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You want more people using public transportation. That means more people out of cars, less co2, etc.
I want to use public transportation. I tried it. It is not an option. Why: It is miserable and inefficient beyond endurance.
Examples:
*A trip from SFO took over an hour. An 11 minute commute. A wait in fog, no shelter for over half an hour at Balboa Park for a bus that comes every 30 minutes - occasionally, being the main problem.
*A need to access my home on Mt Davidson via either Balboa or Glen Park Station on a weekend from the Mission, a ten minute drive. No bus. Ended up going to West Portal and walking two miles uphill.
*I spent a week using Public transportation, sitting in the wind tunnel known as Forest Hill. Up to an hour and a half commute time for a fifteen minute drive from Downtown San Francisco. Cold, not enough seating, no protection from wind, which comes up through the tunnel. No way to see when a bus is about to arrive or know how long a wait will be (so as simply to walk the two miles instead).
I am on the 36, a not surprisingly little used line. With perhaps three passengers in off peak hours it hardly contributes to the greening of San Francisco.
Many would use Muni more often if not always, if there were an option to get home. The bus will never be that option, unless you make the last two miles available to people in the districts poorly served by bus transportation.
Solutions:
1) Provide an alternative option for MUNI users to reach the end of their destinations. Years ago there was a shuttle which connected Glen Park to Mt Davidson and Diamond Heights. It most likely ceased due to insurance issues. It worked well.
Why not take instead of a shuttle taxis. Allow them to fill up with a flat charge for delivery within certain areas. Say $4, then act as shuttles, dropping passengers off at their doorsteps. Think it over. Require taxi companies to post two cars at every hub - Castro, Glen Park, 24th and Mission, Balboa, Forest Hills. Downtown spots are hardly a problem.
2) Treat users of public transportation as customers rather than recalcitrants who need to be forced out of their cars.
- Provide adequate shelter at transportation hubs. Manhattan does this at numerous points.
- Provide information on next arrivals at all major hubs. Inside shelter at Glen Park, Balboa Park and Castro with an LED or voice information board would allow people to wait with less discomfort.
- A radical idea: Provide SEATING at major transfer points rather than the butt rests in the "shelters" or the single marble slab - a design element? - in the wind corridor at Forest Hill Station.
- LED television screens at waiting points? Sports news? Financial News? Why not? If it works for my bank and my dentist to make an annoying situation not miserable, why not on my/your/their commute?
- USE LARGER PRINT on maps and schedules. Use larger maps. Not every passenger is a high school student. Make them visible.
- Coffee. Or tea. Or hot chocolate. Magazines. The "Blind Vendor Permits" used to provide not only entrepreneurial opportunities for veterans but newspapers, magazines and Snickers for travelers. Made life much nicer. (Made dieting much harder, but that’s another matter.)
The Mayor owned a restaurant. He is aware of the principles of service. Apply those to transportation, and you may will achieve a substantial greening effect and a happier citizenry.
See how it could be done and how it is.
Send the Board of supervisors to take bus tours of San Francisco on a series of days with inclement weather. Diamond Heights. The inner Mission. Twin Peaks. Mt Davidson (these, in case it is not clear, are really bedroom communities, whose residents have no access to the kind of public transportation available to those leaving in extended mixed use districts). As houses in these districts reach the million dollar plus level, there will be more residents who would be willing to pay more for more convenience.
Take a tour of New York’s public transportation system. Note the seating capacity at waiting points. New York has enclosed waiting areas. Balboa Park has a sheet of glass in a wind tunnel. Forest Hill station has one marble slab. As for Wind Tunnel, it is one. The air from the tunnel is sucked up through the doors. There is no protection.
Name Withheld
- : 10.0
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June 5th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I agree. MUNI Is often not tolerable. Every time the car is up for oil change, I rediscover how thoroughly unpleasant it is. Add to that the fact that all of the windows on the buses are usually open when the outside temperature is about 40 degrees, since the bus may smell like a latrine or a locker room. Make it easier, I will switch to MUNI.