Posts Tagged ‘nat ford’
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
From District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi comes this newsletter update concerning floats at the upcoming 2010 ING Bay to Breakers footrace. Certainly appears as if last month’s plan to start floats only at Divisidero and then stop them 1.2 miles later in Golden Gate Park is dead.
The new idea is having two staging areas for floats to enter the race – at the beginning in eastern SoMA and at Civic Center. Deets below.
These mariners will need a place to sail their float again in 2010:
Oh, whoops, they abandoned their stripper pole-equipped vessel in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle last year. Oh well.
Bay to Breakers Update
The 99th Bay to Breakers will be run on Sunday, May 16th. Last year’s race saw a significant reduction in problems and impacts on the neighborhood, although there is still more work to do be done. Plans are still being developed for how floats will participate this year. Race organizers initially proposed having all floats start on Divisadero; however, this raised concerns with both neighbors and with float advocates. Supervisor Mirkarimi organized a meeting with the race organizers, the Mayor’s office, float advocates, and neighborhood representatives. We are still waiting to hear the organizers’ revised plan, but they have indicated that they now plan to have two staging areas for floats: at the beginning of the race and at Civic Center.
We are encouraged to hear that the organizers plan to adopt Supervisor Mirkarimi’s suggestion to implement a registration system for floats. This will generate additional revenue to pay for the impacts of the floats, and also create a new level of accountability for floats that are abandoned on the streets. Despite the improvements last year, the impact on the Panhandle area was still unacceptable. Supervisor Mirkarimi remains committed to changing the practice of floats celebrating in the Panhandle for hours after the race has passed. Ross continues to encourage the race organizers to provide an end-point for floats in Golden Gate Park. He believes creating an event in the Park that encourages floats not to stop in the Panhandle will significantly reduce the impact on the neighborhood.
More information:
- www.baytobreakers.com
- Float registration information (to be posted soon)
Tags: 12k, 2, 2008, 2009, 2010, 5 fulton, 7, 97th, 98th, alcohol, alix rosenthal, annual, anschutz, b2b, bad, Bay, bay to breakers, bay2breakers, beer, body, breakers, cars, carts, channel, Chepkurui, chris fox, citizens, Conor Johnston, cops, corrals, CPBB, crawlsf, cups, david scott, David William Scott, department, dept., destroyed, direct, district, divisadero, divisidero, dj, dpw, dumpsters, edelman, Edward Sharpless, Elite, eventbrite, facebook, fell, floats, footrace, footstock, foto, fundraiser, gabe, garbage, gavilanes, Gavin, glass, golden gate park, good, Greater Body Expo, haight Ashbury, howard, ing, John, John Gray, Jon Dishotsky, kegs, Kelsey Nagie, kgo, KGO-TV, Kipsang, Korir, Lineth, liquor, Liz Brusca, map, Matt Seliga, Men's, Mike Moscuzza, Muni, naked, nat ford, Newsom, nimby, nimbys, nude, paint, panhandle, photographs, photos, plastic, police, police department, pr, preservation, public relations, purple, recycling, red, richmond, roe, ross mirkarimi, sam singer, Sammy Kitwara, San Francisco, SFPD, smoove, store, street, sunset, tickets, towed, trash, TV, ugly, vehicles, Wilson Ling, women's, zaq, zero tolerance
Posted in events, sports | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
[UPDATE: Word on the street is that, for 2010, floats will be confined the 1.2 mile stretch betwixt Divisadero Street and Arguello Boulevard. Is that a fact? No se, hermana/o. And people, use your words - this new rule ruins B2B because....]
Let’s see here, the Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers (Bay to Breakers) are upset about not being consulted with a change to where the floats start at the 2010 ING Bay to Breakers coming up on May 16th?
Today’s Beef of the Week:
“Even with an organization of more than 25,000 members built in just a couple of weeks in 2009 to fight AEG’s bans and preserve the traditions of the race, AEG did not approach CPBB or any of its officers to discuss the new 2010 restrictions prior to their announcement. AEG did not approach Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s office or the Board of Supervisors to discuss the new 2010 restrictions. AEG did not approach Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office to discuss the new 2010 restrictions. AEG did not approach the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association to discuss staging floats in their neighborhood instead of at the start of the race.”
All right. Spokesman Sam Singer is saying that the rules will be the same as last year, except for the float starting point. Actually, I thought people were mad in 2009 when they were required to start their floats down in the SoMA starting area. Oh well. Won’t this all get worked out when the permits get issued, and during the ISCOTT hearing ’n stuff? I mean the Third Sunday in May is three months away, right?
Haven’t run this photo in two or three months, or something. Click to expand:
Maybe changing the float starting point is a bad idea, I don’t know. There are pluses and minuseses.
This change wouldn’t seem to be enough to be able to “destroy” the B2B race though…
Tags: 12k, 2, 2008, 2009, 2010, 5 fulton, 7, 97th, 98th, alcohol, alix rosenthal, annual, anschutz, b2b, bad, Bay, bay to breakers, bay2breakers, beer, body, breakers, cars, carts, channel, Chepkurui, chris fox, citizens, Conor Johnston, cops, corrals, CPBB, crawlsf, cups, david scott, David William Scott, department, dept., destroyed, direct, district, divisadero, divisidero, dj, dpw, dumpsters, edelman, Edward Sharpless, Elite, eventbrite, facebook, fell, floats, footrace, footstock, foto, fundraiser, gabe, garbage, gavilanes, Gavin, glass, golden gate park, good, Greater Body Expo, haight Ashbury, howard, ing, John, John Gray, Jon Dishotsky, kegs, Kelsey Nagie, kgo, KGO-TV, Kipsang, Korir, Lineth, liquor, Liz Brusca, map, Matt Seliga, Men's, Mike Moscuzza, Muni, naked, nat ford, Newsom, nimby, nimbys, nude, paint, panhandle, photographs, photos, plastic, police, police department, pr, preservation, public relations, purple, recycling, red, richmond, roe, ross mirkarimi, sam singer, Sammy Kitwara, San Francisco, SFPD, smoove, store, street, sunset, tickets, towed, trash, TV, ugly, vehicles, Wilson Ling, women's, zaq, zero tolerance
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Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Market Street Railway President President Rick Laubscher has some thoughts this morning about MUNI’s proposal to raise the cash fare for the F-Market historic streetcar line.
Will the F-Line turn into another fiasco like we just had with the $7 CultureBus 74X? And how will MUNI leader Nat Ford manage to get by making an annual salary that’s merely $308,000 more per year than our Governor’s?
We should get some answers today at City Hall. Stay tuned.
Here are Rick’s Eight Points:
1. The F-line is a core Muni service and should be treated as such.
2. Muni should collect the fares it’s already charging.
3. The F-line is cost-effective at its current fares.
4. Staff’s revenue assumptions from the fare increase are dubious
5. Different fares at the same Muni stops will slow down operations.
6. “Let ‘em buy a Fast Pass” is not an acceptable response.
7. Exceptionally high fares on the F-line hurt the city’s economic vitality.
8. Muni wants to penalize a line that “people want.”
And here’s Rick missive to MUNI riders:
$5 for an F-line Ride? An Open Letter to Nat Ford January 19, 2010 by Rick Laubscher, Market Street Railway
On behalf of Market Street Railway, I have sent the email excerpted below to SFMTA Executive Director/CEO Nathaniel P. Ford, Sr. All are welcome to borrow and elaborate on any of these arguments in your own communications with decision-makers on this matter.
Remember, the SFMTA Board gives initial considerations to its staff’s 2010 budget recommendations, including the proposal to raise F-line fares from $2 to $5, Tuesday, January 19 at 2 p.m., Room 400, City Hall.
You can reach Mr. Ford at 415-701-4720 or by email here. You can register your opinion with the SFMTA Board members by emailing this address. You can also reach Mayor Newsom at 415-554-6141 or by email here. Your opinion counts.
Read the whole thing, after the jump.
Tags: 2, 2010, 5, budget, bus, City Hall, civic center, cultureBus, CultureBus II, F, f market, fare, historic, increase, Line, market, market street railway, mta, Muni, nat ford, proposal, SFMTA, streetcar, trolley
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Monday, December 7th, 2009
Until recently, there were two bus stops on the same side of this short block of Hayes Street near Masonic. See?
But a few of the stops had to go away to comply with the new changes that came about on December 6, 2009.
The remaining stops got a bit of sprucing up last week, with red paint and what not:
Click to expand.
Of course there’s no shelter to replace the ones that got taken away, but you can’t have everything in Life, right? You can’t expect a minor bus line to have four stops just for itself within a 200 foot radius forever, right?
Hurray.
Tags: 1800, 19, 2009, 2010, 21, 21 hayes, 5, 5th, ave, avenue, bus, campus, ccsf, ciity college, consolidation, december, hayes, john adams, judson true lies, Line, masonic, mta, Muni, municipal railway, nat ford, November, paint, red, removal, San Francisco, sfcc, SFMTA, shelter, stop, street, tep, transit effectiveness project
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Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Here’s the scene on freshly-paved Scott Street this afternoon. The greening of the “bike box” red light waiting area on Scott Street near Oak at the terminus of the famous Wiggle Bike Route has begun. At long last, it has begun.
For now, anyway. The partial lifting of the Bicycle Plan injunction isn’t a 100% thing, but the City is moving ahead anyway.
Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Ross Mirkarimi, MTA chief Nat Ford, and Mayor Gavin Newsom all got in on the fun. Click to expand:
As Our Mayor’s extended paint roller got closer to the throng of reporters Supervisor Dufty was all, ”Watch out media, Gavin’s coming your way!” And here’s the reaction – a that’s-right-laugh-it-up-funnyboy smirk and then a quick departure:
Gavin’s ill humor wasn’t helped later on when Emmy Award-winning CBS5 political editor Hank Plante started asking about Geo Fanelli wanting his recent $500 donation back. Akit’s suggestion about suing in small claims court is interesting, non? I mean, you can’t give everybody their money back, right? (After your campaign buys a copy of PhotoShop, you don’t get much change back from a $500 banknote.) However, Geo has a pretty sympathetic case to make. Mmmm.
Anyway, in all the excitement, Bevan started painted bike helmets green, making mementos to allow us to remember this Special Day. (Bro was on today with all his Ammiano-like bons mots.)
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition leader Leah Shahum and Nat Ford were all smiles today:
Supervisor Mirkarimi looked dashing on his Trek Ride+ electric-assist bike. It’s just like Board President David Chiu’s. Said one wag, “Ross, you have the right equipment.” The loud reply, from someone famous: “That’s what she said!”
All in all, it was quite a celebration.
But this isn’t all for today. San Francisco’s first protected bike lane is now on Market Street, as of this AM.
Tags: 30, alamo square, alamo square neighborhood association, bevan dufty, bicycle, bicycle coalition, bike, bikes, cancelled, ceremony, chief, cyclist, cyclists, EaPA, East of Panhandle Area, fell, gavin newsom, green, green paint, india, injunction, Judge, lane, leah shahum, Mayor, media, mta, Muni, nat ford, NOPA, oak, paint, path, photo op, photo opportunity, plan, postponed, protected, ross mirkarimi, route, San Francisco, scott, scott street, sfbc, SFMTA, street, transit, wiggle
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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
They call it Bus Stop Consolidation and it’s happening right now this morning on the #21 Hayes line. A crew comes along and the next thing you know, your favorite bus shelter is rolling down the street and into oblivion.
But amazingly, this block will still have one stop left (after losing two!) and then there are other stops close by. It’s sort of ridiculous to have one or two (on the same side of the street!) stops on every block, right?
Click to expand
Hurray!
Thanks, MUNI. (Seriously.)
Tags: 19, 2009, 21, 21 hayes, ave, avenue, bus, consolidation, hayes, Line, masonic, mta, Muni, municipal railway, nat ford, November, removal, San Francisco, SFMTA, shelter, stop, street
Posted in transit | 10 Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Adapting the classical Kübler-Ross model to San Francisco yields Four Stages of MUNI Passenger Grief:
1. Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.” Passengers in this stage look expectantly in the direction of the next MUNI vehicle.
2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; “Who is to blame?” Passengers in this stage fight each other, or, like Akit, go Full Martin Luther, calling for Nat Ford’s head, as soon as they get home.
3. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?” Passengers in this stage enter shoe-gazer mode, hanging their heads in despair.
4. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.” Passengers in this stage sit down in the middle of the street, instinctively conserving energy for the long wait ahead. Thusly:
Click to expand
Yes, that’s the right train but it’s headed the wrong direction. It’s going to be a loooooong night, once again.
Oh well.
Tags: bus, denial, grief, judson true, judson true lies, Kübler-Ross, mta, Muni, municipal, n judah, nat ford, railway, San Francisco, SFMTA, stages, transit
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
Via Cecilia Vega (an excellent reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle who’s jumped ship to KGO-TV) comes news of yet another fight on the MUNI.
How self-aware are we these days, when we can spot a newsworthy event and put it in context in real time?
Have your cameras at the ready – get something good this week and you’ll be sure to be Internet Famous, for a little while anyway.
Tags: ABC, another, bus, Cecilia Vega, chinatown, fight, fleet week, judson true lies, kgo channel 7, mta, Muni, nat ford, SFMTA, van ness, youtube
Posted in Muni | Comments Off
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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