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Recently I discovered several YouTube channels that specialize in old footage in color. This one was rather fun to watch, regarding the opening of both the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges within a few years of each other.
Kinda fun to think about the days when things got done FOR us and not TO us. Well sort of. But anyway.
There's really not much worth saying in response to Nathaniel Ford's "letter" to the SF Weekly this week in response to our cover story that my esteemed colleague Joe Eskenazi hasn't already said, but I simply wanted to add a few comments.
One, it's clear that Mr. Ford is either too stubborn or too clueless to understand the fundamental concept that we are not "customers" consuming a product, we are the owners of Muni for whom he and the MTA operate said service on behalf of. Instead, he's just a Wall Street CEO working on behalf of a handful of people in Room 200 at City Hall. It's time for him to go.
It's especially clear with the clueless cuts he's made that will ensure a slower, less reliable Muni - one he was paid very very very well to maintain and improve. This is Wall Street bonus logic on Main Street - pay people bonuses for being a f*ck up.
Finally, I'll say this - it's alleged we never mentioned the massive state cuts by the Governor and the Democratic Legislature to transit that I've talked about ad infinitium for years. So, for fun , I thought I'd quote the section where it's mentioned just so Mr. Ford can have someone read it to him . No, it wasn't a 10,000 word section of the story - but we also would never have been able to print a 15,000 word story on Muni, either.
"Over the past three years, the state has reneged on providing $179 million to Muni; even the $36 million so-called "windfall" it recently gave the agency was only a fraction of the transit funding originally approved by voters, after the state government filched the rest."
And, for laughs, here's a link to every single blog post that mentions said raids in Sacramento by the Governor, the Legislature, etc.
Mr. Ford can make all the excuses he wants - the fact is once the raids started it was incumbent upon him, the MTA board and "Mayor" Newsom to find a suitable replacement for said money since it was gone for good. Issuing bogus parking tickets and a few extensions to parking meter hours are not stable sources of revenue. And all the "stable sources of revenue" don't mean squat if the Mayor's just going to shove more phony "work orders" down Muni's collective throat to satisfy the short term demands of his vanity bid for Lt. Governor. That said, it was what he was paid so well to do - and he failed. And for his failure he is rewarded with lots of money and perks.
Such is the San Francisco Way these days - pay people a lot of money to do a very poor job. No wonder we have a bazillion dollar deficit.
Sometimes while I'm working I'll have SFGOV TV on in the background, just in case something happens. This morning I was out and about and wasn't able to catch the SF County Transit Authority meeting, and apparently (according to various sources), things got very ugly.
I'll have to watch the replay online when it comes out, but word was that Sup. Daly, apparently unhappy at the Fix Muni Now campaign, decided to call Sup. Elsbernd a "racist" (the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard) and that things got so heated that people had to block Daly, who, in his true bully-boy fashion, was acting like he was gonna throw a punch or something on his colleague. WTF? Whatever record Daly had in the past has been eclipsed by his mindless behavior of late. This is the learned debate of our city leaders over Muni policy? God help us.
But not to be outdoen, "Supervisor" Alioto-Pier made a visit from her faraway home to spend a few days doing a job she doesn't seem to want much, to try and torpedo plans (supported by all the businesses and residents in the area) to extend the F-line. Turns out Ms. Pier (I can't call her Supervisor because she doesn't actually do any work for the public at this point) decided to use her bullying abilities to help out a handful of wealthy donors to some failed campaign (which one?) of hers and screw up what was a great plan.
This little meeting proves that the bullying do-nothing out-of-towner elitists exist on both sides, and that both "Supervisors" are embarrassments to our City.
It's hard not to notice all the construction going on around Irving Street, as part of a traffic calming/pedestrian safety project the DPT has been implementing. From all accounts, it should be done fairly soon. In addition to new bus shelters, there will be "bulb outs" from various points along Irving to make it easier for people to cross the street, board the N, and generally, make the street safer for everyone.
Two things I've noticed over the years along Irving have been the fact that many drivers seem to get confused and think that Irving has two lanes going in each direction, which it does not. This often leads to impatient drivers trying to pass, only to nearly kill people de-boarding the N.
The other has been the total cluelessness many drivers have when it comes to turns in a busy intersection. At 9th and Irving, impatient drivers would often try crashing through the wall of people crossing on the "Walk" sign to turn right onto 9th.
Likewise, it seems that the rules of the road concerning left turns is no longer taught at driver's school - people just turn even if there's a conga line of cars approaching. Now, banning left turns (or all turns) at 9th and Irving wouldn't solve anything - but for now, things have calmed down. Why? Because the road construction has made it nearly impossible for over-stimulated drivers to plow through pedestrians, all to save .001 seconds at the light.
So, never let it be said all unintended consequences are bad. For now it's a lot safer (if a bit stranger) crossing at 9th and Irving than it was before. Let's hope the new improvements help calm things down.
This was too hilarious to just re-tweet on Twitter: Word is that Muni Boss Nathaniel Ford, who's been screaming mad about "snitches" (but not about demolishing your Muni and jacking up the price), was asked if he'd read the cover story co-authored by Joe Eskenazi and myself. He says no, but also wrote a letter criticizing it.
Which makes one wonder - how can one write a letter attacking an article if they didn't actually read it?
Something tells me Mr. Ford has spent so much time in the doublespeak world of Newsomville, that he probably can't remember the Message of the Day his boss dictated to him, and now honestly doesn't know. It's not like he's been particularly forthright with us in the past to begin with, right?
Happy Friday. Oh hey Mr. Ford? Word is there was yet another accident on the Muni Metro system late last night. Helpful hint: when putting buses and trains on the system, you're supposed to avoid accidents, not cause more of them.
Oh and that whole "serving the public" thing? You're supposed to avoid making our lives miserable with slow, unreliable service at high prices, NOT stick it to us while you reel in big pay and make Muni the Mayor's punching bag. Consider this a message from the owners/riders of Muni - WE'RE NOT "CUSTOMERS," DAMMIT!
Just so ya know.
Thanks to some Loyal Readers, I was alerted to two early morning events happening along the N Judah line that may be of interest.
First, the Fix Muni Now campaign will be gathering signatures with volunteers from 8-9am at Carl and Cole, so if you are waiting for an N, why not sign a petition, or help gather more signatures? If you can't make it or don't want to give up a prized seat on a running N Judah, you can stop by their new headquarters at 305 Valencia and pick some up.
At the same time (sort of), Sup. Carmen Chu is holding some sort of hearing about issues related to the Judah St./La Play area, from 8:30-9:30 in front of Java Beach Cafe. Now, there's been some crazy talk about trying to get the (very functional) turnaround tracks eliminated. Not only is this completely insane from an engineering standpoint, it's based on such spurious reasoning that I'm surprised it's even being mentioned. But there are other issues as well, so stop by if you can.
Because that's what people do with their free time on rainy days, right? Go to this "Budget Committee Hearing" over at the County Fair Building, and talk to the people who think they banned plastic bags (didn't) and who are really worried you're not eating your veggies (while Muni burns)? That's fun, right? Well, it might be worth checking out, especially after yesterday evening's all star mega failure of a commute home on Muni. (and word coming in just now of a morning failure, from various Twitter friends)
An aside - isn't it amazing how things like the Duboce/Church track switching seems to only fail at rush hour. For some reason it never happens at say, 1pm in the afternoon on a weekday. No, it only happens when you need it most, and it takes you 1 1/2 hours to move less than a mile. All on the same day Mayor "Football Bat" Newsom and his appointed lackey, Nate Ford, commenced wrecking Muni even more than they already did. Amazing.
Which makes me wonder - is a big old fashioned Muni f*ck up even news anymore? It seems to be a constant, the only consistency Nate Ford and Muni have developed under his reign of error.
Oh, also, I want to note the irony of a post on disappearing posts, disappearing itself. I foolishly still use Safari, only because too many passwords are stored in it and I can't get them out, and while re-editing the post, I had a double fail of both the browser and Movable Type, which created a perfect storm of computer crapola that wiped it out. Needless to say, that move to Wordpress is being pushed through as fast as possible.
As the owner/riders of Muni, we need to ask ourselves if our appointed managers are doing the job. And, after much review of his tenure, I am finally beginning to wonder if we have hired the best person for the job. I'm talking, of course, about the very, very well paid Nathaniel Ford, our alleged "CEO" of the MTA, but who seems to think his job description is to ruin the agency as much as possible. I'd resisted for some time now to join the call to see this guy go, understanding that his job sure as Hell isn't easy. In light of recent events, however, he needs to leave.
Reading about his temper tantrum with Muni management, in reaction to the article SF Weekly reporter Joe Eskenazi and I wrote last week was amusing at first - it reminded me of the time I wrote an article in high school that pissed off the principal because the school board read it.
Re-reading the post, I realized just how arrogant, and how dishonest Mr. Ford is as our CEO. He's not upset at the content of the article - he's just upset that public servants talked to the public (i.e. us, the owner/riders) and spilled the beans on the lies and deceit about Muni that have been a hallmark of his tenure there. No disputing the facts, and no plan of course to fix Muni - just engage in attacks, no doubt coordinated with Mr. Mayor. (Also a hallmark of the Ford regime: a significant decrease in morale at all levels of the agency.)
More importantly, since he started, he seems to have shown a true distintrest in trying to make Muni the best it could be, despite bad times. He is now openly admitting he is going to significantly downsize the system, permanently, and basically ignore that $3 million Transit Effecitiveness Project to guide said cuts. Even if Muni were to get "more money," (and you know they'll be begging and crying and saying "state gov't" this and so on) the cuts will be permanent, so no matter what ends up happning, you will be relying on a slower, stupider, crowded, and dirty system - far worse than the one he found when he was hired even if Muni gets "more money". Sound practical? Of course not.
This is not acceptable, and since Nathaniel Ford doesn't seem to get that his first duty is to serve the owner/riders, and not the whims of the Mayor and his political apparatchniks in Room 200, then it's time for him to take his trail of destruction elsewhere, and let us find someone else who understands that public service is not about personal power or personal enrichment with big pay, but instead a chance to do some good for the people (us) who pay their salaries.
Realistically, nothing will happen until we replace Newsom (or whomever is actually in charge at City Hall), but for now, every time there's a public hearing, let Nathaniel Ford know what you think about his Muni-bashing tenure at one of those phony public hearings the MTA likes to hold to make you feel like you have input, when in fact they made the decisions long ago. It's a sad state of affairs, but then again, that article in the Weekly wouldn't have struck a nerve if there wasn't truth to it.
This morning was one of those mornings I woke up early, turned on the computer and suddenly got a zillion messages about today's Sunset Tunnel disaster. My first impulse was to turn off the computer, and literally run out of town when these things happen, just because it's so depressing. If ever you wonder why it is that folks literally celebrated that tunnel as a "God-send," taking the shuttle downtown would remind you why.
There are several reports that the reason the wires were collapsed was because someone decided to steal copper wiring, and thought that stealing it from you was a good idea. I'm still trying to verify this, but I've now heard it twice from 2 sources, and from the accounts of the damage, that would be about right. But I'll still try and find out for sure.
However, some happiness to brighten what looks to be a nice Friday, weather-wise. As you may or may not know, today is Foursquare Day, the first sort-of-holiday for a mobile app. What this means is many places are doing specials on drinks, food, etc. You can find a list of San Francisco events here, most notable are the ones at Pacific Catch in the Marina and in the Inner Sunset, who are attempting to get the "Swarm" badge for all who participate. There's also one at the Ferry Buliding too.
Also, don't forget that tomorrow is Dogfest 2010! Whether you have a dog or just think dogs are awesome, this event, which is a benefit for McKinley Elementary School, is always a fun springtime event and proceeds go to a nice cause. Check it out!
As always, why not celebrate the N's fails with a FailWhale N Judah Shirt, or any one of our offerings. Be the best dressed person on the shuttle bus!
The Big Project has finally been revealed: I was hired to work on a cover story about Muni for the SF Weekly!
No, REALLY.
I busted my ass, studying a lot of stuff including those dumb-ass work rules and turned around from being anti the Elsbernd amendment to being for it. It took a lot of knowledge and what not to turn me around, but I did.
More importantly I loved, loved loved learning from so many sources and so many real world people on some kick ass information and worked with a kick-ass reporter, Joe Eskenazi, on this. We could have written a 10k word story on this and STILL not gotten it done.
I figured I'd start the week with a bang, and talk about this Fix Muni Now campaign that just started gathering signatures for a November amendment to the City's Charter (a local constitution, if you will).
After being against the measure, when I'd heard the concept of it, I am now for it, after doing a significant amount of research the last month or so (related to the Big Project which will be rolling out shortly).
This wasn't an easy conclusion, but I spent a lot of time reading up on everything from "memorandums of understanding" to the charter amendment itself, as well as talk to many experts of all types, and it's one of those things that is unfortunately necessary when you have a City Charter that's been amended and re-amended as many times as ours has.
The fact that we have to vote on arcane policy within one city department regarding one of many of its classes of employees to ensure it's managed properly still drives me nuts - I personally do not care, nor did I want to know the minutiae of the workings of one subset of the MTA's employees - but this unfortunately is necessary course correction for the agency, and we have to vote on it.
To make this a bit easier to read, I'm going to do a pretend "Q&A" about the measure, that hopefully will make sense. Click through and learn more about this thing.
Q: OMG! This ballot measure is a direct attack on unions, workers, the weekend and democracy! How dare you support this anti union measure cooked up by right wing zealots! I'm gonna march in a protest against you!
A: This is most definitely not an anti union measure. All this is going to do is have the only unionized city employees who currently do not engage in collective bargaining do so. No other union in the City has this unique status - not the police, firefighters, other union employees at the MTA/Muni, not health care workers or other city service providers. (It should be noted that all of the city's union employees have suffered layoffs, cutbacks and more - but not Muni drivers.)
By having one union's pay locked into the city's Charter, Muni has no way to negotiate or have any flexiblity with only one union's members - even if the economy goes in the toilet (as it has). This simply has one union do exactly what every other union does and what and union orgainzing campaign strives for - collective bargaining that's fair.
Q: Oh yeah! I'm gunna get my Pinkerton on! By voting for this, I'll cut those mean Muni drivers' pay in half, and I'm gunna bust the unions! Woo hoo!
A: Sorry, but there's nothing in this measure regarding pay. The concept of "driver pay" being the only thing that is causing Muni pain and suffering is patent bullsh*t. All this measure does, as stated, is have the union negotiate through collective bargaining. If there's an impasse, the negotiations are sent to a neutral arbitrator, and that's it. There's nothing in this measure that says that their pay will be cut by a little - or a lot - the negotiations will decide those things. So if you're in to sticking it to people, well, sorry, you're outta luck.
Q: Wait, I'm confused. If this thing doesn't bust unions, but also doesn't affect pay rates directly, and is just about doing what all the other unions do, then why are we voting on it again? And how is this going to help?
A: Good question. Because only one union (TWU - the drivers' union) has their pay rates locked into the charter, tied to the pay rates of other agencies, there's no way to negotiate this in bad times. Also, you can't negotiate the myriad of "work rules" which regulate how Muni operates with regards to its drivers. Many of these rules result in odd situations (such as people getting overtime pay before they've worked 40 hours) that create cost overruns. Other rules make it very difficult for Muni to manage its operations and respond to what's going on (that's why you have delays and other things that drive you nuts). Also note that half of all overtime paid by the city goes to...Muni*.
One key provision of the amendment is that if during arbitration, a work rule is challenged for making things more expensive and inefficient, it will then become the union's job to defend them, or see said archaic work rule go away.
Q: But I was told that we had this crazy system to ensure "labor peace" and that without it, the bus drivers will go on strike one day. How will I get to school? How will I get to the store? BART went on strike, yes?
A: That's what I was told too, and why I was initially against this thing. I'm proud to say after much study on the subject, I was wrong. In the 1970s there was a significant strike, including one by the police, that got really really ugly, so a charter amendment was passed forbidding strikes by any city unions. This means that if said charter amendment passes, no one at Muni is getting to go on strike. Ever.
BART is organized differently than the MTA and Muni, and they don't have a "no strike" clause in their contracts, so that's why they had a strike not too long ago.
So there you have it. Trust me, after reading way more on this, and other things about Muni lately, it's one of these "annoying but necessary" things we have to do. That same research also led me to realize that bashing drivers isn't good policy , nor is it correct, and I'm hoping that the Fix Muni Now campaign will keep things above board, which I'm sure they will. Likewise, we can expect a lot of glossy mailers and more from a lot of people who will stuff your mailbox and robocall the Hell out of your phone with all sorts of distortions.
Ultimately, as the owner/rider of Muni, you need to decide what's best for your transit system and vote accordingly.
*Fun Fact: Muni accounts for about 50% of all overtime paid by the city. But police and firefighters, while as a percentage overtime costs are far less, the actual amount of money paid for said police and fire department overtime is almost the same as the amount of overtime cash paid to Muni.
Hey! Before I forget, I wanted to post a short piece promoting DogFest 2010, which is next Saturday, April 17th at Duboce Park. The event raises money for McKinley Elementary.
This event is fun whether you own a dog or not, and in addition to many activities for kids, they'll also have a number of dog contests, including best dog costume, best bark, best dog-guardian look alike, etc. They will also feature a silent auction, which often has some really great things to bid on. So check it out!
So last night I went to the SF Weekly Web Awards party at 111 Minna, and it was a rather fun event. I got to meet in person many of SF's cool bloggers like Casi of SF Noobs and Kevin Montgomery of the always awesome Uptown Almanac, as well as see people like my neighbor Julie of "I Live Here SF" fame, Johnny Funcheap, Brokeass Stuart, and I even took my own picture of Sex Pigeon (now we're even after he took mine at LitQuake, haha) and a whole lot of other people that I either can't recall their URL or something so non-inclusion isn't meant as a slight. Anyway, it was fun, and hey, free stuff.
But that's not why I'm writing about this evening and going all wannabe society editor on you today. You see, yesterday the N Judah had an overhead wire snap, and the result was a shuttle bus from Sunset to Ocean Beach, and a lot of resulting delays. I just assumed things would take forever so I left early for the event.
Little did I know, however, that the train not only would pull up shortly, but that we had a Super Awesome Train Operator, who did the following:
-CLEARLY AND ACCURATELY explained wtf was going on
-Explained that there were 5 trains stacked behind us, and to avoid a clusterfrak (she didn't say those words but that's what she meant) at the tunnel, that she would stop only if someone pulled the cord - if not we'd keep moving so as to avoid problems for Other Owner/Riders
-Moved us through at warp speed through the tunnel
-Continued to be polite and helpful throughout the trip
Muni operator on the N Inbound around 430 on I think car 1507B (or was it 1570), YOU ARE AWESOME.
This resulted in me getting to 111 Minna early so I went and bought a lottery ticket since clearly my luck was good that day. I didn't win anything off the scratch ticket, but I did get in line early, and was able to have several fine free cocktails made with Vitamin Water and free protein infused vodka (I'll be damned if I can remember the name) and meet up with lots of cool people.
But I couldn't help but think how here we had someone doing the job we expect, being good at it, and being helpful to us owner/riders, and yet under the system now, they really don't get any recognition for it. If you're a complete f*ck up at Muni, you have a union that will part the sea for you, but if you're a good employee and put in that extra effort and take pride in your work, you get nada.
I also have to say that as she was being helpful, more than one rider responded by acting like a jerk. I mean, wtf, people? If you want our workers to do the job they're supposed to, is it really asking too much of you to respond in kind? No one gets hipster dumbass cred or lose your "cool points" by acting like an ass, and you're not standing up to The Man and the Patriarchal Hate State or whatever it is some San Franciscans feel a need to bitch about when they see a stoplight.
So the next time you see someone taking that extra effort to make your ride a bit better, a "thank you" is in order. It can't hurt, right? And it doesn't cost you any money, nor do you lose your cool points.
A quick note on a number of upcoming community events along the N you should be aware of...now that the weather seems to be a bit more cooperative, they should make for a fun time for all.
On Saturday, the House Formerly Known as Yes We Can will be hosting a "Book Blast." What is that, you ask? Simply put if you've got some books you're no longer reading or want to keep, you can give 'em away, and someone else can read it. If you're looking for some new books, you can take some. It's 100% free, and fun. Just go to 6th and Irving between noon and 5pm and look for the crowd!
Next, Sunday Streets is back and they're doing the Great Highway route once again. Basically this means you could walk from the California Academy of Sciences to the SF Zoo, unencumbered by traffic. I went to this last year, and it was fun.
Finally, applications are being taken for the first annual Inner Sunset Street Festival. A joint production of the Inner Sunset Merchants and the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors, the fair will be held on May 15th, and will cover Irving from 9th to 10th, and 10th Avenue between Irving and Lincoln. Let's hope this is the start of a cool annual tradition!
The Really Big Project I was working on is pretty much complete, so I can go back to regular writing. I can't really talk about it just yet, but soon, all will be revealed. I hate to be a blogger cloak and dagger type, but it'll all make sense soon enough.
Anyway, I took a trip to Burlingame today, and while doing so thought a little bit about all the crazy stuff that's been going on here, elsewhere and so on. One thing that's always been an issue is the fact that if you live in San Francisco, but work elsewhere (i.e. San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, etc.) is that once you leave San Francisco, you really don't have a lot of options to get where you're going , unless you have a car. And, with Caltrain's latest announcement that it will be killing most of its service (which will make for a lot of fun at Giants games), it's just going to get worse.
For example, today I wanted to take Caltrain to Burlingame station, and meet my family there, instead of having them pick me up at the BART station. But, because of a) the Sunday schedule and cuts to service on Muni, and b) Caltrain's already abbreviated schedule, I realized there would be a good chance I'd get to Caltrain late, and miss Easter. So I opted for the 44 to Glen Park BART, but that meant annoying my brother to pick me up.
Now yes, there is a SamTrans stop there and yes, it theoretically could take me right to his place, but the problem with that is that SamTrans on a Sunday is almost non existent. I'd end up waiting at least 45 minutes, if not longer, and if it wasn't raining, I'd normally just walk the 2 miles and not even bother. I was lucky that someone could pick me up and all, and I did get there pretty quickly from Glen Park. (and as always I wish I could take a time machine back to the time when they f*cked up BART and/or killed the Interurban and shown them the horrors and wasted money to fix their blunder and come back to an easy way to get to the peninsula, but, alas, no such luck. It's the 21st century WHERE IS MY TIME MACHINE?)
The point is not to talk about my one stupid ride on BART to Burlingame, but to point out that once you leave San Francisco, "mass transit" simply isn't viable for a lot of people who don't work near Caltrain, or have the luxury of taking a Bauer private coach, or one provided by an employer. That means more people will either have to move closer to their jobs (so not easy in a tough economy) or just get a car and make 280 and 101 a parking lot. And, it wasn't that long ago that this didn't have to be a potential day-killer made up of transit f*ck ups, either. (Although, that whole "if you don't live near Caltrain" issue for many workers wouldn't go away. But at least you could take Caltrain to the Giants game and have a beer on the way up.)
It's just silly to think that we can pour way more cars on already crappy freeways (and oh yeah that gas tax that allocated 80% of money to roads? GONE) and somehow think that's going to be "fast" or whatever. With no reasonable way to get to where they need to, though, that is going to happen, and for many people I know, it already has.
If I was paid more, perhaps as much as some overpriced legislator, Supervisor, Governor, Mayor, transit boss dude, or whatever, I'd spend some time figuring out a grand complex solution or something. But I'm not. And sad to say, we are paying a lot of money for a lot of people who allegedly do this sort of thing as part of their job, and well, instead they don't.
Have fun on 101. Bring an iPad with you. It's not like you'll be moving that fast (if at all) to cause any harm, and you can at least look cool while you're taking 3 hours to get to Palo Alto.
PS: No transit drama, I got a ride home because I got a filing cabinet (happy Easter). But driving on 280 sucked royally with all the rain and such, so we took an alternate route home. I really don't miss driving up and down 280 and 101, that's for sure. But then again, carrying a filing cabinet on BART probably isn't a wise idea.
