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.)

08
Jan

Accident on the N line

Author: kris, Category: News, Politics, Transportation

Our i.m. Gavin Newsom (that’s “illustrious mayor,” for those of you who don’t keep up with my made-up slang) is ditching three of the seven members of the transit board. Not a bad idea, considering that a different headline reports yet another MUNI accident. This time an N-Judah train ran into a 90 year old woman. In another city this might be a PR disaster for the i.m., but here, let’s face it, it’s kind of par for the course. A day that you don’t read a Chron headline about a MUNI accident is a day you spend vacationing outside the city.

So, okay, they’re not the safest trains in the yard. But say it with me: Ennnnnn. Joo-daaaaahhh. Ennn. Joo-daaaaahhh. There is no train more fun to say.

30
Dec

The love bus

Author: kris, Category: Seen, Transportation

Ok, I know I sometimes complain about MUNI. But if ever you find you’re sick of the city, with its ridiculous real estate and its heartbreaking homeless problem, take a ride on the 24 line. You can go in either direction. Outbound takes you past several examples of the city’s beautiful and strange iconic architecture, as well as through the snooty but visually interesting Noe Valley shopping district. Inbound rides you down Divisidero, past some fine eateries and drinkeries and partieries (Little Star Pizza, Toronado, The Independent, anyone?) and through parts of the Haight. Gaze out the window and remember that there are some darn lovable things in this hilly little town of ours.

28
Dec

MUNI troubles

Author: kris, Category: Transportation

Ohhh, MUNI. Take another little piece of my heart, why don’t you. Twice I have ridden your hallowed rails in the last three days and twice I have been stymied by lengthy delays due to computer error and signaling problems. Trains stayed frozen in place like we were starring in Ice Age VI, or whatever number they’re on now.

I have big respect for the worker bees of the MUNI system, who toil for thankless patrons like myself on a daily basis. But something needs to be done about the system as a whole. Until my friend visited from London last year, I never noticed how horrible the labeling system is. I challenge a first-time visitor — or anyone who doesn’t ride the underground regularly — to make sense of the BART and MUNI division in the underground stations. Which turnstile goes where now? And where and how do I pay? What are all these machines for, and why do so few of them provide quarters? What do “inbound” and “outbound” mean, and how can I tell which trains are going which way? And so on.

Buses are scarcely an improvement. Stops sometimes don’t have any upright signs at all, relying on half-erased paint marks in the road to tell you which bus you’re waiting for. The new satellite tracking signs you get at many stops are a big improvement, but I’d still prefer buses that ran on time.

However, I am still grateful not to pay eight pounds a ride, or whatever outrageously high fee they’re charging for the London underground. And I’m grateful we have a transportation system even as good as we do, since I’ve lived in many a city where the bus situation was far more dire. Still, let’s at least get the computer situation sorted out, eh fellas? Some of us have to get home and update our blogs.