The N-Judah Chronicles

I only have time for a short Fun Friday post. Today I wanted to highlight a picture a Flickr user sent me (that's apparently making the rounds in the blogs) of the N Judah Turnaround. Click through for a larger version by Flickr user "Bats..." and more excellent photography.

I also wanted to do one more plug for the Really REALLY REALLY Free Market at the House Formerly Known as Yes We Can on August 1st. I went last year and they have really nice things and yes, it's all free. Drop off things you don't need, or find that certain something you'd like. And it's all free! Make a day of it with a stop at the Farmer's Market and any one of the fine local businesses in the Inner Sunset.

Be aware that it's also Critical Mass Day today, so plan on avoiding downtown if you can. And let's hope for some sun sometime soon, OK?

Posted by Greg Dewar at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Note: This post also appears at the SFGate.com's Bay Area Transit Blog, which I'm trying out to see if it helps boost traffic and expand the ongoing discussion of Muni and San Francisco city life. If you're new to the N Judah Chronicles, consider checking out the archives, as I've been covering these issues for over five years.

Ah, "reforming Muni." The new hot topic everyone's talking about. Whereas just a few years ago, you couldn't get a local official or activist group to even say the word "Muni," now, as the Muni Death Spiral gets faster and faster, suddenly everyone wants to get on board the Muni Reform Bus.

Which is wonderful, if local politicals and activist groups want to spend the time to carefully look at Muni and make the kinds of long term decisions that benefit everyone - even those of you who don't ride Muni every day and drive a car or ride a bike or walk.

Unfortunately, while fixing Muni is like curing cancer (if there was only one cause, it'd be easy to cure, but it doesn't have one single cause), trying to cure cancer in a politicized environment where the loudest screams get the most response isn't likely to happen.

Back in May, "progressive" Supervisors introduced a proposed amendment to the San Francisco City Charter that included a myriad of changes to Muni, some of which were clear (set aside money for the agency) and some which were not. As of July 26th, not only is there no finalized amendment - it may never appear on the ballot anyway.

Frankly, I'm not surprised. From the beginning, this had the look and feel of a bargaining chip as part of the back and forth of the legislative process, and as such wasn't worth taking too seriously. That's too bad because Muni isn't an "issue" that belongs to one faction or another - it's a system we Muni Owners rely on to get around town that needs to work.

Likewise, there was a lot of shouting about the proposal to give Supervisors direct appointments to the SF MTA board. Currently whoever is Mayor appoints the MTA, and the Supervisors approve the choice. The proposal was to give Supervisors 3 direct appointments and one joint appointment with the Mayor to the MTA Board - effectively giving them majority control over the agency.

Since at the time I was researching this post this was a Really Big Deal, I decided to email the four supervisors who proposed this change (Chiu, Campos, Mirkarimi and Mar) and ask them just who they'd appoint to the MTA Board, why they'd do a better job, and how these new folks would be free of political interference.

The response?

Nothing.

Now, sure, they're busy folks, but when I waited for almost a week for a response and got nothing, it became clear to me that this was either some political barb to poke Mayor Newsom in the eye with, or just a bargaining chip to get something else. Fine, but this kind of gamesmanship with a multimillion dollar transit system doesn't serve you, the Muni Owner, at all.

On the other hand, I recently attended an event for the Fix Muni Now campaign. I've discussed the merits of this in the past, but the one thing that continues to strike as I talked to people at the event was how they weren't there to bust unions - they really wanted a better Muni - and came from all sides of the political spectrum. It's not an overnight fix to Muni that will magically turn the agency around, but over the long term it's something we will probably be glad we passed.

I think it is time we challenge "progressives," and everyone on all sides, to take Muni seriously. That means taking a deep breath, avoiding the urge for political games, and contribute reasonable, well thought out solutions.

Stupid soundbites like "Chop from the Top!", "Tax Downtown More!" and the like from the left are useless. Likewise, expecting that the only thing causing Muni financial pain is "driver pay" and "waste" at Muni is overly simplistic as well. They are great at making people feel better, but they're just as cloudy and full of meatballs as anything politicians come up with.

Fixing Muni isn't easy or especially fun. But the benefits to everyone in the long run would be rather nice, though.

UPDATE: All the hoopla for nothing - they pulled their toys off the table. I guess that means whenever you hear David Chiu talk about Muni, expect him to talk. And talk. And talk.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

There's quite a bit of fun going on out there this weekend and going forward. The SF Marathon is on Sunday, Inner Fog wine bar is finally open, and we may even get some warmer weather. For those of you keeping score, word is this is in fact the coldest summer in 40 years in San Francisco. Ugh.

So in no particular order, here are some links of interest for you to enjoy:

- Our friends at the Muni Manners blog have published a book! And if you buy it online, using the code BEACHREAD305 you get a discount. The Manners Ladies have always been such enthusiastic supporters of the NJC, so a little promo was in order for 'em here.

-The House Formerly Known as "Yes We Can" is doing another "Really REALLY Free Market on August 1st. This is an absolutely free event - if you see something you like, take it, and if you have things you'd like to get rid of (clean and in good condition), drop it off! I attended last year and it was a lot of fun.

-On August 7th, Inner Sunset residents are planning a Inner Sunset Sidewalk Sweep. Volunteers will gather at the entrance to the Inner Sunset Farmer's Market at 9:15am, and help polish up the neighborhood. RSVP via email and let them know you'll be helping out. This is the fourth such event, co sponsored by Inner Sunset Park Neighbors, the Department of Public Works and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi

-The always awesome artist Niana Liu has some new artwork on display as part of the SF Arts Commission Art in Storefronts project. Her project is at 630 Kearny, and among other things, features a "Muni Duck." Niana's local-based art makes for a great gift, or for just having something that's truly unique.

-If you're not already checking out the amazing photography of Julie Michelle at her I Live Here: SF project, well, get over there and start checking out the amazing photography and the written words of your fellow SF citizens. Her most recent project features locales familiar to riders of the N-Judah. Check it out!

-Also, Mad Men returns on Sunday. While the Internet allows me to watch this at home on my TV, I would love to find a bar that would be willing to show this on their many TVs and serve Old Fashioneds to me and the many Mad Men fans I know are out there. However, I haven't found one yet and time is of the essence. So, blog friends, I ask you - got any suggestions? Please post in the comments below!

Finally, as always, I'm happy to host Guest Bloggers, especially as I get busier with some new sites and blogs I want to launch soon. Just email me and tell me what you'd like to write about and we can fit you into the rotation.

Most importantly, have a great weekend!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Because I'm a fool, I didn't buy passes to Comic Con when I had the chance, so I'm missing out on what is turning out to be the best Comic Con yet. Why is Comic Con so awesome?

It is awesome because the City of San Diego is re-doing the signage at the Convention Center Trolley Stop in Kilngon.

This is one of many reasons it's a great event to attend. For now I'm following it all on The Twitter, and planning to buy passes for next year. At least it's sunny in San Diego.

(Links courtesy of California Streets blog and @proggrrl on Twitter)

Posted by Greg Dewar at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night was an especially fun "Nightlife at the Academy" , as the them was the Science of Brewing Beer. Representatives from many local SF breweries, including our friend Richard at Elizabeth Street Brewery and our neighbors at Social Kitchen and Brewery were on hand to talk about the brewing process and talk about their beers. I posted a few (old iPhone quality) pictures here.

Also on hand were brewmasters from 21st Amendment, the San Francisco Brewcraft supply store, Magnolia Pub, Bison Brewing, and MataVeza.

Whew! That's a lot of links! But all in all it was a lot of fun, and I never pass up a chance to go to the Academy. In fact, this was my second trip in less than a week - last Friday I got to attend a premiere of a documentary produced by the Professional Engineers in CA Government.

Entitled The Next Frontier: Engineering the Golden Age of Green, it was primarily concerned with developing alternative, non polluting forms of energy. It was very interesting to watch, not preachy, and overall rather worth watching. In a few weeks I'll be doing a contest with a copy of the film on DVD as a prize.

This weekend promises some nice weather, even in San Francisco, so be sure to enjoy it as much as you can. I shall be at home toiling away on all sorts of crazy PHP things and whatnots that should be done soon.

Also, I'm still waiting to see if we hear anything regarding yesterday's challenge. I'll post an update if anything happens. (In other words, I'll be working on the roof deck on PHP junk).

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My good friend Joe at the SF Weekly blog, the Snitch, has a short post up today with the outline of the so-called "Progressive" Muni Charter Amendment. It covers a number of issues, and I'm going to take a look at the full text before I pass any final judgment on it.

However, this so-called "progressive" charter amendment on the outset has some serious flaws, policy-wise and practical. It makes some noise about funding Muni - fine - but it also is giving Supervisors the power to easily discard any route changes they don't like, practical scientific analysis be damned. It also does nothing to overcome the burdensome, costly and often antiquated work-rules that result in things like the infamous "pay me not to work" scam, and other inefficiencies as well. (Sup. Campos was offended by this, apparently.)

WhatEVER. Remember how everyone did what organized labor demanded in 2007 with Prop. A, and it ended up blowing up in everyone's faces? That went well.

There's another, more practical problem with this amendment - besides being complicated, there is absolutely no organization, no cash on hand, no nothing going for it right now to see it get passed. Fix Muni Now has been up and running and had to earn 75,000 signatures on the street, while this thing is bottled up at the Board until at least July 20th, if not later. So while one is a coherent, viable operation to pass a difficult measure (Fix Muni Now), "progressives" aren't even organized enough to wave signs for this thing. (Good luck with that).

It would have been nice if there was one, multipartisan thing on the ballot to improve Muni, kind like how we all came together to save SF General Hospital, but that's in the Haley's Comet league of Things That Rarely Happen.

As I said, I'm waiting to see the official wording and read every line of it myself (So you don't have to!). For now, though I am issuing a challenge to the progressive Supervisors who created this thing: I'm asking them to post here why they feel this is the best way to "fix" Muni, and answer questions from you, the Muni owner/riders and from myself.

Let's see if they can talk to you directly and explain this in their own words. I wouldn't suggest holding your breath though - you don't want to die of asphyxiation!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So the "big news" from our friends at Muni is that the agency is now on time 75% of the time. Mayor Green Gavin was quick to belch out some press releases, and naturally, the press is in full stenographer mode on this one.

There's just one thing - the number is meaningless. First, this was after major service cuts (spun as an "overhaul") last year, so comparing a smaller system to a larger one is comparing apples and oranges. More to the point, it doesn't really matter if Muni is "on time" 75% of the time if the system isn't reliable. Think of the many times you've tried to get home on an outbound N, only to see an endless line of empty Js and KLMs speeding by, thus ensuring the only N showing up is super crowded.

So while everyone at City Hall pats themselves on the back for a Muni well done, remember that figure when you're stuck waiting around for an hour because of an unplanned for absence, or because something broke down. If nothing else, you can figure out the odds of when you'll be lucky enough to be using it when it's actually running on time.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It's been a heck of a week, what with Fourth of July festivities, World Cup matches, a protest in the Inner Funset, trial verdicts and so on. If ever there was a need for a Fun Friday, this is it.

So, without further ado, here's all sorts of random fun in no particular order.

-Jay, who runs the family owned Sunset Barber on 9th Avenue was off most of the week - because he and his wife just had their first baby boy, Issa (named after Jay's dad)! Congratualtions to Jay and his family! If you're going by the Sunset Barber, be sure to congratulate him when you get your next haircut.

-A bit belated but still good news: The Inner Fog Wine Bar (pictured, via iPhone) on Irving and 7th (same building as One Shot Tattoo) opened on June 2nd. My friend Elaine and I crashed the party after spying Sup. Ross Mirkarimi as we left Pacific Catch last week. It's definitely a fun spot - it's hard to believe Crossroads (which moved down the block) used to have its dressing rooms there.

Now it's a warm, inviting place to hang out with friends over a fine wine. Elaine wrote about our adventures there last week.

-A new Muni App was annoucned today in the Apple Store: Muniverse. This was co-authored by our own Loyal Reader Jamison, and from what I've seen so far, it's yet another unique use of the freely available NextMuni data. This is critical - with open data, many people are able to come up with new and unusual ways to provide said data giving you, the Muni owner, many options. I will be reviewing this app as well as Transporter (which I've been using, along with Routesy).

Special note to Android users: I would love to review any Next Muni Android apps, but I do not have an Android phone, so if you find on and would like to show it to me and help me write a review, feel free to email me.

Finally, Streetsblog posted links to this video of a rather unique take on mobile street food, beer, and bikes. I swear, if you had a bunch of these available to ride during Critical Mass, they'd make a lot of friends REALLY fast.

Have a great weekend!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, a lot of vuvuzelas are being tooted at the MTA and City Hall for this so-called "restoration of service" that the MTA approved today, and that's just lovely. Well, for the vuvuzela-tooters, anyway.

Lost in the shuffle is that all of this "restoration" talk is that this partial "restoration" is completely based on short term fixes, which mean that a year or so from now, Muni will be back to slashing service. Meanwhile Mayor Green Newsom and the Board can brag about how great they are. Even if the Muni operators had voted for the one-time giveback (which would have meant we could have virtually eliminated the 10% Ford-Newsom slash to service), it too was nothing more than a short term solution.

Now, don't get me wrong - it's nice to see at least some service restored, especially in areas that were hard hit by the cuts (thinking of lines like the 66 for example) and at least for now, we won't have as many Muni failwhale regattas as we have been lately. But it's not going to last long, and in the long term, we may be faced with worse choices later. Plus, once again we have the Mayor trying to sound like Mr. Transit, when a lot of the problem started, and remains with him and his handpicked management team.

There is some talk of some Muni "reform" measure by "progressive" Supevisors, but as of July 6th, there is no final plan, there is no campaign to get it passed, there is no money to get it passed, no track record of passing these things, no professionals in charge, and once again, we have a compromise to appease public employee unions that will likely sink it, given the way we were bamboozled in 2007 with Measure A and its compromises. That means that whatever long term local funding solutions are in this alleged package, it's not likely to pass since as of now, with only a few months until the election, there is no operation in place to get a complicated law passed by the voters.

Meanwhile, the Fix Muni Now campaign has been up and running for months, and seems to have submitted enough signatures for the ballot, and that's great. However, the savings that the Fix Muni Now proposition proposes won't appear like magic overnight, and is designed to fix arcane rules and an outdated charter amendment. Any fixes it makes to Muni will take some time, which is not a bad thing - but again, that's the thing with authentic, long-term solutions - there's no instant showboat-y payoff.

For now, let the vuvuzelas of the politicians and the extremist groups drown out the sound of reason. We got 5% of our service back!

Update: It's amazing to see how well the spinners have now got the press saying this is a "service enhancement." No, it is not. It is returning half of the cuts made a few months ago. And don't forget the cuts in December that Prince Gavin called "a major overhaul" of the system, when in fact it was more.

I hate to use an Orwell reference but this is so memory hole/chocolate ration. Seriously.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Happy Fourth of July, Everyone! Have a safe and sane holiday today !

Posted by Greg Dewar at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)