San Francisco is My Home

19
Mar

311

Author: kris, Category: Bars and Clubs, Music, Transportation

I went to Bottom of the Hill to see a friend’s band play last night. (The band is Truxton, and while I am of course a biased reviewer, I recommend checking them out. The rock is fierce, the performance energetic, and the music all harmonious and stuff.)

Afterwards, feeling independent and not yet aware how severely undressed I was for the external temperature, I turned down a ride home and elected to take the bus.

Twenty minutes later, concerned for my near-frostbitten fingers, I stood anxiously in the middle of the empty street, searching the horizon with yearning, runny eyes for a bus that still had not appeared. The nice thing was I was able to get some chat time in with the kind folks at 311.

In case you do not know, 311 is the number you call when you are stranded at a freezing bus stop in the middle of the evening and your bus isn’t coming. You tell them where you are and what line you’re waiting for and which direction you’re going (they can help you with the inbound/outbound thing if you’re not sure) and they can tell you where your bus is using advanced satellite technology, or possibly magic.

The i.m. Gavin Newsom, let me tell you, LOVES this service. I’ve heard him randomly mention it at more than one press conference. (And a digression: man, it has been WAY too long since I’ve been to one of his press conferences. No wonder he’s getting married, without me to gaze at him adoringly from the third row on a bi-weekly basis.)  He loves it with good reason. I don’t know why, but it’s a lot easier to wait that extra twenty minutes if you can get regular updates on where the hell your bus is.

So that is the message of today’s free-form Wednesday. 311: use the number. (But avoid the band.)