie points with the Frenchies when I stumble out some broken français.
• I came across a big black guy going back home to Oakland after his late shift as a security guard at a Taqueria. He had a hard time getting cabs to go to Oakland. It was getting quiet so I was more than happy to help him out. We had a fun chat about his lazy roommate, the frustrations of old cars, and moving out to the City and then moving to Oakland.
• It was dead dead quiet the rest of the morning. I had maybe 5 fares between 4 am and 9 am.
• I was ready to give up and go back to the garage early with $40 by the morning’s end. But then I came across a guy in the Mission going all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. Trying to be creative, I took an odd route, but he was nice about it and tipped well anyway. I was super-lucky and got another fare from the Wharf all the way out to the Inner Sunset. That upped my earnings to near $80. I know it’s measly, but it’s a lot better than $40.

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 about 52.2 cents per mile on their personal vehicles in 2007 after adding all the costs of ownership such as purchase price, insurance, maintenance, and gas. At an average usage of 15,000 miles per year, that works out to $7,800 per year per car.

Let’s compare that to the cost of public transit. It’s about 15 miles of BART rail from Civic Center to Richmond. At a fare of $3.80 that works out to 25.3 cents per mile, half that of a vehicle.

Third, Americans hold an average of $8,000 in credit card debt per household.

“Stop right now,” you say. “This is nothing but a silly conjecture! That credit card debt isn’t directly related to personal vehicle expenditure. And, your cute little Bay Area public transit system doesn’t exist in most other US cities.”

“True and true,” I’ll respond. “But, chopping transportation spending in HALF would significantly reduce a major household expense for many Americans. And, if we start investing NOW in smart public transit in the United States, we can reduce these significant (and quickly rising) expenses in the near future.”

Hmm. Public transit is good for the environment AND for the economy? And it decreases our reliance on foreign oil?

EXTRA CREDIT: This is a very well written post on calculating your actual per mile vehicle expenditure.

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 ridiculous infrequency with which these lines operate.

Most maps don’t provide relevant information for users of the system. The BART map simply lists locations and routes. It’s such a sparse map at present. Couldn’t more useful information also be included?

And, nearly all Bay Area transit maps are system specific. While we can all understand the bureaucratic separation between transit operators, we must have reached the point in societal evolution that we can realize people use more than one transit system to reach their destination (obviously not).

Here is where dedicated geniuses come forward. The SF Cityscape website features a number of transit maps designed with the user in mind, not the transit agency. Wow, what a concept!

Here are my two favorite:

• A BART map that also includes travel time and fare from your current location. What a simple concept! It’s so much more useful than the current maps which just show location.
• A Bay Area rail transit map which includes Muni, BART, CalTrain, VTA and a few others.

Of course, 511.org never fails to impress me with its ability to provide accurate, transit operator agnostic guides for taking public transit. (Click Transit > TakeTransit Trip Planner.) Try it out if you’ve never seen it.

Link to SF Cityscape

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 cable car line was the first line restored to service. The downtown shopping district was still buried in rubble, helping Fillmore Street become the temporary retail and civic epicenter of the City.

This page on the history of Japantown describes how “old mansions served as department stores, and churches and synagogues doubled as courthouses.” The Muni book didn’t go into as much detail, but the Japantown page also described the transition of Upper Fillmore Street to evolve into what we now refer to as Japantown.

I think it’s easy to forget how strongly transit can shape our City.