Mass Transit Systems

Supes Spurn Appeal; Muni Service Cuts Coming May 1

Bryan DemplerTen percent service cuts are the one Muni-related item that's not delayed​A transit activist claiming that Muni and the planning department violated state laws by approving service cuts without an environmental review was given the "nice argument, but you lose" treatment moments ago b ... More >>

Broke Caltrain Moves to Cut Half its Service

You likely soon won't see one of these during non-commuter hours​Whenever your CEO prefaces his message to the board with "This is not an April Fools' joke," you're in for some bad news. And bad news is what Caltrain boss Mike Scanlon delivered yesterday: "There's a possibility this railroad could ... More >>

Marching Muni Drivers Overwhelm 'March Against Muni'

All Photos | Joe EskenaziMarch Against Muni organizer Jared Roussel looks on as Muni Drivers' union boss Irwin Lum snatches away his bullhorn and addresses the crowd​"March Against Muni," the odd amalgam of largely young, hip people deeply incensed at rude Muni drivers, paper Fast Passes, and ... More >>

Muni May Lay Off 170 Operators on Friday

Jim Herd​Muni spokesman Judson True has confirmed a rumor disseminated by the Muni Drivers' union: 170 operators -- and 230 Muni employees -- will be facing layoffs after Friday's Municipal Transportation Agency Board meeting. "At the Friday meeting, service reductions will be voted on. If the boa ... More >>

Transit Advocates Rejoice as $70M Shunted From Airport Connector to Muni, BART, Others

Celebrate good times -- BART and Muni won the lottery!​Public transit advocates are all but dancing in the aisles of public transit following a ruling that yanked $70 million in federal funding away from the controversial Oakland Airport Connector and led to moribund local transit agencies being s ... More >>

Oakland Airport Connector Lives to Be Controversial For Another Day

​The regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission moments ago voted to stay the course, applying $70 million in endangered federal funds not to the Bay Area's moribund transit agencies but a controversial, half-billion dollar proposed BART extension to Oakland Airport. "Closer than I thought, b ... More >>

Safe Bet: Newsom's Pot Shots at Longer Parking Meter Hours Mean You'll Be Suffering More on Muni

Jim HerdWhoosh! There goes your parking revenue! ​As first reported on Streetsblog and then this morning in the Chronicle, Mayor Gavin Newsom has made clear that he's no fan of alleviating Muni's revenue headaches by extending parking meter hours. Muni's pledge to study the merits of extended park ... More >>

NYC's Metropolitian Transporation Authority Threatens Man Marketing S.F. Muni T-Shirts

Joseph Moore is K-onfused​ A few weeks back, San Francisco resident Joseph Moore got so fed up with Muni that he decided to express his disdain via custom-made clothing. The resultant T-shirts utilize various San Francisco Metropolitian Transportation Agency line names, which appear in black block ... More >>

Noe Valley and Mission residents say Google shuttles are evil

Muni Tax Shelter Deal Could Lead to More S.F. Rail Carnage

Jim HerdDid promised millions froma shady tax shelter deal blur Muni's judgment?​A month before investigators began to sift through train wreckage to determine the cause of last week's Muni light rail crash, officials examining deadly transit accident in Washington D.C. discovered a defect th ... More >>

In the Nick of Time: One Week After Horrific Muni Crash, Trial Lawyers' Convention Hits San Francisco

'A barrister, my dear sir, is a taxi plying for hire. That is the fine tradition of our trade.'If you've got some loose carpeting, creaky staircases, or, say, have been allegedly flouting safety rules to pad your public transit agency's on-time performance -- this would be a good time to tidy up.&nb ... More >>

Muni Union Head: Early Switch to Manual Power In Train Tunnel, Fingered for Weekend Crash, an 'Understood Practice' Among Drivers, Management

Jim HerdA pair of culprits have emerged as the potential causes for the weekend's nasty Muni crash at West Portal station: Sources within Muni have told the media that the veteran driver reported he blacked out -- which wouldn't have been a problem if the driver didn't shift his train from automatic ... More >>

Bicyclists Pack City Hall -- No Spandex in Sight

Anna McCarthyValet?Bike parking was scarce at a City Hall hearing this morning as bike advocates arrived downtown in droves donning helmets and fluorescent pink identification stickers reading, "Double the number of bike lanes." Although helmets, U-locks, and other bicycling accessories abounded, ma ... More >>

SF Gov InAction: These Are Not the Budget Numbers You're Looking For

The excitement stops here. I know ... I know ... that today's the day Gubernatorial Candidate Gavin Newsom releases his budget for San Francisco (a California city he occasionally resides in for campaign purposes). And I know that, when he does, we're all going to die a little. I know. But ... More >>

Terminus: Progressives Stymied as Supes Can't Muter Votes to Reject Muni Budget

Today's very special noontime Board of Supervisors meeting clocked in at an extremely svelte 50-odd minutes. But, as was always the case in the ongoing wrangle over the Municipal Transportation Agency's budget, you could have boiled the whole thing down to a momentary exercise: Clerk: What'ya think, ... More >>

Cops, Muni in Stress Position Over Reward Posters

Now with wanted posters!After an an apparent daylong game Thursday of bad cop communication, good cop communication, the San Francisco Police Officers Association reports it's going to be able to put up posters in city buses seeking witnesses to the 2006 murder of a 17-year-old Bernal Heights boy."W ... More >>

Supes Punt MTA Budget Imbroglio To Special Meeting Next Wednesday

Oh, they're dragging this out...The ongoing rancor over the Municipal Transportation Agency's woeful budget has transformed into quite a cliff-hanger: First Board President David Chiu fired a shot across MTA and the mayor's bow by crafting legislation allowing the supes to scuttle the budget. Then, ... More >>

S.F. Inquiry Regarding Disability Placards May Miss the (Disabled) Elephant In the Room: It's Just Too Damn Easy To Get a Disability Placard

Who wants some?Supervisor Eric Mar was on the side of the angels yesterday when he convened a hearing looking into the Municipal Transportation Authority's enforcement of potential disability placard fraud; if Mar can help bring the legal hammer down on able-bodied folks who fraudulently represent t ... More >>

SF Gov InAction: Madatory Composting -- And Your Mother -- Are Back In Town

Well, that's the thing: I thought my mom would know the Snuggie was a gag gift, but she actually thought it was a real gift. So here I'd planned this completely ironic moment, and she was starting to tear up. She actually said "It looks so comfortable, and I get so cold in winter!" Shit! So what ... More >>

S.F. Ticketing Program Could Open Costly Pandora's Box For City

Joe EskenaziFormer SPOT director Pat Tobin lectures a mover during a hearing. Contractors claim such hearings denied them their right to due process -- and members of the Police Commission worry this could be true.Wednesday night's hearing regarding a controversial police ticketing program was not n ... More >>

Bus-ted: David Chiu Triggers Supes-Mayor Showdown Over Muni Budget

Supervisor David Chiu gives Muni budget the whammy...Whatever David Chiu needs in life -- a faster bike, a more stylish helmet -- he doesn't require assertiveness training. The rookie supervisor and president of the board last month audaciously engineered a motion that would allow the supes to shoot ... More >>

Someone's Getting Thrown Under the Bus on MTA Budget Battle. Who Will It Be?

Perhaps this graffiti artist was displeased with Muni's budget as well...When Supervisor David Chiu last month placed an item in the Budget and Finance committee's Wednesday agenda rejecting the Municipal Transportation Authority's controversial budget, he wasn't doing it to merely test out the butt ... More >>

The Muni Paradox

A new ballot measure could change this absurd concept: less management for more money

Muni-Me

Gavin Newsom may be the city's top official, but he's not its highest paid--not even in his own office

Porkmistress Pelosi

Madam Speaker says she wants to tame pork-barrel spenders. Takes one to know one.

Missed Connection

The multiuse Transbay Terminal project may have shrunk into a really expensive bus station

Clang, Clang, Clang Went the New Subway

The billion-dollar Central Subway transportation plan may collapse under its own expanding weight

Gridlock

Bill Lieberman, new planning director for the Municipal Transportation Agency, wades into the swamp of San Francisco transit politics

Bus Stopped

How an attempt to make the 38 Geary bus work became another senseless San Francisco social cause

Subwaylaid

Why the new mayor should spend his political honeymoon taking the doggle out of a boondoggle known as the Central Subway

Gimme Shelters

After mortgaging our future in an orgy of budget-related borrowing, the Legislature hatches new orgiastic plans: sleazy tax shelters

Death, Maiming, Money, and Muni

The enormous costs -- human and financial -- of bad drivers and lax discipline at the San Francisco Municipal Railway

Unnatural Gas

"Environmentalists" make bad transit worse by insisting Muni buy alt-fuel buses

Letters to the Editor

Week of November 13, 2002

Training Daze

In the absurdist musical The Transit Rider, public transportation becomes a metaphor for life

Letters to the Editor

Week of April 24, 2002

Runaway Train

Why is Muni in such a hurry to win approval for a blindingly complex, potentially risky, $1 billion plan to privatize the city's rail fleet?

Visionary Thinking

The "X Plan," a draft of Muni's hopes for the future, offers a glimpse of transit utopia

When Cesar Reigned

An aging journalist remembers 1999, when an election became a revolution, and the city changed forever

Political Economy

How a Willie Brown real estate venture snagged tens of millions of dollars in government subsidies and opened the way for Democratic heavyweight Angelo Tsakopoulo to make even more money

Cothran

Letters

Letters

Rewarding Failure

Streetcars that are too wide, long, and heavy (136 @ $3.5 million per). Bus engines that don't fit and are scrapped (20 @ $116,000 a pop). Manhole covers that take 10 engineers and three months to design (cost: $243,000). Muni's management has produced su

Take BART, Please

We make Henny Youngman answer hard questions about regional transit and his mother-in-law

Letters

The Grid

Letters

Willie's Wild Ride

The Transport Workers Union contract with Muni is up for renewal, and TWU boss Larry Martin says that anybody who wants to roll back the union's cush work rules, lucrative salary structure, and handsome trust fund is a "racist" and can go to hell. Meet t