Tag Archives: transportation

Driving highlights

Posted on April 2, 2008 by kfarr

It was a tough weekend. It was slow Monday and Tuesday in the City. I am learning, albeit slowly, to let go of the natural feelings of elated success or critical failure that come from a high or low earning … Continue reading →

Posted in taxi, work | Tagged aggregate, cab, cabbie, cabbing, care, city, commission, compensation, demand, drivers, driving, elder care, elderly, health, health care, hospital, management, pay, performance pay, pricing, roads, san francisco, sf, socialism, taxi, taxicab, the city, tourism, traffic, transportation | 1 Comment

News flash: Livable cities are sustainable cities.

Posted on April 2, 2008 by kfarr

NPR’s Morning Edition recently featured an excellent two part series on the aggregate effects of our living decisions on the environment. The stories hit hard from the angle that suburbia increases per capita carbon footprint while denser, urban living offers … Continue reading →

Posted in happiness, politics, transit | Tagged ATL, atlanta, carbon, cities, city, commute, cost, cost of living, dense, denser, emissions, families, family, footprint, georgia, green, life, living, morning edition, npr, of, planning, quality, quality of life, suburban, suburbia, sustainable, transit, transportation, urban | 1 Comment

Website highlights financial stress of driving a taxi in the City

Posted on March 26, 2008 by kfarr

I point your temporary attention to a Flash website produced by UC Berkeley j-school grad students Eric Zassenhaus and Amy Jeffries. The video clips thumbnailed along the bottom are accurate and colorful paintings of a typical taxi shift. Well worth … Continue reading →

Posted in econ, politics, taxi, transit | Tagged cab, city, commission, county, driver, econ, economics, fee, gate, gillespie, government, heidi, increase, industry, jim, labor, local, machen, macro, micro, oversight, policies, politics, regulation, san francisco, sf, taxi, taxicab, transportation, union, united, utw, worker, yellow, yellow cab | 2 Comments

Something Muni does well: Trolleybusses

Posted on March 21, 2008 by kfarr

I am so fond of ragging on San Francisco’s poorly managed Municipal Railway that I often overlook Muni’s remarkable, world-class achievements. (Yes, they really do have some remarkable, world-class achievements.) This post is a first attempt at fixing my glaring … Continue reading →

Posted in transit | Tagged bus, busses, california, coal, dam, diesel, electric, electricity, generation, hetch, hetch hetchy, hetchy, mta, muni, municipal, nuclear, o'shaughnessy, power, railway, san francisco, sf, transit, transportation, trolley, trolleybus, trolleybusses | Leave a comment

Hey, SFMTA, please double residential parking fees and introduce traffic congestion fees.

Posted on March 19, 2008 by kfarr

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is a bureaucratic whale, containing, in separate stomachs, the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) and the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) public transit system. Recently, the SFMTA crunched some numbers and said, … Continue reading →

Posted in econ, politics, transit | Tagged bus, busses, congestion, department, dpt, econ, economics, empty, fee, fines, macro, meter, micro, mta, muni, municipal, neighborhood, parking, parking and traffic, permit, pockets, pricing, railway, san francisco, sf, sfmta, shortfall, spot, traffic, train, transit, transportation, user, user fee, variable, variable pricing, yearly | 3 Comments

TEP proposes good things for Muni. Is this good news?

Posted on February 29, 2008 by kfarr

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, … Continue reading →

Posted in happiness, politics, transit | Tagged board, brt, bus, busses, effectiveness, ford, francisco, gavin, gavin newsom, heavy, light, lrt, mayor, muni, municipal, nat, nat ford, nathaniel, newsom, project, public, rail, railroad, railway, rapid, san, san francisco, sf, supervisors, TEP, transit, transport, transportation, union, workers | Leave a comment

Muni’s Nat Ford doing good things?

Posted on February 21, 2008 by kfarr

Wow, it looks like Nat Ford might actually know how to run a municipal transit agency. Let’s hope the Board of Supervisors gets off his back and lets him do it right. Link

Posted in politics, transit | Tagged board, bus, busses, city, county, effectiveness, ford, gavin, mayor, muni, municipal, nat, nathaniel, newson, overhaul, politics, project, public, railway, san francisco, sf, supervisors, TEP, transit, transportation | Leave a comment

How to fix Muni (for real)

Posted on February 20, 2008 by kfarr

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in transit | Tagged brt, bus, busses, heavy, lrt, muni, network, planning, politics, public, rail, rapid, san francisco, sf, spur, train, transit, transport, transportation, urban | 1 Comment

Mayor spends thousands of dollars to learn transit user fees are necessary.

Posted on January 31, 2008 by kfarr

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. … Continue reading →

Posted in econ, politics, transit | Tagged brt, bus, busses, gavin, gavin newsom, light, lrt, mayor, muni, municipal, newsom, politics, pricing, public, rail, railway, san francisco, sf, train, transit, transport, transportation | 3 Comments

The City needs congestion pricing.

Posted on January 13, 2008 by kfarr

(Photo Credit) On a recent episode of KQED’s Forum, Dave Iverson discusses the possibility of congestion pricing in the City with two main guests: Ken Cleaveland, director of government and public affairs with the Building Owners and Managers Association and … Continue reading →

Posted in econ, politics, transit | Tagged california, cars, congestion, congestion fee, econ, economics, fee, hot lanes, lane, motor vehicles, muni, peak, policy, price, pricing, public, public policy, public transit, roadway, roadways, san francisco, sf, tax, taxes, transit, transportation, usage, usage fee, use, user fee, variable, variable pricing, vehicles | 2 Comments