Subject:

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

  • Blogs

    January 27, 2009

    SF Gov InAction: San Francisco Holds Its Breath for Budget Magic While Supes Correct Basic Math Errors

    Sorry this is late, folks -- all of a sudden I came down with a mean cough that just won't quit. I blame Neo-conservatives. Monday, Jan 26 10 a.m. - Public Safety Committee I have a confession to make. Today's hearing of the Public Safety Committee will be a little sad for me. Oh sure, I ... More >>

  • News

    March 25, 2009

    Transit Spotting

    A transportation activist points to inefficient and costly projects like the Central Subway.

  • News

    March 4, 2009

    Bridge tolls will add stress to casual carpool

    A transportation activist points to inefficient and costly projects like the Central Subway.

  • News

    August 13, 2008

    Shaky bond insurers cost taxpayers money

    A transportation activist points to inefficient and costly projects like the Central Subway.

  • News

    September 20, 2006

    You're Not There

    A transportation activist points to inefficient and costly projects like the Central Subway.

  • News

    August 16, 2006

    Spinning Our Wheels

    The summer has brought a bevy of frustrations, delays, and smoggy afternoons to Bay Area drivers. Do you manage to look the other way?

  • News

    February 1, 2006

    Clang, Clang, Clang Went the New Subway

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

  • News

    September 21, 2005

    Pig Government

    The politics of pork has real victims. Just look at New Orleans, or commuters on the Bay Bridge.

  • News

    January 26, 2005

    A Bridge Too Far

    Is it your fault that the seismic retrofit of the Bay Bridge will be years late, billions over budget, and uglier than ever? Maybe.

  • News

    March 17, 2004

    A Bridge Too Weak?

    A UC Berkeley professor believes the unique new Bay Bridge design is fatally flawed

  • News

    December 4, 2002

    Unnatural Gas

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

  • News

    November 13, 2002

    Letters to the Editor

    Week of November 13, 2002

  • News

    November 6, 2002

    Life Is Change

    Even a headstrong columnist can meet his match -- and have to move on

  • Calendar

    August 4, 1999

    Cothran

    Even a headstrong columnist can meet his match -- and have to move on

  • News

    December 2, 1998

    Rewarding Failure

    What's really wrong with Muni? For starters, one third of its employees don't show up to work, causing systemwide delays and costing the agency more that $20 million a year in overtime. First in a two-part special report

  • News

    November 4, 1998

    Dog Bites

    What's really wrong with Muni? For starters, one third of its employees don't show up to work, causing systemwide delays and costing the agency more that $20 million a year in overtime. First in a two-part special report

  • News

    July 1, 1998

    Dog Bites

    What's really wrong with Muni? For starters, one third of its employees don't show up to work, causing systemwide delays and costing the agency more that $20 million a year in overtime. First in a two-part special report

  • Blogs

    June 8, 2009

    SF Gov InAction: Mandatory Composting Gets Some New Sponsors. Which Bin Do We Put 'Futility' In?

    I hope you'll forgive me if I keep this week's Gov InAction curt: I told WAY too many David Chiu jokes over the weekend, and now I'm worn out. I've got to remember to pace myself. However, in case you're wondering, here's how many David Chius it takes to change a light bulb: • None: Aaro ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 1, 2009

    They Takin' My Mini-Plaza! Bay Bridge Authorities Really Planning Big Changes.

    The Bay Bridge is ready to undergo 'them changes'​So, by now you know that engineers are planning to give the Bay Bridge a makeover between Thursday and Tuesday, namely instituting an "S-curve" approaching the tunnel. The "Speed Limit 40" signs are already up, albeit with rags covering them until ... More >>

  • News

    September 16, 2009

    Obama's stimulus money will increase traffic, but not bridge safety

    The Bay Bridge is ready to undergo 'them changes'​So, by now you know that engineers are planning to give the Bay Bridge a makeover between Thursday and Tuesday, namely instituting an "S-curve" approaching the tunnel. The "Speed Limit 40" signs are already up, albeit with rags covering them until ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 26, 2010

    Civil Rights, Transit Advocates Urge BART to Abandon Half-Billion Dollar Airport Connector

    The community groups whose advocacy led to the federal government threatening to withhold $70 million from a planned BART connector to Oakland Airport moments ago made their case that the project is a costly boondoggle that does nothing for the poor and minority communities living near the airport ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 27, 2010

    Board Members Predict Even Feds' Threats Can't Derail Oakland Airport Connector

    ​What will it take to derail BART's half-billion dillar planned extension to Oakland Airport? How about the price quadrupling while the anticipated ridership dropped by two-thirds? Nope. How about the predicted commute time actually being slower than the existing shuttle system? Nope. Well, how ab ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 27, 2010

    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 >>

  • Blogs

    February 15, 2010

    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 >>

  • Blogs

    February 16, 2010

    BART Board Member Describes BART as 'Pyramid Scheme'

    ...Step three: Profit!​Like many transit advocates SF Weekly contacted this week, BART board member Tom Radulovich was relieved that the feds yanked $70 million from the controversial Oakland Airport Connector project, with the funds instead heading to Muni, BART and the Bay Area's other cash-stra ... More >>

  • Blogs

    February 22, 2010

    Feds Imperil Central Subway Funding, Demand Proof it's No Boondoggle

    Jim HerdWoosh -- gone?​Mayor Gavin Newsom and his public transit chief Nat Ford had the chance to hold an elaborate groundbreaking earlier this month for the $1.6 billion Central Subway light rail project. But a letter from a  top federal transportation bureaucrat suggests the festivities may ... More >>

  • News

    March 3, 2010

    Muni Fail

    Federal scrutiny could threaten funding for the Central Subway boondoggle.

  • Blogs

    June 3, 2010

    Did Moving Rare Franciscan Manzanita Actually Cost City Any Money?

    © California Academy of SciencesWho picked up the check? ​Yesterday we noted that the $175,000 cost cited by the Chronicle for moving the only known wild Franciscan Manzanita out of the path of the Doyle Drive highway project was more than twice the price tag we were told in January. Our numerous ... More >>

  • Blogs

    June 4, 2010

    City Didn't Pick Up Tab For Moving Rare Franciscan Manzanita

    © California Academy of ScienceAin't our money...​Earlier this week, the Chronicle reported that the city paid the princely sum of $175,000 to transport the only known wild specimen of the Franciscan Manzanita out of the Doyle Drive highway project's path and to an undisclosed location. Yesterday ... More >>

  • Blogs

    June 16, 2010

    Your TransLink Card is Today a Collectible

    MTCOld​Today is the day when the Metropolitan Transportation Commission gets its $2.63 million worth. Today is the day when TransLink becomes a man the Clipper card, a rebranding meant to invoke the speed and grace of the tall-masted clipper ships, not beleaguered and broken-down public transporta ... More >>

  • Blogs

    June 30, 2010

    Muni Finds Way To Halve Service Cuts -- Even Without Union Concessions

    ​The plan to soften the blow of Muni's 10-percent service cuts -- that last month appeared as hopeless as catching a timely late night bus after the drivers' union spurned give-backs -- has apparently been resurrected. In a deal brokered by the mayor's office with the San Francisco Municipal Trans ... More >>

  • Blogs

    July 15, 2010

    Bay Bridge Plan to Prevent Cracks Smart -- But Expensive

    A cracked eyebar -- and botched repair -- shut down the Bay Bridge last year​One of the Bay Area's foremost experts on bridges tells SF Weekly that the plan to stave off cracks on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge is both smart and prudent -- but he has nothing to say about its million-dollar pri ... More >>

  • Blogs

    August 10, 2010

    Franciscan Manzanita, Once Thought Extinct, On Way to Becoming 'Endangered'

    © California Academy of SciencesThe Franciscan Manzanita: Once 'extinct,' now 'endangered'? ​Usually, a species has to be endangered before it goes extinct. Not the Franciscan Manzanita. It went extinct -- and now it may become endangered. Readers may recall the discovery last year of a Francisca ... More >>

  • Blogs

    August 19, 2010

    Phone Sex Line Greets FasTrak Callers

    FasTrack? No, let's take it slow...​If someone asks you what you're wearing when you phone up FasTrak with queries about your bill -- there's a good reason for that. In perhaps the most fantastically entertaining transit-related story not involving blow-up dolls being used as carpool commuters, lo ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 8, 2010

    Oakland Airport Connector Project Wins Funding

    BARTHere it comes, whether you like it or not...​The Oakland Airport Connector project is not unlike a zombie -- it's terrible and it stinks, but you just can't kill it. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission today approved applying $20 million in state funds toward the projected $484 million ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 27, 2010

    Would Gas Have to Cost $9 a Gallon to Meet Emission Goals?

    Fill 'er up -- for $135!​Those of us not named Rush Limbaugh know that in order to prevent the world from devolving into a giant Mad Max set, we've got to drive less. So as California's politicians and environmental regulators set ambitious emission reduction targets to combat global warming, the ... More >>

  • Blogs

    November 5, 2010

    San Francycle: How SF's Impending Bikeshare Will Work

    ​Bikesharing: crazy, right? The expense, the hills, the repairs, the theft -- it seems like it would never, in a million years, work. Except it does, in plenty of cities from Montreal to Budapest to Washington, D.C. And it's getting a little embarrassing that San Francisco isn't one of them. ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 21, 2010

    How Can San Francisco Spend $829K on Two Kiosks? Here's How.

    SFMTAIt's nice. But is it $415,000 worth of nice?​The other day, Muni announced it would build a pair of avant-garde new kiosks to hawk Clipper cards and transit passes. Almost as an afterthought, the price of these two booths was mentioned late in news articles: $829,000. For those of you who nev ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 22, 2010

    San Francisco's Year in Biking

    Cyclists finally get a portion of their due.​Injunction Eased! Ridership Up! Is Tipping Point Near?On Aug. 6, 2010, a San Francisco judge lifted a ridiculous five-year court injunction that had prevented the city from making improvements to facilitate bicycle traffic. Soon thereafter, the city got ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 23, 2010

    San Francycle: Crazy Chronicle and Crazy Bikesharing

    ​Oh my stars, what a crazy week for bicycles. Crazy good and crazy bad. Let's start with the bad first, because we predict that complaining will be HOT HOT HOT in 2011! A comedy magazine called The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a diary entry this week about bikes that is just absolutely bonke ... More >>

  • Blogs

    April 5, 2011

    Scott Wiener Stars in Muni Accident Video

    A little while back, a prize was offered to anyone who could snap a photo of erstwhile Mayor Gavin Newsom on Muni. No winner ever stepped forward. A contest to catch Supervisor Scott Wiener on public conveyances would be short-lived, however. If a guy bangs his head on the roof of the train -- odds ... More >>

  • Blogs

    June 15, 2011

    Local Environmentalists Sue U.S. Government for "Failing to Protect" Manzanita Plant

    A gem of a discovery ​The saga over the effort to protect the rare and precious Franciscan Manzanita plant escalated on Tuesday when the San Francisco Wild Equity Institute filed a lawsuit against U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The group claims his agency failed miserably in protecting the p ... More >>

  • News

    July 27, 2011

    Caltrain's Draconian Clipper Enforcement Leaves Riders Stranded

    A gem of a discovery ​The saga over the effort to protect the rare and precious Franciscan Manzanita plant escalated on Tuesday when the San Francisco Wild Equity Institute filed a lawsuit against U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The group claims his agency failed miserably in protecting the p ... More >>

  • News

    February 1, 2012

    Fare Hack: Exploiting a Clipper Card Flaw Is Easy

    A gem of a discovery ​The saga over the effort to protect the rare and precious Franciscan Manzanita plant escalated on Tuesday when the San Francisco Wild Equity Institute filed a lawsuit against U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The group claims his agency failed miserably in protecting the p ... More >>

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