Mission Mission

[via open mouth]

Sometimes your MUNI driver needs you to finish La Bamba for him so he can drive the train.

A video posted by Ellen Black (@ellen__black) on Nov 11, 2014 at 12:41am PST

Local transit aficionado and musician Ticklefight just published this beauty:

MUNI RAP

Ottawa Ebola Renee Royals
World’s Ending Fast, Where’s My Aluminum Foils
Evictions Elections Soccer Denials
Chinatown Bus Hatred for Miles
White House Fence, Ain’t So Strong
Yosemite Graffiti Everything’s Wrong

Can’t wait to see the next verse!

[link]

[Photo by Tegan]

Do you have complaints about the housing crisis and public transit in San Francisco? (Let’s face it, we all do.) If so, join the SF Bay Guardian and SF Transit Riders Union tomorrow for a joint community forum on funding for transit and housing affordability.

Here’s what SFBG and SFTRU have to say about this event:

San Francisco needs more affordable housing, a robust public transit system, and fully funded social services if it is to remain an efficient, diverse, compassionate city. Unfortunately, some political leaders have pitted transportation and housing activists against one another in recent years, particularly so in the upcoming election on Propositions A, B, G, K, and L.

We’ll provide some background for you on how public transportation service and facilities are paid for, and then we’ll examine how the conflict happened, the political tactics that are being employed, and what can be done to bridge the gap along with a panel of activists and experts.

Bridging the Gaps in Transit and Housing Funding
A joint Bay Guardian and SF Transit Riders community forum
Thursday, October 9th, 6-8PM
LGBT Center, Rainbow Room
1800 Market St, SF

Moderators:
Steve Jones and Rebecca Bowe, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Speakers:
Thea Selby, San Francisco Transit Riders Union
Jonathan Rewers, SFMTA
Supervisor Scott Wiener, San Francisco District 8
Chema Hernandez Gil, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
Amandeep Jawa, San Francisco League of Conservation Voters
Peter Cohen and Fernando Marti, SF Council of Community Housing Organizations

RSVP on Facebook or non-Facebook and invite your friends and other concerned citizens!

[Thanks, Ilyse!]

A Bernalwood reader makes the case:

First, Yellow Cab and FedEx drivers could take the bus to their workplaces, which are within a block of this stretch of Cesar Chavez. But primarily, Caltrain has become an essential way for SIlicon Valley workers to get to their jobs. Catrain ridership is at historic highs, and 1500 workers now board Caltrain at 22nd St. every morning, headed for points south.

Right now, there’s no easy way to get to the 22nd Street Station. Yes, you can take the 48-Quintara down 24th St. and over the hill, but this takes a very long time. It would be so much quicker for the bus to head down our remade Cesar Chavez, bypassing Potrero Hill, making a turn at Third St., and heading straight for the station. I’ll bet it would save at least 15 minutes vs. a comparable trip on the 48.

Read on.

Muni fares increased yesterday.

So, via old-school San Franciscans Shimshang and Crazycrab, this old-school hacked billboard:

Boy, imagine a time when billboards were owned by a little company founded by two Northern California boys, Foster and Kleiser, rather than international media conglomerates like CBS and Clear Channel. More about all that here.

Dang, this would’ve made a great pic in my epic series of pics of this spot.

[via @jak]

From local blogger anadromy, who most recently delivered a similarly posi rant about why you shouldn’t necessarily hate on tech bros, some thoughts on the transit situation here in Frisco:

People in San Francisco don’t agree on much, but just about everybody likes to hate on MUNI. The system takes a lot of grief, much of it justified. But I grew up in So-Cal, a place with notoriously rotten public transit, so even when I’m fuming with several hundred other stranded souls as an N Judah languishes between Van Ness and Civic Center, I try to remember that MUNI, for all its faults, is a far sight better than what I had to deal with as a kid. I also try to feel grateful that I get to live in a city where you (usually) can use public transportation to get around, because I believe mass transit creates a better society. It’s a wonderful social equalizer and it brings all kinds of different people into contact with each other. Sometimes this contact can be unwelcome or unpleasant, but so what? That’s kinda the point. Most people in Los Angeles don’t get the privilege of standing on crowded buses or trains with all sorts and sundry of humanity. They seal themselves inside their cars. In my opinion, this mass isolation instead of mass exposure is one of the main reasons LA sucks. It appeals to and caters to a certain kind of personality. Not that everyone in LA is a preening narcissist. (I dig LA in a lot of ways, and the people who live there. It’s a grittier, more diverse city than SF.) But let’s be real. Its preening-narcissists-per-capita quotient is quite high. The same is true for Silicon Valley, which—not coincidentally—also has shitty public transit.

And actually, this is all just a preamble to the real story, so read on.

[Photo by Nikki]

Hollywood be all like, “here, lemme redesign that for you” (Godzilla, 2014):

After all, who would want these pieces of shit searing the eyeballs of America:

[via 99percentinvisible]

Rather than, say, this boring old stuff they’re talking about getting:

[Awesome stuff via Chilliam]

[Boring stuff via SF Gate]