Posts Tagged ‘failure’
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Well looky here, just posted less than an hour ago on the YouTube by“GetBackJoeJoe” (does he work for MUNI?) is DRIVECAM footage of the January 5, 2010 accident involving a 19 Polk line bus.
Of course it would be nice to have more info (and maybe a view to the left and the right as well) but, man oh man, I’d hate to be the pickup truck driver’s Plaintiff’s Shyster on this one. Obviously, that was way fast for a California Stop from the MUNI driver,* but did you see how far the bus made it through the intersection before getting hit? And did you hear that lengthy panic stop?
(Not sure if GPS is the best way to measure the speed of the bus, but no matter, both drivers should show more a lot more respect to stop signs, needless to say.)
The moment of impact, courtesy of the DRIVECAM:
The passengers inside the bus have a great case (assuming they were physically injured). As always, make sure to file your claim with the govmint comfortably within six months of the date any injury. (If you, the bus passenger, get a lawyer, he or she will sue any and all parties that could possibly be at fault, of course.)
Let’s hope for a quick recovery for all injured and fewer intersection collisions in 2010.
UPDATE: SF Weekly has posted some other views after reviewing more of the video released by the SFMTA. It’s too bad that aging pickup (Toyota?) didn’t have the latest ABS and airbags.
UPDATE: Additional views are here.
UPDATE: From the SFAppeal comes this spirited defense of the MUNI driver. Obviously, the MUNI driver rolled through the stop sign but that didn’t cause the collision. You know, maybe the MUNI driver ran a red light the day before or rolled through a stop sign at the previous intersection – you know, maybe he did something illegal before the accident, but that didn’t cause this particular accident. This collision was caused by the pickup driver.
The MUNI driver was in way too much of a hurry so he needs some kind of attitude adjustment, but the pickup driver will not be able to pin blame on the MUNI driver, no way Jose.
*That kind of behavior is generally tolerated from cyclists in San Francisco, but definitely not from drivers.
Tags: (CASE), 19 polk, 2010, 5th, 8215, accident, attorney, bus, City, claim, county, drivecam, driver, failure, fault, footage, january, lawsuit, lawyers, mta, Muni, pete pon, peter pon, pickup, potrero hill, San Francisco, SFMTA, truck, Video, yield, youtube
Posted in transit | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
A kind of black celebration was held in Golden Gate Park this afternoon to mark the end of the MUNI’s San Francisco CultureBus.
See the death throes of CB via Steve Rhodes, Whole Wheat Toast, Plug1, Octoferret, MattyMatt, SftaJan, AgentAkit, and Jamison
Who showed up? Transit fans and local online royalty. Click to expand:
This 74-X couldn’t leave without baffling its last pair of tourists. They didn’t get on. Surprised?
All that was left was the filled-in pole hole that used to mark the CB bus stop:
Yes, the 74X is terminal. It’s dead, Jim
Here’s one last glimpse through the famous see-through bus:
Perhaps these brand new buses and their friendly drivers will soon be put to better use, just in time for the possible BART strike.
We Can Only Hope.
Tags: (BART), 15, 15th, 2008, 2009, 500, 74, 74x, august, bus, cal academy, calacademy, california, California Academy of Sciences, celebration, culture, culture bus, cultureBus, de Young, dead, failure, final, finished, gavin newsom, Governor, king, last, mta, Muni, municipal transit agency, museum, museums, nat ford, party, PM, race, San Francisco, SFMTA, strike, tep, tourists, transit effectiveness project, tut
Posted in transit | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 15th, 2009
Today will see the last run of the San Francisco CultureBus (or “Culture Bus,” some people call it that). Yes, they’re “taking Old Yeller out back to shoot it and put it out of its misery.” But once you have a carcass, you need to find someone to take the blame for the FAIL. So, around whose neck should this screaming yellow albatross go?
The answer in MUNI chief Nat Ford. But not for the reason you might think.
“Is it he?” quoth one, “Is this the man?”
by him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless CultureBus.
Nat Ford is the Ancient Mariner:
Watchet, Somerset, England. Via Adrian Pingstone
Is the source of the idea of the CultureBus documented anywhere? Not that I’m aware of. Obviously, the whole program was highly redolent of the New York City “Culture Bus” that ran from 1973 to 1982, but who had the idea to revive CB here in San Francisco? Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Whether or not the CultureBus concept was forced upon MUNI, doesn’t MUNI have the right and obligation to tinker with the idea? Did MUNI do anything to alter the CultureBus program once it became obvious (I’d peg it at early October 2008) that the daily ridership was turning out to be extremely low? I mean something other than spewing the stereotypical platitudes you’d expect them to spew?
Here’s what MUNI did – it cut back service 66% in January and raised prices 43% in July. That’s it. Just how airtight were these unseen agreements made amongst the stakeholders? Nothing could be done? Srsly?
(So, it’s like the Great Helmsman, the Dear Leader appoints you manage the Yangtse River Watershed and then tells you to kill every damned songbird within a 500 mile radius - how would you respond? Here’s what you’d do, you’re a team player right? You’d execute the plan and then wait for millions to die, powerless to alter Fate. And then you’d say boy, that Great Leap Forward, boy, it just didn’t work out.)
Wouldn’t it have been interesting to try something different? Lower the price to $1.50 for the sole purpose of actually moving people about the City in light of the circumstances? Or just trying anything except the same old same old, month after month?
Oh well.
So there’s your albatross, Nat.
But that’s why you get paid the big bucks.
And as for you CultureBus, your pain is over, boy. Soon the Twitter birds will descend to lift you to Heaven.
Sleep! It is a gentle thing:
(In Elysium, there’ll be plenty of diesel and you’ll always be full of happy passengers.)
Good night, sweet CultureBus.
Tags: 15, 15th, 2008, 2009, 500, 74, 74x, august, bus, cal academy, calacademy, california, California Academy of Sciences, culture, culture bus, cultureBus, de Young, failure, final, gavin newsom, Governor, king, last, mta, Muni, municipal transit agency, museum, museums, nat ford, PM, race, San Francisco, SFMTA, tep, tourists, transit effectiveness project, tut
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Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
Here it is, the fullest CultureBus seen on the Streets of San Francisco since debut weekend back in September 2008.
Upwards of eight blond(e) Euro-types could be seen through the tinted windows.
Click to expand:
Perhaps its the Tut Effect.
Who knows?
Tags: 500, 74, 74x, bus, cal academy, calacademy, california, California Academy of Sciences, culture, culture bus, cultureBus, de Young, failure, gavin newsom, Governor, king, mta, Muni, municipal transit agency, museum, museums, nat ford, PM, race, San Francisco, SFMTA, tep, tourists, transit effectiveness project, tut
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Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Look at this sad scene from Golden Gate Park yesterday. See all these people? They’ve been patiently waiting out in front of the California Academy of Sciences since just after the closing time of 5:00 P.M. The problem is that 5:00 P.M. is when the last Culturebus departs for the day.
However, los turistas don’t know that. I told some of them about the 44 O’Shaughnessy but that didn’t tempt them. They sort of knew about the 5 Fulton, but the closest stop is about 1000 feet away. The $7 fare - news of that is what it took to drive the bulk of them away from this bus stop.
The Euro-looking family held out hope as they could see a CB stopped at the other end of the Music Concourse but, for some odd reason, the schedule is set up to deliver people to the Cal Academy 40 minutes after closing time – it doesn’t accommodate anybody wanting to depart Golden Gate Park after 5:00 PM.
The poor devils, they’d be better off hailing a cab, if they could find one. Click to expand.
Now if I were a “courteous CultureBus operator” I’d feel obligated to take these people wherever they wanted to go in Union Square irregardless of the schedule. But that’s just me.
Could somebody put up “Fare: $7, last pickup at 5:00 PM” on this CultureBus bus stop sign?
Is that too much to ask?
Tags: 500, 74, 74x, bus, california, culture, culture bus, cultureBus, failure, gavin newsom, Governor, mta, Muni, municipal transit agency, museum, museums, nat ford, PM, race, San Francisco, SFMTA, tep, tourists, transit effectiveness project
Posted in transit | 4 Comments »
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
See this pedestrian in red in the middle of Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District? She just came halfway across from the left and it sure looks like she’s fixing to make it the rest of the way on 22nd Avenue to the southern side of the street.
Let’s say you’re the driver, perhaps in a first person shooter video game or whatever, what do you do here? SFPD Richmond Station Captain Richard Corriea has his troops fired up about traffic safety, so this could be another sting operation using an undercover babushka lady or pink bag mafiosa as bait. Therefore, you gots to yield to let her across. But what happens then?
Click to expand, it’s fun to play along:
What happens then is that inbound traffic in the slow lane (seen on the right) doesn’t stop. Zing, zing, zing they go past. Unseen is the Steven Fowler-type behind you in a BMW (it’s always a BMW, which model does Fowler probably have by the way, M5, M3, X5? something like that) laying on his horn because you, the idiot driver ahead of him, doesn’t know how to drive.
Should you go forward as well? That’s a failure to yield moving violation right there, but by waiting for her are you encouraging her to do something dangerous, like crossing the damn street in the Richmond, the biggest danger, by far, in her life?
On it goes for half a minute, the pedestrian waits for the three-series behind you to catapult launch around you up the slow lane and then the ped makes it across.
This is insanity. Shouldn’t this be an electronically-controlled intersection with traffic lights instead of just a couple of stop signs for cross traffic? Why aren’t there traffic lights and countdown pedestrain signals for the whole of Geary Boulevard in the Richmond all the way up to Avenue 30 or 40 or something?
Money? We can’t afford it? Geary Boulevard is too wide and too busy for this kind of half-assed, a couple of stop signs are good enough, we’ll repaint those crosswalk lines when we feel like it attitude.
Who will be the next to die?
Tags: 22nd, accident, avenue, blvd., boulevard, Captain, district, failure, geary, intersection, pedestrain, police department, Richard Corriea, richmond, San Francisco, SFPD, sting, street, ticket, yield
Posted in streets, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
