The N-Judah Chronicles

Reader Jeff, who runs the extremely helpful Sunset District Events Calendar, alerted me to a MUNI Town Hall Meeting with Supervisor Carmen Chu. The meeting will be held on January 30th from 7-9pm at the Sunset Recreation Center at Lawton and 29th.

Supervisor Chu has quickly earned a reputation for paying attention to constituent concerns, particularly on MUNI issues, and trying to prod city government to do something. In other words, she's doing the job of a Supervisor, instead of using the job to get higher office or pull shenanigans. What a novel concept.

I will try and attend the meeting but if nothing else I'll post a reminder and encourage others to attend, for sure. If you attend the meeting, be sure to post your thoughts here afterwards, and if you can't make the meeting, try contacting Sup. Chu's office via the city's website.

I think when we have people trying to do something, anything to do the right thing, good citizens should encourage them to do so, and give 'em the support they need. It's much easier for those in charge to invent new ways to mis-spend money and ignore folks - it's a lot harder to try and do the job like one is supposed to.

Update: I couldn't make it to the meeting as I got a last minute assignment for the paying job and had to get it done immediately...so if anyone attended feel free to post comments on the site!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Some days you don't have to do much to write a little blog about MUNI...it just sort of writes itself.

KCBS had a report about the Mayor's eagerness to spend MUNI dollars on expensive staffers for his office, to the tune of about a million dollars. This is on the heels of an article in the Chronicle covering the issue, but with a slightly different take.

It's funny how we were just asked to give MUNI dedicated resources as part of a "reform" measure (which just saw its campaign committee fined for ethics violations), and right away, the only thing our Mayor can think to do is give out big pay raises to the bosses, and take money away from MUNI and give it to people in his office. After all, it's not like it's his money out of his pocket, right? And clearly, San Franciscans like him so much they must think this is ok.

Funnier still, when you read the experiences of everyday people who don't buy their girlfriends $100,000 rings, you wonder if perhaps the Mayor could have complied with his own directive to "cut spending" by starting with his own office, instead of giving out big pay to more city employees, and getting them plasma TVs to watch Project Runway with.

Of course, all would be forgiven if they decided to say, raid the MUNI fund for a $150,000/year job for folks to blog about how great the new plasma tvs are, but that's probably not happening....

UPDATE: Rachel Gordon at the Chronicle has another story detailing the expenditures, the spin and whatnot. Oh and that blogging job pays only $85,000 after all....given how much the staffers get paid over there, I'd say the guy is getting shortchanged.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you were considering a purchase of one of our many witty MUNI-related T Shirts, now is the time to buy. I've just received word that GoodStorm has been acquired by Zazzle.com, and will close down all GoodStorm stores to get everyone onto Zazzle by February 15th.

Our famous "The N Is Near" shirt and others are on sale in our store until then. Buy one today!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of you may have wondered where flamboyant, wealthy, and wacky former Mayor Willie Brown has been doing since he left the Mayor's office. Well aside from being a lawyer for folks, and making the big retainers and fees, he's also decided to take on a new career, writing science fiction. For those of you who are afficiandos of the genre, you really should take a look, as his work rivals some of the major folks in the business.

Now, mind you, Mayor Brown is not writing manga comics, or cyberpunk, or space opera. Instead he's writing stories in the realm of alternate history, and his new book, co-written by sci-fi fan and former Examiner writer P.J. Corkery, is really interesting. It's an alternative history of San Francisco in the 1990s, one in which MUNI was made into a perfect system, primarily under his personal direction. It's an amazing work, well written, and ranks up there with alternative histories by Philip K. Dick or Harry Turtledove.

In this alternate history, the years of budget shenanigans and the transfer of boom times wealth to his friends never happened. MUNI was well run and never cut training, maintenance or raised fares and cut service. The book serves as a "what might have been" type of read, and given the author's knowledge of San Francisco, makes for a fun read since his use of locations is almost as good as Armistead Maupin's in those Tales of the City books. (BTW, the N- Judah makes an appearance in Maupin's latest book, but I digress.)

For anyone wondering how the boom years of the late 90s could have turned out had those in charge been a little more concerned with using taxes for the benefit of the taxpayers, not their well connected friends with money, read Mayor Brown's book. Maybe they'll get J.J. Abrams to do a movie, or get Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica fame to do a miniseries on Sci-Fi channel! And they can film it here!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This morning's Chronicle has a report on recent events and MUNI safety that's worth checking out. I think that as we go forward, the good citizens of San Francisco are going to have to keep pestering their elected officials and others if we're going to see any of that Measure A money spent to benefit the folks that pay said money (i.e. the citizens!)

Also, a couple of folks have emailed regarding a comment I made in the story that perhaps needs a slight clarification. The incident I described happened at Irving and 9th, and in this case a guy crossed the street on a red as a 44 O'Shaughnessy was rushing through the intersection to pick us up. As some of us saw what was happening, we were all convinced this was going to be another accident, but the driver in question saw the guy and managed to avoid an accident. Being an idiot I forgot to note the driver's badge number so I could send a compliment in to MUNI because this guy was on the ball.

While this did happen on the same night as the fatal accident on the N, the one described above has nothing to do with the N accident, and just because in this particular case some guy crossed on a red, that has nothing to do with the other incident.

In this case I was merely pointing out that there are many reasons why the streets are unsafe, and as such, no one "solution" will magically solve all our problems.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Holy guac! We just got word of news about another potential fatality on the N-Judah line this evening. Reader Jeff writes:

Greg:

News helicopters are overhead right now. Judah is closed off 28th Ave - 30th Ave. I just got home, but it looks like it happened about an hour ago.

My neighbor tells me someone was trying to get onto the train and got caught somehow. Passengers tried to alert the driver, but the train didn't stop in time.

I'm guessing the accident will be on the 11:00 news with all the details.

jeff

I got home around 8pm and missed this incident. This sounds pretty bad, though, so if anyone has info or details, please feel free to post in the comments. I'll be up for a few more hours to post details as they come in.

UPDATE: Bay City News has the story so far....

UPDATE 2:, The Chronicle has more information about the incident as well. This is so depressing.

PS: What's depressing to me is that when I started this little blog for fun, I really didn't expect that a) anyone would even read it and b) that the biggest draw to the site would be a string of deaths by MUNI.

I would much much much rather have people coming to the site because of some funny story I have to tell or some review of a cool local business, instead of this. Then you read some of the SICK comments at the Gate and you begin to wonder just what kind of city this place is becoming.

And yet all the while as we're having a spiraling rate of accidents on MUNI (with fatalities), we read in the Chronicle that MORE money is being siphoned from MUNI to pay salaries in the MAYOR's office, at a time when we're told "times are tough" and "cuts must be made." And don't forget the big pay raises the MTA just gave the MUNI boss.

Would a few extra dollars have prevented these accidents? I have no idea. But I do know that when an institution is oriented towards big pay for the top, and big cuts to safety, employee morale, and public awareness of the realities of living in a congested urban environment, in the end you can expect said institution to fail the people it was created to serve. I'm all for rewarding public service - but when did public service become an entitlement program for a select class of insiders and top level bureaucrats?

I wish there was one solution, one magic bullet to fix all these problems, or at least just one group of people we could blame, punish,and move on. Unfortunately, things don't work that way (despite what some say these days).

I'm just amazed what with all the allegedly smart people we're paying big pay to at the Mayor's office, the MTA, the Board of Supervisors, the SFPD, a whole host of city agencies, city-funded nonprofits, loud "advocates" for bikes and whatnots, and more, we can't get past "cover your ass, " "it's not my problem," "you can all go to hell it's all about me." and more and figure out a way to move forward so we all can just live our lives and go about our business.

Once upon a time we didn't have this many deaths by MUNI - has society crumbled so much that now we not only accept this, but also have a "throw 'em to the lions" mentality as well?

I'm waiting for the big geniuses with the big pay to come over here and respond and tell us what they will or won't or can or can't do. I'm not holding my breath though. Guess they all have to pick up a new Mercedes or something instead...

Posted by Greg Dewar at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The Cylons in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica have a prophecy they keep repeating: "All of this has happened before, and will happen again." One could say the same thing about the MUNI test program to allow backdoor boarding to try and combat fare evasion, et al.

The thing is, once upon a time, MUNI had "back door boarding" and the like on busy lines, by paying people as "loaders" to collect money and get people on the bus as fast as possible. This has long since been abandoned, in the interest of cutting the payroll. Is this the best way to do things? Maybe, maybe not. But it is interesting to see MUNI revive ideas and call them "new" when in fact a quick look at MUNI history shows that a lot of this is not really new at all. There are plenty of good ideas out there, and many can be found in the history of MUNI. I suppose we're paying the big kids big bucks and giving out big raises so that they can rediscover MUNI history and re-brand it with the help of expensive consultants.

Awesome.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The seriously cool local phenomenon known as Telstar Logistics which combines coolness, local history, and a dose of kick-ass all in one once again alerts us to some awesome investigation on their part.

Already, we've talked about their blasts from the past, but today, Telstar Logistics tells a story about the the good citizens who make our F-line cars rock like no other.

Lighter lit because once again Telstar Logistics rocks - and once again we're alerted to the good citizens who do the things that make Our Fair City the kind of place that we want to live in.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several people have asked me why it is the N-Judah makes the infamous left turn onto 9th street in the first place, and doesn't just continue on Irving, OR stay on Judah/Parnassus. Aside from the obvious (it wouldn't be the N-Judah if it was on Irving, it'd be the N-Irving), the reason you have this detour is because it's a relic from the olden days of multiple service providers in San Francisco running rail lines.

Quite awhile back we had a photo of the old 6 Parnassus streetcar and the N on Carl Street. MUNI and the private operators avoided sharing rails whenever possible, hence the split we have to this day, even though the 6 Parnassus ceased to be a rail line decades ago.

Many of the bus routes of today are leftovers from when the Market Street Railway merged with MUNI, and from other smaller providers of transit service, when various companies would attempt to duplicate service. And yet if you try to change anything there's usually someone demanding it all stay the same. That's why the Transit Effectiveness Project is trying to analyze how people actually use and don't use the system, so they can revise it to make things run for today's needs, not for 20+ years ago's needs. Hopefully.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is one of those times where all the "I told you so's " suck because it means someone got hurt - and I mean really hurt.

While having a pint at the Blackthorn Tavern, awaiting the begining of pub trivia, Bobby, the owner alerted me to a situation just outside the door. It seems that at 5:41 pm (according to sources on the spot) an outbound N-Judah making the potentially hazardous left turn hit and injured a woman who'd had trouble crossing the street. The combination of slick rails owing to the recent rain, combined with the fact that humans, cars and trains have to share a busy intersection have resulted in a needless tragedy.

Loyal readers will recall that we have tried, with marginal success, to try and improve safety at 9th and Irving, both here and at the Mayor's "blog" with mixed results. MUNI, in its imitable bureaucratic style, promised to "study" the "issue" and promised to do something.

Problem is, we were promised a "solution" (scramble signals that would give pedestrians their turn to cross the street, then keep them OFF THE ROAD when cars and LRVs and buses were in the intersection) that should have happened sometime in Spring 2007, but of course, after making promises to fix the problem they since have offered nothing but excuses and bullsh*t.

Now someone has been hurt, potentially fatally, and we can expect to pay out another big settlement because Mayor Newsom, the Board of Supervisors and the Esteemed MTA would rather talk and talk than do and do. (Ironic, since common sense would dictate that fixing the big problem would be cheaper in the long run than payouts for incidents like these, but I suppose in today's San Francsico, the hipper-than-thous can't be bothered.)

It was especially galling to hear some spokes-droid for MUNI pumping out true bullsh*t to the press about "how they continue to study how to make things safer" when they knew exactly what to do - but offered more BS at the time instead of just getting the job done.

Being right sucks in situations like this, because it means someone got hurt, and it was senseless. MUNI, the MTA, and the city of San Francisco should be ashamed of themselves. I don't give a good goddamn how cute the Mayor is or how great the scenery is. If we can't even have the basics of a safe, reliable transit system and a government that gets the things done, none of that means squat.

For shame, City That Once Knew How. For shame.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

"Mason Powell," one of our loyal corrrespondents, reports that something is blocking 19th around Ulloa and Taraval, necessitating a re-route of the bus he was taking from the Daly City BART to Irving Street.

Trains don't seem to be delayed (too badly), however. Anyone see what happened?

UPDATE: Flickr user DeathByCamera took some pictures of the incident yesterday and posted them to Flickr and SFist's "contribute" section!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I would love to have posted all sorts of links to all sorts of as-it-happens mayhem, but I had no power until a few hours ago, so instead I'd be interested in hearing tales of woe and more from the Loyal Readers!

Adding to my fun today was having BART stalled this afternoon due to a felled tree, and other assorted hassles. I think I'm going to buy a generator so that during the next storm/disaster I can just stay at home and watch DVDs.....

Posted by Greg Dewar at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh, Loyal Readers....I had hoped long ago to regale you with tales of the Double Decker Bus, tales of Holiday MUNI, and more...and instead I got a freakin' flu (and you have to realize I NEVER get sick, EVER) that kicked my ass something fierce for the duration.

It sucked, and for the first time since I was a kid, my holidays sucked royally. There's no good way to describe it. Anyway, things should be back to normally forthwith, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a short recommendation for breakfast on the N.

Darla's on Irving Street is rightfully known for their awesome burgers and fries, which many folks enjoy while playing Brainstormer Trivia at the Awesome Blackthorn, but many may not realize their breakfast menu is also really good.

In particular, Darla's manages to make a breakfast sandwich that defies physics and restaurant nonsense and is one of the best things I've ever had. Now, you'd think eggs, cheese and sausage on an English muffin would be easy to do, but you'd be wrong. Just try the over-cooked abominations at Starbucks on Irving, which I'd reluctantly put up with, and you'll see what I mean.

Darla, however, manages to make something that's fresh, just enough food without being too much, and tastes amazing. And it's accompanied with some bottomless (well sort of bottomless) coffee and the good will of a locally owned biz.

It was also my last day out before I had the horrid flu hit, so it provided me with a nice memory as I puked my guts out a few days later, unrelated to said awesome sandwich. The flu sucks, the holidays sucked, but Darla's was a beacon of hope in a sea of bullcrap.

Lighter lit because...Darla's rocks!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)