Transit

If you commute by BART and Muni, you've no doubt been in the frustrating situation shown in the lead image. You get off your BART train at Civic Center or one of the other downtown stations, run up the stairs, tag out of BART, run across the mezzanine, tag into Muni, run back downstairs, and miss your train by seconds. At off-peak times, this can easily add twenty minutes to your trip. And thanks to the cage bars around the stairs, sometimes you actually get to see the train you're going to miss as you rush through this Habitrail for humans.

More than seven in ten likely voters in San Francisco said there was a “great need” or “some need” for transportation improvements, according to a new poll commissioned by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. The survey involved just over 1,000 interviews conducted by phone and online earlier this month.

Yesterday morning Amtrak Cascades #501 derailed on a curve in Dupont, Wash. Jim Hamre and Zack Willhoite, advocates with the Rail Passengers Association (RPA), were two of the three people killed in the crash. They were riding the train on its inaugural run on a new track alignment that reduces travel times on the popular service between Seattle and Portland.

SPUR, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk San Francisco, and the San Francisco Transit Riders have come out hard against a proposal to split Muni from the rest of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency

Once all those additional cars cross from Oakland to San Francisco, where are they supposed to go?

Yesterday afternoon, the SFMTA Board agreed to install concrete boarding islands at all stops on the L-Taraval line as part of the L-Taraval Rapid Project. "This is a big win for pedestrian and rider safety," wrote Rachel Hyden, Executive Director of the San Francisco Transit Riders, in an email to Streetsblog.

Today, Tuesday, December 5, at the SFMTA Board of Directors meeting (City Hall, 1:00 pm), the MTA Board will be voting on the remaining proposed improvements to the L Taraval Muni line. This is a great opportunity for riders to help improve the L Taraval’s speed, reliability, and safety.

Last night the San Francisco Transit Riders (SFTR), the advocacy group that organized the 22-Day Muni Challenge and Transit Week, among other things, celebrated a year of accomplishment and laid out a list of goals for next year at a holiday party held at the Mariposa Hunters Point Yacht Club in Mission Bay.

Litter, excrement, and filth--anyone who uses the 16th and Mission BART station knows the platforms, stairs, elevators, mezzanine, and the plazas above it are just plain gross.