Transit

Muni's new chief safety officer went before a Board of Supervisors committee today to explain what's being done to prevent crashes like the two major rail collisions that have happened in the last month. Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who chaired the hearing, said the crash at Market and Noe Streets on August 3rd, in which an SUV was crushed between two historic F-line streetcars, "could easily have been a fatal accident."

The recent crash of two D.C. Metro trains has laid bare a glaring lack of authority at the obscure local committee that is supposed to ensure transit riders' safety, as the Washington Post reported today. But the problem is bigger than the nation's capital: The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has not issued broad safety rules for rail transit, leaving the issue in the hands of state oversight agencies.

When transit-only lanes were first striped in San Francisco in the 1970s, they were meant to be a bold enactment of the city's brand new Transit First policy. But like the policy, the lanes have only been partially implemented and are all too often flouted. Stricter enforcement is part of the equation, but many of the lanes are marked so half-heartedly that it's hard to place the blame on drivers alone.

The disjointed state of "New Starts," the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) program to fund new rail and bus lines, is well-known on the Hill -- in fact, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) recently quipped that it ought to be renamed "small starts, low starts, and no starts."

In New York, the standard icon of corporate prestige is a gleaming tower downtown bearing a company's name. Here in the Bay Area, one of the preferred symbols is a sprawling, parking lot-ringed "corporate campus" off US-101 (Google, Yahoo) or I-280 (Apple,) 30 miles or more from the region's densest city. Ironically, though these campuses were designed for convenience, many Silicon Valley employees prefer to reside in San Francisco. As a result, companies have discovered the recruiting value of something transportation planners have long touted: high-quality, car-free transportation.

(Photo: Washington Post) Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, began his hearing on transit today by displaying the above cartoon by Pulitzer prize-winner Tom Toles. The senator’s message parallels Toles’: In a world where the auto industry can get $2 billion more in one week, what’s to be done about … Continued

We heard rumblings from sources in the days following the West Portal Muni crash that Ken McDonald, Muni's Chief Operating Officer, had been reassigned by MTA Chief Nat Ford. The agency never confirmed the rumor but this just in: McDonald has submitted his resignation with "mixed emotions." Read his resignation letter here (PDF). His last day at the agency will be October 9th.

Two historic San Francisco streetcars on the outbound Market Street tracks collided with a Nissan SUV at Market and Noe streets in the Castro at 5:45 p.m. Monday. Six people were injured, including both people in the SUV, and the operator of the train that collided with it from behind.

BART management has reached a tentative deal with three of its five unions, totaling about 2,700 workers, averting a strike that would have strained the Bay Area's transit systems and gridlocked its roads. The agreement, capping four months of intense negotiations, affects the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).