There's been discussion that said charter rides could be returning to the N-Judah line this year, and word is that some testing will be done once again late at night to ensure that almost all of the cars can go through (Right now there's only a few that can't make the turn at Arguello by UCSF because they are too wide). This could include...the Blackpool "Boat Tram."
At a meeting earlier this year I had with Ed Reiskin, the SFMTA's CEO, I told him that the moment they "legalize" the boat tram, I'd be down at cash-strapped Muni with a big bag of cash with a dollar sign on it, and sign up for one. I'm serious, and now I would like to gauge if there's interest in such a charter ride. Also, it's not unprecdented to do such a ride - after all there's photos online of people taking the "boat tram" through the Sunset Tunnel and Cole Valley, so technically it's already happened, right?
Setting up one of these is not that difficult - Market Street Railway posted info on how to do so recently (the charters are handled directly by Muni). Personally I think a ride from the Ferry Building to Ocean Beach would be a lot of fun, especially if the weather cooperates.
Lead time is a minimum of 2 months, and I'll need to do some figuring on costs, since while I'm happy to pony up the cash up front, I'm no Rob Conway so I can't afford to pay for everyone to ride for free. For now, I'd be interested in hearing from readers if a) they'd consider riding said charter and b) any suggestions to the route we might take, in the comments section below. AND, if anyone would be interested in helping sponsor said ride, please send me an email and let me know what you think.
This could be a really fun event, and if nothing else, I'll bring the boom box for the music!
Details are as follows. This is a completely cash-free event, and as someone who has attended before, can be a lot of fun, and a great way to meet people in the Inner Sunset:
We're now collecting for the Inner Sunset Third Usually-Annual Book Blast. This year, the event will be a full weekend, Saturday/Sunday, April 27 & 28 at the NW corner of Irving & Sixth; Noon until exhaustion.Feel free to drop books NOW at 1297 Sixth Ave. in our sheltered doorway, in bags/boxes, not too heavy to make my eyes pop out. If necessary, we can pick up your
donations, just call.We'd love: kids' books, fiction, dictionaries, books, psychology,
science, cookbooks, travel, maps, books, videos, biographies, books, CDs, DVDs, books, paperbacks, history, and books!Please note: we canNOT accept text books, encyclopedias or magazines, unfortunately.
This is not a charity event, or a swap and no money will be exchanged...It is our neighborhood's effort to recycle books.
Leftover books will be donated to the SF Public Library for their
annual fundraiser.Volunteers *very* welcome (err...needed!) Please call Barbara: 2.46.47.48
Sounds fun!
$45,000 is not a lot of money. I mean, they could just simply fire one deadwood employee and have more than that to keep service running. My frustration with the SFMTA, as it has been for years, though is how this agency routinely plays the "we gots no money gimme more money" act when something like this is announced, and yet passes over way easier and better ways to "make money" that stare them right in the face?
Case in point: The replacement of all of the streets signs in San Francisco with the new "upper/lowercase' style (mandated, by the way, by the Federal government in case you were wondering why they're doing that). Right now you can buy old street signs from the 1940s era at the Cable Car Museum. It occurred to me the other day that now there's a massive replacement of every single sign in town, surely said "obsolete" signs being pulled down now would be for sale there.
I called over there, and alas, this isn't the case. Instead, they'll likely all be recycled or dumped in a landfill somewhere. This is a classic case of a missed opportunity. I have bought SF street signs from the Cable Car Museum in the past, and they're not cheap. That said, if I could get say, an "Irving Street" sign, a "Judah Street" sign, and so on, I'd easily pay $40-75 a piece. Heck, you could price them by popularity, and make a lot more than $45,000. Even better, do this all on line in the ALLEGED TECH CAPITAL OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM OR SO WE ARE TOLD. Isn't our mayor the "tech mayor" or something like that?
Instead, we're getting a service cut and told there's "no money" for basic service at the end of March.
This is one of many missed opportunities. With all the people who are out there selling Muni themed merchandise, you'd think by now, again in the TECH CAPITAL OF THE GALAZY OMG, Muni would make a few bucks (maybe $45,000?) selling t-shirts and other items online, Zazzle style. When I wore my T-Third t-shirt one day I could not count the number of people who immediately asked "Where can I buy one?" (No, really, I don't wear it anymore because I'm tired of having to tell them they can't.)
Hell, I could run this and I wouldn't need to have a six figure salary, personal chauffeur and the like. Oh wait, I already do. The point is not to get me a gig at the MTA, the point is that once again, low-hanging fruit like this (to borrow a phrase from my fundraising background) is passed by, due to excessive BS regulations at the City of SF, and because no one seems to see what they have right in front of them that could pull in a few extra bucks without a lot of overhead.
More to the point, if we did things like this, we wouldn't have phony cuts like this "spring break" cut in service in March. Ah, well.
PS: Well, if Muni won't sell things online, then I'll fill the gap. Today (March 15th) you can use the code POTOGOLD at our Zazzle store, and you get 20% off select merchandise. Buy something today! Proceeds will go towards a charter ride on a historic streetcar if the N-Judah line is opened up once again to said streetcars. I'll publish a separate post on that shortly.
First up: our SFMTA. The article in SFGate.com compares and contrasts Muni's experiences trying to install service vs. BART (which obviously has more riders and tunnels, hence more interest from cell phone providers). In the end, we find that nothing is happening because no one will install the equipment on their dime, and Muni has "other priorities" (Like taking another 9 million dollars out of the general fund to appease North Beach residents regarding the bazillion dollar Central Subway.)
As I stated before, personally I find it to be a minor irritation at best, although some riders have told me there is a legitimate safety issue - if there's an accident or other Big Incident, having some sort of way to communicate beyond the nominal system on the trains might not be a bad idea. What bothers me more is how clearly this is something that doesn't have to cost the agency any money, but there's a lot of talking and treating this like it's the biggest math problem in the world, when it's not.
Why? Well read this article about cell service for the LA MTA's various subway lines. Not only have they found a provider to install the equipment necessary, the LA MTA won't just get the equipment for free - they'll be making a minimum of $360,000 a year off of the system. Cell phone companies will pay to access the system (and who is going to want to miss out on such an opportunity to one-up the competition).
It seems to me that even with Muni's shorter tunnels, I've got to believe in tech-heavy SF, such a system would be a money maker for everyone. Perhaps in LA, they spend less time appeasing the masses with endless "outreach" and spend more time getting things done than we do. Surely, we can do better.
UPDATE: The LA MTA Board approved the contract to get cell service in stations on Feb. 28. Meanwhile the SFMTA spent $9 million local dollars to appease Sup. David Chiu's (loud) constituents regarding the tunnel boring equipment in his district. That's $9 million being taken away from existing maintenance and needs for other lines. Way to go, San Francisco!
Yesterday I received an interesting email from Prague, Czech Republic from Reader Aude, who found the blog via The Google for an interesting reason - they are translating a book set in San Francisco, and found one passage difficult to decode, despite consulting both Google and Muni Maps. Read on:
Hi Greg!This is Aude, from the other side of the Atlantic :-)
I've never been to SF but I'm currently translating into French a book you've maybe heard of since it's set in your city, that is Homeboy, by Seth Morgan.
At one point there's this sentence (in case (!!!!) you have the book it's on p.80) which mentions the N Judah. I've been trying to follow through the Muni web and Google maps, but must say I'm at a loss.
Here it is:"He turned onto a side street and parked in its culdesac over the streetcar tunnel. He walked to the railing overlooking the tracks and leaned against a streetlamp that looked, in the swirling mist, like a giant dandelion atop a wrought iron stem. The N Judah car burst out between his legs, rattle-trapping down the cutbacks through the steep backyards, jiggling in its yellow windows like a corn in a popper newspapers, crossed legs, a woman applying lipstick. Scanning the gray density of buildings, Joe spotted the house on Treat Street by the police lights. They pulsed in the fog like red amoebas."
I'd have two questions, if you're kind enough to help.
- First do you have an idea of where the character can be? It looks like Treat St is very short and quite far from the N Judah way.
- Second, do you have an idea of what the cutbacks are here? Does the author mean this kind of tortuous, steep and narrow streets of San Francisco? (I can't imagine the tramway following a zig-zaggy way...)
Thanks a lot for your help, I hope I'll make it one day to San Francisco and take the N Judah :-)
All best from Praha, and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Treat Avenue is within semi-walking distance from the J, but not like the way it's described here. As for a cul-de-sac (or any spot above a tunnel vis a vis the N) the only place this could be describing would be somewhere above one of the entrances to the Sunset Tunnel (this book was written long before the N went to Caltrain).
After much discussion, I told Aude that it was likely the author was taking some artistic license with San Francisco geography, much as Hollywood does when filming car chase scenes or having cable cars appear like they criss cross the City.
What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments section!
Well, that is, if there was some way to harness it.
Imagine the possiblities. San Francisco would become the world's most dominant energy provider, and we'd put all of the OPEC nations out of business. Seriously. On and on people are loudly whining about this like it's a human rights violation on the level of a low level atrocity the UN usually intervenes in. One almost expects these aggreived souls to call Jimmy Carter to show up and provide relief, as he has in the past in truly troubled parts of the world.
Memo to San Francisco: Calm The Frak Down. It's not the end of the world. Also: you are not entitled to free parking on public streets, and those of us who don't have a car have been seeing our fares on Muni go up and up, while auto parking continued to be subsidized. If you don't think it is, think of what would happen if the SFMTA decided to charge market rate, on a parity with private lots? Talk about a "human rights violation," eh?
Before we go on, a shout out to the screamers - I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the motorist who gets a ton of tickets. I used to own a (big, gas guzzling luxury) car, and part of the reason the SFMTA is low on cash is because I'm not getting tickets anymore.
I also do not like the idea of using "parking tickets" as a revenue source (vs. using them as punishment for causing dangerous situations), something I've said about a million times on this blog in the last 7+ years. Nor was I happy when a forgotten ticket escalated to almost $100 and the SFMTA went after my tax refund (yes, they will do this, and we'll discuss this in a future post). So there.
That said, this is not an Armageddon for business owners. I say so because I live in a business district, the Inner Sunset, and I can say for certain what happens now - people park their cars after 6pm on Saturday and leave them in the "free" spots all along Irving Street until Monday morning.
This not only reduces the number of spots available for people who might need a car whilst patronizing local businesses, but it also creates a lot of traffic when people are circling the neighborhood or double parking waiting for a spot. Just on the block I live on, what should be a neighborhood street starts to pile up with endless traffic, with the inevitable horn honking on par with a street in Manhattan.
People need to realize that the only reason we didnt' have metered parking on Sundays in the first place was because most businesses weren't open on Sundays, so there was no point to it. In Not Very Religious San Francisco, that's changed, and people hogging the spots for 24 hours+ on Sunday isn't very conducive to business nowadays.
If we'd implemented demand based parking city-wide (which, ironically has reduced the cost of parking in zones experimenting with it) we could manage this even better for those who actually need it. (those of you who are able to walk or whatever and instead drive a few blocks for a pack of cigarettes don't fall in this category). Sadly, the shrill sounds of a Tea Party-esque minority refuse to listen to, content to keep up the shrill.
In the end, to make this work, the SFMTA has to make Muni run more efficiently on Sundays, so for the most part this isn't the Big Issue everyone's whines make it out to be. That's not an impossible task, but it will only happen if Muni's owners (you) make it a priority. Whining on blogs never changed anything, but putting pressure on the clown car that is City Hall sometimes works, and might even end up making a real difference that benefits everyone.
A shocking concept, I know, especially in the City of Choose-Up-Siders, but again, not impossible. Really!
Fun Fact: Los Angeles no longer has coin-only meters. You can pay with a credit or debit card, you don't need to use some stupid "app" that charges you an extra "fee," and they'll be doing more to manage parking in the future than we could hope for. They also are doing more to get people to ride buses, trains and their light rail system. Kinda puts SF and its alleged superiority to shame, doesn't it?
A year ago, as I looked towards what 2012 might bring Muni, especially it being the system's 100th Anniversary, with some hope that the celebration of said anniversary might inspire Muni to move forward, and at least remind people why their mass transit system was a valuable asset worth fixing and enhancing.
Boy was I wrong about that.
While I enjoyed most of the celebrations Muni had, as did those who participated, overall, Muni took several steps backwards this year. The stalls in the tunnels have become a regular occurrence. The politicians still play political campaign games with Muni's money - even though Mayor Newsom is long gone from the scene. People on the westside had the opportunity to elect a supervisor with one of the most comprehensive plans and understanding of all forms of transit (not just just Muni) - but instead chose to re-elect a failed supervisor who's more worried about the Grammy awards. We still have people who spend all the time on stupid blog comments running down Muni, not realizing that we're ultimately the ones who will have to force change, not "them."
To be sure there were some amazing things this year too. The ongoing expansion of the F-Line fleet, the successful run of the E-Embarcadero, the good faith efforts of many at the SFMTA to make things work, and so on made for some peaceful moments on the N and elsewhere. Despite the many, many weekends of bus service on the N, the tracks are finished and improvements made on the line got done, and there's a noticeable improvement as you ride from Duboce and Church outbound towards the Sunset.
However, the most important news that could have a major impact on all forms of transit (Muni, roads, bikes, and so on) was also the news most overlooked by the public - the passage of State Senator Mark Leno's bill to allow counties to vote to raise the Vehicle License Fee (VLF) to the pre-Governor Doofinaor (Schwarzenegger) levels. It's hard to emphasize what a big deal this is. If San Franciscans one day chose to do this, it would mean locally-sourced funding for our transit system, and eliminate dependence on Sacramento's endless follies.
Naturally, there is no proposal to vote on, not anything in front of us right now - just the ability to do so if we so choose. However, a properly written and administered VLF hike that had accountability to get things done (and not allow politicians to blow it on all on their re-election campaigns) would end a lot of the financial excuses the system has now. More importantly, it would put the question directly to the owner/riders - yes you want the system to run on time - are you willing to pay for it, or are you going to simply wait for Santa Claus to pay for it with unicorn dust? No matter what, State Sen. Leno's long time work on this issue deserves a high five, and Senator, if you're reading, next time you're in the Sunset I owe you a beer.
That all said, to be honest, after writing about all this for over seven (!) years, I, too began to get a bit discouraged and wondered why I still write about all of this when I don't even get paid to do so. After a much needed break, I'm back online and am looking forward to trying out some new things on the blog, as well as revamp the look and feel of it to something more befitting of the year 2013.
As always, I welcome your emails of Muni triumphs and woe via the Reader Mail section, and always enjoy publishing the many Tales of Extreme Commuting those of you engage in every day to get where you need to go. Now that the folks at Flickr finally got their act together and have made uploading via mobile device a lot better, I'm reviving the NJC Reader Photo Group where you and I can share our experiences via photo online.
For now, keep the faith and help keep Muni accountable in 2013!
]]>First, there's an event on Friday, December 14th for the Friends Of Larsen Park. The event is a fundraiser to help enhance the park, most notably by bringing back a jet plane to the park, as we had for so many years in the past. The event will be held at The Riptide, located at 3639 Taraval St (easy access via the L line!) and will have a raffle, t-shirts for sale, and drink specials. The event will also be the venue for Cammy Blackstone, one of Supervisor Carmen Chu's legislative aides, so stop by and support the cause!
Next, there's a community meeting on Saturday, the 15th at 10am for the N-Judah Turnaround Beautification Project. The event will be held at Francis Scott Key Elementary School auditorium, located at 1530 43rd Avenue (at Kirkham). This is a chance for neighbors and N-Judah riders to help enhance the turnaround and make it something that everyone can appreciate. Lunch will be provided, and there are activities for kids, so there's something for everyone. May city agencies will also be there, so if you'd like to find out more, or offer your suggestions, be sure to check it out.
I also want to congraultate the hard-working neighbors who put together the Inner Sunset Sunday Street Fairs this fall. They were a nice bonus to living in the Inner Sunset, and I hope we can continue this in the future as a community building event.
Knowing that a big storm was coming, I specifically delayed a meeting scheduled for today, and made sure I didn't need to go anywhere, since no matter how much one prepares, the first big storm of the year almost ensures a lot of problems, despite everyone's best efforts.
Anyway, here's Reader Phuong's commute:
https://twitter.com/sfmta_muni/status/274566420627591168 https://twitter.com/sfmta_muni/status/274569101261803521]]>ABOUT THIS.
I got to Forest Hill Station this morning about 8:55, thinking I could get to work by 9:30. A 1-car M train entered the station and it was already packed. I managed to squeeze on, and another guy was behind me pressed against the door. I held on.
8:58am
We started moving and suddenly we weren't moving anymore. All of 100, maybe 150 feet into the tunnel the train slammed to a stop.8:59am
The driver came onto the horn shortly after to explain that he had this train yesterday and that it's a "bad train". His words. Apparently it has a tendency to throw its emergency brake on. The remainder of our 35 minutes underground, he left the speaker on, providing at least some levity.9:04am
He reset the electronics. The doors popped open. I held on tightly to the bar while the guy behind me almost fell out when he was leaning against the door. It remained wide open for minutes while we clung to the bars, hoping the train didn't suddenly decide to start moving again. Jokes passed around the car, people who couldn't tweet the situation used the old-fashioned method of speaking their thoughts aloud, but eventually the doors closed again.9:08am
From the front of the car, we start hearing a girl ask the driver if he could let us off--let her off. She wanted to get off. She needed to get off. But the doors were not going to open again, so don't hold your breath. Angry, and halfway to tears, she attempted to get at the emergency handle on the window to get out. Too bad she couldn't get to it.9:10am
A mousy girl asks if anyone has a phone that can go online. We're about 70 feet underground. Sorry.9:14am
We hear for the next several minutes the driver talking to someone from dispatch about what he had been doing and what he needed to do. Reset the electronics. Apologize to the riders. Explain again it was a bad train he had yesterday and had the same problems. His fixes yesterday aren't fixing it anymore. The steps need to go down, and I watch my feet to see if I'm going to be half-standing on nothing in a minute. Nothing happens. He announces again that he needs to reset the circuit breakers, and the steps will go down and the doors will open. I continue to brace myself, but it never happens.9:20am
"What the FUCK are you doing?" says a gruff female voice. "You keep moving and it's pissing me off." It's getting a little "Lord of the Flies" in here.9:22am
The driver says that they're going to hook up a train to ours and pull us back to the station.9:24am
An engineer walks into the tunnel and enters into the front of the train. The angry girl who wanted to get off attempts to get off. She is unsuccessful. The engineer departs.9:25am
The train rumbles. The other train must be getting hooked up now. Our train lurches forward and people nearly fall over.9:27am
The engineer returns and this time announces that he needs to get to the middle. We all have to shove off to the sides so he can get to the middle where the electrical panel is. We cram off as best we can, things get tight. He reaches the panel and unscrews it, exposing the electronics inside. He checks that everything is in place and presses a button before before leaving us again.9:29am
Another lurch forward and more people fall over. I notice the A/C has stopped running.
https://twitter.com/phuongmai/status/2745800054623682569:30am
A girl in the middle starts crying. She's becoming claustrophobic. "Is there something we can do to make this better for you?" a kind man asks. "I just want to get off." We all do. But before that, we start moving forward again before suddenly coming to a halt.9:32am
We finally start moving backwards toward the station. Only once again to stop. Everyone is annoyed now, and it's getting warm.9:33am
We are moving slowly back to Forest Hill Station. The ordeal takes a few more minutes. As we inch into the station, there are bewildered faces everywhere. The platform is packed. One of us remarks, "They better know this next train is for us." Laughter.9:36am
Freedom! I inhale deeply. And suddenly the platform feels like it could sag under our additional weight. The platform keeps filling up and there's hardly any standing room. The train takes longer to just get out of the damn way.9:38am
A 2-car L starts pulling into the station. It's packed. Old Chinese ladies elbow their way on somehow. One girl from my original train shoves her way on angrily, literally pushing a guy out of her way. I can't board.9:41am
A 1-car T stalls before fully pulling into the station. If I can get on, I can get to work without a transfer. Non-elderly Chinese women elbow their way on. I guess they start early. I get within 3 feet of the doors this time.9:43am
Another 1-car T pulls into the station. I'm getting on this. I'm getting on this and I'm shoving everyone out of the way if I have to. I am an old Chinese lady. I glance to a girl to my left in a red jacket. She has been next to me since we got off our train and has missed them all just as I have. I'm hopeful she gets on this one with me. It's not packed, not yet. I think about what kind of gesture it would be to hold out my hand and tell her, "You're not missing another one." I do nothing. I make it. She doesn't.10:07am
I make it to Van Ness Station.10:11am
I'm completely out of the tunnel.10:17am
I am at the 2nd and King stop. The air is fresh. It's raining, but it feels amazing to not be on Muni anymore.
There's a few candidate parties I'd like to attend but they're rather spread out, and if you're taking Muni like me, that can make the night a bit of a chore. If you have any ideas, please, leave them in the comments!
(insert record scratch here)
Yes, you read that right. They've still got more work to be done (If you've been anywhere near Carl and Stanyan you know this because of all of the colorful plastic barriers in place).
So, without further delay, here's the official email from the SFMTA with details of this weekend's fun:
Carl Street Track Replacement Project Continues
Weekend Construction:
Work slated for the Nov. 2 Weekend:
Street Closure and Street Parking Restrictions:
Street will be closed on an as-needed basis at Cole, Shrader and Stanyan street intersections during street repaving
Street parking will be temporarily unavailable near those intersections and around the working areas where overhead wire pole repair work takes place
Mitigation Plan:
If you live on the affected streets, please consider parking your car at an off-street garage or a parking lot such as UCSF Parking Garage and Kezar Stadium on Stanyan Street between Waller and Beulah streets. The project will reimburse you for parking charges. Please submit your parking receipts for reimbursement to: SFMTA Carl St. Rail Replacement Project, One South Van Ness Avenue, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103 Attn: Ha Nguyen.
Muni Service
The Church & Duboce Track and Street Improvement Project will continue to take place, which will require the J Church Line only to operate between Balboa Park and Market at Church Street
What to Expect During Construction:
The next shutdown on J and N Lines is scheduled for the weekend of Nov. 16.
People chose to take transit home to watch the game, instead of driving like Muni said to. Awesome!
Then the system decided to choke in ways we haven't seen in a while. NOT AWESOME.
I knew something was up when a friend of mine who wanted to watch the game with me at the Blackthorn on Irving wasn't around at the agreed to time. Then I got a text indicating that "something is up with Muni" and figured maybe it was just being slow.
Then the Twitter exploded with tweets about stalls, a broken set of doors, and more. At first it seemed that the trains were just in manual mode (i.e. slower) but more and more people reported they were not able to get home. Several people reported being trapped on the train, with no information as to why they were stuck in the tunnel. All they knew was they were missing a great Giants game, and this reinforced the all-too-frequent "Muni sucks" meme. Worst of all, riders on the N were short turned after this incident, making them even later getting home.
Now, I know and accept that things break down - heck when you have a backlog of maintenance like Muni does, inevitably things will break down - but it's a bit hard for the average owner/rider to fathom how it is that Muni could pull off 3 days with many well-attended events (Fleet Week, America's Cup and a ton of neighborhood events) without many problems, but can't handle a basic rush hour commute + a Giants game. I mean, WTF?
This situation is a reminder that we need people at City Hall and the MTA and Muni who can be responsible with limited resources. Thus, it was quite aggravating to hear, on a day when we are reminded the system is literally falling to pieces, a few greedy politicians at City Hall want to use one-time grant money for giving away fake "free Muni" to the kiddos, instead of using to do something like, um, oh I don't know FIX THE DAMNED TRAINS AND BUSES.
I think we have to call it like it is here - these greedy politicians (people like "Supervisor" David Campos) are proving that they are either too stupid or too greedy to understand how Muni works or how best to spend our money. Greedy David Campos doesn't really even care about fake "Free Muni" for the kids - this is just a stunt he can use, along with all that money he's raising from special interests - to boost his campaign for Assembly in 2014.
What's that you say? You didn't know that Greedy David Campos, who is running unopposed this year, is raising money for a campaign? And he's not even going to serve a full term if elected in 2014? Well now you do - and you can see why Stalin-style elections don't serve anyone well. No one can stand up to his politics of personal greed and his anti-Muni policies - he gets a walk, and he gets to dole out your money to a narrow faction of people in town he'll need in 2014 to run for another office.
Supervisors, naturally, are threatening to hold a hearing on this issue. You can bet that the greedy politicians and their apparatchniks at politically connected non-profits will be there for public comment to blather on about how we have to give the "gimmes" another goodie, even though we don't have the cash to operate the system properly.
If you'd like more reliable service, and would like to put a stake in the heart of greedy politics, send your Supervisor a note telling them just how stupid it is to take one-time grant money and blow it on a program that's all about politics, and not about making Muni better.
Teams will be taking on various challenges, as outlined at the event's site at re-route/SF, and will include trip planning, better use of available data, and rider feedback on current problems. All projects will be open source, and available to the public once the event is over.
I am interested in seeing what the various teams come up with. While I don't think "apps" and the like are a cure-all for what ails transit in San Francisco, I continue to be impressed with what people can come up with using the endless creativity that exists out there, especially when it's used for something useful, vs. yet another ad delivery platform. I'll write about the results on Sunday!
I decided to go see the Blue Angels over on Beach St. by the Municipal Pier on Friday. It was crowded and there was some traffic, but I never waited too long for a Muni train or bus on my way out there. (Side note: if you can, get an outdoor table at The Pub SF, and you can enjoy a beer or lunch while watching the show).
After the show, we decided to take a long walk back through North Beach, and ended up just walking to Powell Station. The trains were definitely a bit more crowded than normal rush hour, but not much. Also, at Civic Center, the station had really good signage directing people to the special buses for the America's Cup race, and other events.
What's been your experience? Describe tales of wonder or woe in the comments section!
]]>Big thanks go to my colleague, Joe Eskenazi of the SF Weekly, who, unlike I, managed to get someone on the phone, where we all discovered that in fact, the SFMTA never actually asked for any of my designs to be removed at all. Instead, they'd asked for a few from another user that used the Muni "worm" logo and the old SF Muni logo featuring a cable car (both of which are, in fact copyrighted.) Zazzle seems to have just taken things a bit too far, for something the SFMTA never asked for. It's understandable, but still annoying.
I also want to thank Bluoz.com for being the first on the Internet to write about this as well. Finally, I'd like to say thanks to others who worked behind the scenes to assist, and to SFMTA CEO Ed Reiskin for his kind email the other day as well. All were appreciated.
I think this whole situation just highlights how poorly understood the concepts of "copyright," "trademark" and intellectual property are, and how in the Age of the Internet, the inclination is to ban things without thinking. After all, the Hugo Awards had their online broadcast killed off because autobots used by UStream (who was being used to broadcast it), detected 'o hai, contentz bad' and shut it down even though the Hugo Awards had permission to use brief clips of various artists' work for the event. If nothing else, it's an example of how the current system is oriented more towards big media and merchandising, and micro-businesses/artists aren't really accounted for in All This like they should.
This is also an example of how things can get carried away when there's confusion and a lack of hard information to deal with this kind of situation - with so much out there that was erroneous or unclear, and with no set person or persons to go to, etc. it's easy for things to get a bit crazy. Thankfully now, they are not so crazy.
As for our store - we will keep it online for a while, but this situation has made me realize that a locally sourced option, sold locally here in town, in the end may be a better long term way to go.
It'd help local businesses, and I've already begun putting some more time researching this (the only thing that worries me are the up front costs). AND, as always, should the SFMTA ever open up an online store of its own or sell its own stuff somewhere, I will put a big link to it on my blog and be the first one in line to buy their stuff if it looks cool. (Which reminds me, you really should check out Market Street Railway's online store - it's always on my list of places to buy gifts year round).
Anyway, now that this is over for now, it's time to go back to talking about fun stuff once again. Thanks again for all your support.