Here and There

I’m so with him on this, and think it’s remarkable that he’s the only candidate opposing it. My advice to him is to sharpen and simplify his attack on it, because this is one issue his opponents will throw in his face, calling him a tax-ready liberal. It’s actually a very conservative and fiscally responsible position to take (Obama’s), as well as being the most ecologically sound.

Bottom line: We need to drive less. The gas tax is meant as a disincentive to drive as much as we please, while also providing a steady revenue stream for road- and other transportation-related projects and maintenance.

The other senators should be honest. Stop pandering.

My name is Tara, and I’ll be your guest blogger this afternoon. I beat out hordes of competitors for this gig by being almost as eloquent, yet about as indignant, as Here and There, of which I’ve been a fan for a while, now. Cheers, HaT, and thanks for the soapbox.

We are gathered here today thanks to this story on SF Gate. This time, SF City Hall is patting itself on the back over the so-called “Connected Bus” in its Muni arsenal. A vehicle that, once you finally board it 15 minutes late, allows you to connect to the internet and download music, porn, or whatever your pleasure is as you commute home. There is so much wrong with this idea, and here’s why.

1. $10,000-shmousand
This SuperBus apparently costs in the neighborhood of $10,000. I don’t care if it cost $10. Don’t hold news conferences to show off your urban transportation prowess if you can’t devote significant funding and time to fixing Muni’s problems, the most basic and largest one of them being on-time performance.

2. All that said, Muni is broke. According to this Feb. 15 SF Gate story:

“The San Francisco Municipal Railway has a ridership of nearly 700,000 a day, but has been unable to deliver the level of service that city voters demanded in 1999 when they required 85 percent on-time performance - a milestone that’s never been achieved. To make significant improvements, agency officials say they need between $100 million and $150 million more a year. That’s in addition to the agency’s annual operating budget of $687 million.”

If that means raising the cost of a monthly FastPass to $60 — something I am willing to pay, since governments run on taxes and fees, after all — so be it. However, even that increase would be a drop in the bucket, amounting to roughly $18 million per year. Raising the single-ride fare to $2 from $1.50 would bring in another $13 million to $14.8 million per year. They could maybe go for a voter-approved bond or tax increase if that option gains enough support. Or, maybe they could divert funding away from fancy-sounding staff positions in City Hall in order to aid the transportation system — something residents, tourists- and bridge-and-tunnelers alike use in some capacity every single day.

3. I’ve never seen anyone with a laptop on a Muni, unless it was the underground light-rail that goes right through downtown. Even rich urban people tend not to ride the bus, since, from a socio-economic standpoint, it’s still more of a lower-class thing to do in a city. These people, the ones with laptops and PDAs, won’t start doing riding the bus unless they’re on time, more frequent and become more comfortable.

Socio-economics aside, given the slippery seats, the constant vigilance in an attempt to stay unstabbed or unrobbed and the sometime raucous atmosphere, this is a horrible place to get any work or internetting done. Maybe, I don’t know, devoting money first to upgrading these mobile blight carriages would encourage more people, rich and poor, to ride them, cut down on unruly passengers, and make the drivers less pissed-off.

4. Luddite?
Before you tell me to untwist my granny panties, let me just say: I love the internet. I get anxious if I’m disconnected at home or at work, I actually do have a laptop (two, actually, if you count my work machine), and I’m upset that citywide wifi, and the resulting plethora of free access to information and services, isn’t more of a priority. Muni and access to wifi are both problems that need to be addressed, but smashing the two together and calling it progress sounds analogous to polishing a turd.

I remember being struck by how “pedestrian-friendly” San Francisco was when I first moved here seven years ago. But over the years, I ran into people who disagreed with me. I hadn’t seen nastiness, I told them, on par with what I considered unfriendly towns, such as Boston and Chicago.

Then I started paying closer attention to the reports of drivers striking pedestrians in the city, and often enough, killing them. A sad fact of urban life, you may say, but I disagree.

It’s a theory, just a hunch, but I think a lot of what’s going on in San Francisco is the inherent result of a city torn between its love and its scorn of cars. It’s a half-and-half town. But wait, it’s more complex than that, of course.

The town is torn into even smaller fragments when you throw bikes and public transportation into the mix. And we all seem to be at war with one another. I find this disturbing.

Another disturbing theory is that individuals here wear many different of these labels, sometimes even through the course of a day. But once they step off the street and get behind the wheel, say, they forget all sense of physics and basic gravity, and drive as if they’re the only ones on the road.

I plan on looking into the trends of pedestrians getting hit and killed in S.F. a little more. Often enough, as happened the other day just down the street, it can be said that the pedestrian is just as culpable as the driver. I disagree. Sure, in this case, the walker started some shit with the driver, but the driver then proceeded to drive around the block and systematically mow the poor guy down, killing him.

In a perfect world, I’d have us all just simply be more aware of one another. We’d respect things like right-of-way and the basic law of nature that says a big of hunk of speeding metal can kill a living, breathing person, but not the other way around.

Well, maybe he never really had it, but this is proof that Ken Garcia is completely out of touch with the average earth-dwelling human being.

Garcia actually argues that, for silver-spoonfed brats like his little Laura, Muni’s fare collectors shouldn’t enforce Muni policy that applies to, oh, the rest of the population. His precious shouldn’t have to pay $1.50 when her transfer expires, just like … yeah.

One thing is, in a way I agree slapping these kids with harsh fines is, well, harsh. But deal with it, Kenny boy. Think Laura will ever hop fare again? And if she does, it’s no longer on your shoulders. Kids are people too.

I wish fare enforcers were more stringent. I understand every once in a while you really need to get somewhere and you don’t have change to ride the bus or train. Such instances can be left up to the discretion of the vehicle operator. But the point of any civic project, be it public transportation, social security, or the installation of new sewer pipes, is not to dole out freebies. We’re all in it together, so to speak, and we must all contribute equally based on individual usage.

Okay, I’m stepping down off the soap box now.

It’s just that Garcia’s article yesterday struck me as coming from the same mind that bitches about service cuts (in fact, he does so within the same article), but doesn’t want to pay. If I didn’t work in the same building as Ken, I’d really wonder whether his editors read his “work.” And what pieces of “work” they are.

Now that the Democrats have wrapped up Virginia, and by extension the Senate, and by extension both houses of Congress, it’s time to think about what we really want them to achieve (if you’re looking for “impeachment of the president,” go somewhere else).

Here’s what I’d most like to see happen in the next two years:

1. Develop a strong environmental protocol within the U.S., while negotiating internationally for a treaty to either expound on Kyoto, or replace it. Any new policy should include: the promotion of and incentives for alternative, renewable, and clean-burning energy sources; a shift in focus to developing our own sources of energy; new standards forcing U.S. auto makers to provide affordable hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell cars for average American consumers. Also: Fund research into a national regional rail system to ease the burden of short-range air travel. We have the rail infrastructure, and clean-burning trains are more readily available than their airborne alternatives. It makes so little sense to fly from, say, San Francisco to Los Angeles, when we have the ability to get there by rail. And the trip is only slightly longer.
2. Work with military planners and commanders on the ground in Iraq to come up with a new strategy of what to do there. Notice I don’t say “how to win there.” I avoid that intentionally. Even the most optimistic Army officials are no longer talking about victory. Also: The U.S. doesn’t need an active PR campaign to win back respect of the international community — it needs smart, culturally sensitive foreign policy.
3. Lower taxes for low- and middle-income workers, while raising the rate on the top earners back to what they were in 2000 (roughly 40 percent). Use that revenue to shore up Social Security and begin paying down the enormous national debt. Raise the minimum wage to at least early 21st century levels.
4. Do something about health care in this country. I admit, I’m still not sure single-payer, universal health care is the answer. Someone has to pay for it, and I’m not sure that burden should fall entirely on taxpayers (though they would be the direct beneficiaries of such a system, right? Still, seems to favor the chronically ill at the expense of those who rarely if ever visit the doctor). But the system we have now is broken, and too many needy people either can’t get the care they need, or are forced to wait a long time for services they can’t afford. That’s not right.
5. Give more research and development money to universities and businesses, promoting science and smart technology. This includes things like stem cell research, alternative energy, alternative modes of transportation (see item one, above) and communication.
6. Repeal No Child Left Behind, and replace it with a program the incentives teaching, rather than punishing it. Fully-fund all educational policies, removing the burdens placed by NCLB on the states. Education is a national issue, period. Tax credits on tuition, increased financial aid (both of which Democrats are speaking to) are needed badly. Like health care, higher education should be a right, not a privilege.
7. With the Judiciary Committee firmly in the hands of the opposition party, I hope that Bush will be forced to nominate moderate judges at all levels of the U.S. Court system, include possible openings on the Supreme Court.
8. (this will have to be a work-in-progress…)

I’ve been back since last Wednesday, but numerous mundane pressures have kept me from editing photos and sitting down long enough to write about the trip. So I’m doing what anyone in my shoes would do: I’m writing about it from work.

I’ve thought about and had internal debates over how to tell the story of my trip to Venezuela. I’ve settled on a variety of methods, from travelogue to list, that you, dear reader, will simply have to deal with.

First, a list of general impressions:

1. Caracas kind of sucks.

I fully expected the slums we saw on the 30-minute bus ride from Maiquetia’s Simon Bolivar International Airport into town, so that was no shock. It was the city itself. And it mostly stemmed from the people, who, how do I put this?…love to stare. Well, love is probably a poorly chosen word, because their stare faces are the blankest yet most judgmental things I’ve seen since…no, I’ve seen ever.

That said…

2. The Caracas Metro is amazing.

I’d also read about this, but experiencing it was something I couldn’t have prepared myself for. And in many ways, it comes as a shock because its redeeming qualities are so unlike the rest of the city.

It’s fast (train arrives, doors open, doors close, train leaves), frequent (never waited longer than three or four minutes for a train), clean, secure (trains and stations had security cameras), and cheap (a flat rate of roughly $0.25 US).

3. Moving around the country in a timely manner is neither cheap nor easy.

We found this out our second day, and ended up having to cancel a planned trip to Angel Falls. The infrastructure seems to be there, only there’s a deficit of willingness to use it. Or something like that…

4. Like most countries, political hostilities didn’t matter on a person-to-person basis.

I heard several Venezuelans claim that Chavez was just as crazy as Bush. Okay, I’ll go along with that.

5. Venezuelan food…eh.

Arepas really depend on what’s inside them. My first one had grilled chicked and queso a mano. Yum. The second one had cold-cut style ham and cheese. Not yum (which should have made it particularly non-devestating when I dropped it on the concrete floor of the Maracay bus terminal, but didn’t).

In El Playon (part of Parque Nacional Henri Pittier), we had cachapas. This my traveling companion wasn’t so keen on, though I’d like to blame her cab-ride-vertigo for that. It’s basically a sweetish corn pancake, typically made with cheese melted on the grill and served with some sort of meat. We had it with some of the best chorizo I’ve ever tried. Wow.

Still, all-in-all, the better food we had were things like spaghetti, ceviche, and pizza. Even the baked fish on Los Roques was mediocre.

Don’t go to this country to eat.

6. The stereotype of the “crazy” South American bus ride is based in reality.

We took several high-speed, tight-turning, brightly colored, Jesus and Virgin Mary-decorated rides, each with a different kind of music blaring from speakers, and each packed to the hilt (including a few of medium distance in which some riders stood).

I have to admire the fact that many of these buses don’t run on a timed schedule, but rather embark when full. There’s something horribly efficient about that, at least in a fuel conservation sense. We tend to think of “efficient” as something that saves time. Of course, that’s not the case when it comes to the buses. Other things are saved, but certainly not time.

7. Again, like many countries, the further you get from the city, the nicer people are.

We had pretty shitty times in Caracas and Valencia, the country’s third-largest city. But in Los Roques and Parque Nacional Henri Pittier, we met some of the nicest, most hospitable people. These people fed us, housed us, spoke broken English with us (at least they tried), and overall treated us like human beings, not impositions.

That’s all I can think of for now. Look for part two in the coming days, complete with some photos.

…to ignore the urge to post, that is.

Last week’s second round of “Spare the Air Days” in the Bay Area saw a vastly increased ridership, and much relief for commuters, both in the way of a repsite from the heat and a kindness toward the pocketbook rarely exhibited by a system like BART.

But on one of the three free transit days, I don’t recall which, I ran into enough annoyances to make me reconsider whether Spare the Air was worth it. My slew of troubles went something like this: a crowd of slow-walkers (very, very slow) stood three-across going down the stairs on the south side of Market into the Powell station. Didn’t anyone ever teach these people the law of lanes? Then, once I freed myself from the descending congregation, I arrived at the turnstiles (whose gates were left permanently open all day), only to find them, all seven or eight of them, blocked by sedentary wonderers. That’s not a typo. These people weren’t “wandering.” They may not even have been “wondering,” but rather, were simply standing there, blocking the entire bank of entryways.

It should’ve come as no surprise, then, when I got to the down escalator only to find it mostly blocked by, again, standers. Fuck it, I thought, and started walking in the left lane anyway. As I descended close enough to see that my train was sitting there with its doors open, I opened my mouth and “excuse me”s started flying all over the place. Once I realized I could (barely) make it to my train, I turned around, and the last human obstruction got to hear “You should stand on the right side” issue forth from my lips.

The last detail: Arriving at 19th St. in Oakland, one of whose up escalators is a single-lane model, I walked briskly toward said escalator to find it (you guessed it) filled, literally, with standing bodies. The last straw.

I haven’t even touched upon how crowded, stinky, loud, and hot the trains were on free days. I realize that earlier in this post I mentioned the trains being a relief from the unusually warm weather. If only that were the case. Many cars’ AC units weren’t functioning. That, or the volume of human bodies sucked all the oxygen and refrigerated air from the compartment.

I bring all this up now that it’s cooled down some and the air quality agency funding free transit has run out of money to support any more this year, only because I read this on SFGate.

Yes, Spare the Air should be for commuters only (despite the fact that such an arrangement would cut me, keeper of odd working hours, out). And yes, ultimately, public transportation should be free (or a lot cheaper). But how about something really resembling security? Since 9/11 I haven’t noticed any increase in any kind of security measures, other than no longer having restrooms, and the absence of trash cans on the train platforms, both of which I’m sure are keeping the most sinister of thugs and terrorists from their wares.

Enough of my bitching. True, any kind of inter-city commuting in the Bay Area usually involves BART (or its counterpart, CalTrain), so we don’t have much of a choice but to use the system. Still, it sure could use a fresh look at many of its operating procedures. 

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A couple of years ago, while I was still in journalism school, I met a student through a group project who came up with an idea, in print magazine format, for a forum in which Bay Area residents could share stories of life on SF’s public transportation. (For those of you not in the Bay Area, or not familiar, buses and trains in San Francisco are refered to, simply, as Muni.)

We kept in touch, and over the years, that idea evolved into a website, Muni Diaries.

A few months ago, we started working with a developer friend of hers, and are now making real progress toward launching the site. We have a little more UI development left, plus content generation and site design. No estimates of when we launch yet, but soon.

If you ride Muni, or know someone who does, and you have stories, please send them in. It can be about anything you feel is remarkable, just as long as it happened on or has to do with public transportation in San Francisco.

Feel free to send stories to jeff@munidiaries.com. Thanks.

I’m in the process of parsing the 188-page BART Draft Fiscal Year 06 Ten-Year Plan, but couldn’t resist venting a couple of general complaints I have about the system. Beware: these are pretty random.

First, in looking over the plan, with its endless insider-speak and historical charts, it occurred to me that since 1995, BART has functioned more as a system of getting people into the cities from the newly sprawling suburbs (such as Pittsburgh/Bay Point, Dublin/Pleasanton, and Colma) than as a system for those living in the cities proper. The only exception I can think of is the extension to SFO, which I still consider one of BART’s better accomplishments.

Second, another thing about BART that’s total bullshit is that if you go into a station, having swiped your ticket, and you get downstairs only to find out there’s some sort of delay (someone left some garbage on the tracks in the East Bay, and now trains are backed up coming into the city, for example), you can’t leave the station without being charged. All that’s needed is to tag your card’s magnetic stripe with a clock time, and then establish some minimum duration of time (something like 10 minutes) under which you will not be charged. Easy. Fair.

Third, would it really hurt the system to continually display train times? As it is, updates on arriving trains are given sporadically, so you can get to the platform and wait for what seems like forever, not knowing when the next train will get there or where it’s headed. Just post something like the next three trains slotted to arrive at the station, which lines they are, and how long until they get there. I can’t help but think in this tech-savvy area, someone could get this done easily.

Okay, back to translating the 10-year plan.

So as of today, BART is raising its fares.

The transit system announced last month that fares will rise 3.7 percent system-wide to keep pace with inflation and operational costs.

Great. An already totally over-priced public transportation system is getting more unaffordable.

Since I moved to the Bay Area, nearly six years ago, I’ve wondered why we couldn’t have a system with a flat fee, like the one in New York City. The baseline fare for subway and bus rides to anywhere in the five boroughs is just $2. That’s up 50 cents from when I lived there. Fifty cents in six years. It’s almost enough to make me type exclamation marks.

To boot, MTA’s system is much more comprehensive than BART, with shorter distances between stops and many more lines.

Because I don’t exactly have the tools for an exhaustive investigation of BART, I’ll let my snap judgments speak for themselves. Two words come to mind: politics and corruption. Well, maybe that’s redundant.

I’ll be writing more on this soon. I want to spend enough time on this topic in the coming months that it’s warranted it’s own category.