Tuesday is the MTA meeting to go over the draconian cuts we were notified of late Friday.
There is a facebook (yuck, but whatevah) group set up to pump everyone up into coming and speaking out. It can be found here and I'm going to do my damndest to come. I figure with the crazy rain my commute will be a crapshoot anyway, so maybe I can get a bit of work done from home then wander by. Of course, it's agenda item 11 at a meeting that starts at 2 PM, so I might be able to wander over fashionably late - especially if I can get someone else to submit my comment card. If I knew the order of speakers I could probably watch it on the web then ride over to speak. I could apologize for looking like a drowned rat by saying I figured I better ride over since MUNI was an utterly unreliable choice.
My wife is ill so I might be forced to stay home and babysit, in which case the entire MTA board, the Board of Supervisors, and the Mayor will be getting nastygrams. Frankly the most important person on that list is Mayor Newsom. His State of the City speech conveniently ignored MUNI just prior to a huge proposed cut. Newsom is against extending the metering hours in San Francisco, despite the study done by the MTA clearly showing that doing so is the right move. I think Gavin is incompetent, but not so incompetent he can't understand this, I think this is an instance of him being more corrupt than incompetent. The people lining his pockets want to keep the meters as is, so he backs them. I'm not lining anyone's pockets, but if Gavin ever dares run for any political office - even dogcatcher - I'll wear out a dozen pairs of shoes convincing more voters than he could ever buy that this clown needs a permanent spot in the private sector.
My family is from the Chicago area, and there are a few corrupt people there, but typically while they were lining their own pockets, they would sometimes skirt the rules for the benefit of the hoi polloi instead of the swells.
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4 comments:
The population of San Francisco is around 809 thousand. MUNI's budget is therefore around $900 per person. That's around $75 per month. Which works out to no less than $75/trip for me, as I find it so unreliable to be a mode of last resort.
I could take a decent number of private shuttle or taxi rides for $75.
700,000 rides are taken on MUNI daily, making you perhaps not the exception, but certainly not the rule.
If 700,000 people tried to take a Taxi ride in SF daily, would the streets be even marginally navigable? And since demand is not constant, where would we park those taxis when they aren't needed?
The analysis does not include the fact that many non-residents take MUNI. Are they benefiting without contributing? If they work and spend money here, they contribute. If they weren't taking MUNI, perhaps they would drive, bringing up again the parking issue.
Non-residents come, other residents go. All that matters is the difference.
My suspicion is if MUNI disappeared, a private system would serve these commuters fine. Taxis + shuttles could get people where they need to go faster and, overall cheaper. The MUNI buses are a cumbersome, outdates, inefficient, overpriced solution.
The rail lines are a different matter. Keep those :).
"crazy rain", Murph? Are you getting soft?
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