Where's Gavin?

The N-Judah Chronicles has a letter from an anonymous group of Muni riders announcing my kind of contest.

The first person to take a picture of our Spokesmayor actually, you know, riding Muni wins a free Fast Pass. Everyone else who snaps a real photo gets a free round of drinks!

Visit wheresgavin.com for details, announcement letter after the jump.

These Are Newsom's Cuts

I brought up this quote from our mayor before because I was appalled that he could really be so short on ideas for balancing Muni's budget:

I hate the idea of raising fares. I don't want to cut Muni service. But I ask (critics), 'What ideas do you have that do not eviscerate public safety and health and human services?' -Gavin Newsom (via SF Chronicle)

But the more I think if it the more shocked I am that he's so brazenly trying to make this connection.

His threat is probably effective, nobody wants to cut health or public safety programs. But it raises the question: why should Muni's budget and potential fare increases/service cuts affect health or public safety?

They shouldn't!

His Kingdom for Some Ideas

According to Rachel Gordon, Gavin Newsom really just doesn't have any ideas to balance the SFMTA budget without raising fares and cutting service:

I hate the idea of raising fares. I don't want to cut Muni service. But I ask (critics), 'What ideas do you have that do not eviscerate public safety and health and human services?' -Gavin Newsom (via SF Chronicle)

Well, lay them on him. Let the mayor know what he and the SFMTA board should do to solve Muni's financial problems for good and without simply passing them on to riders.

I'll start with two really obvious ones:

Reign in the work orders that other departments are using to pass their cuts onto the MTA (saves around $60,000,000)

Implement congestion pricing in accordance with the study done wearlier this year (brings in $30,000,000 to $60,000,000 per year)

Budget hole closed. Muni service improved. Public Safety increased. HHS negligibly affected. That wasn't very hard.

CVC 21950(a)

SF Citizen poses a question for those of you who travel through SF behind a windshield: What do you do when you approach an intersection - no stoplight - with some poor abuelita waiting, stranded on the median for a chance to cross the street?

This is hardly an academic issue; there are hundreds, if not thousands of intersections in this city where at least one direction of traffic has no signal or sign. What do you do? No stop sign, no stop light, no stop - right? No.

California Vehicle Code (that thing you had to pretend to have read when you were 15) Section 21950 (a) states unambiguously:

The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.

So, since you like totally knew that, you stop.

But these uncontrolled intersections usually occur at broad, multi-lane expressways. What, then, asks SF Citizen, of the cars that just keep on cruising past, preventing the pedestrian from crossing? Law of the jungle? My car is bigger and faster so I crush you if you try to slow me down? Once again we can turn to that obscure tome, the CVC. This time Section 21951:

Whenever any vehicle has stopped at a marked crosswalk or at any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross the roadway the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle.

I suppose it's unreasonable to hold drivers to the rules of the CVC. We certainly don't enforce it's provisions to any reasonable extent. Since there's almost no chance of getting a ticket for violating CVC 21950 (a) or 21951, it's to be expected that nobody abides by them.

Well that's not okay! Enforcement of these and other laws protecting pedestrians has to be some kind of a priority.

SF Citizen suggests signalizing these intersections, at least the most dangerous of them. I completely support that idea. Good street design works as a compliment to law enforcement. It's past time to get some action from our civic leaders on this issue. Since our lovely mayor actively violates the vehicle code I suggest contacting your member of the Board of Supervisors, or writing a letter to the editor of the Chronicle, Examiner, Guardian, or other newspaper of choice.

Only Little People Get Parking Tickets

SF Weekly has called out Mayor Gavin Newsom for parking his SUV illegally all over town. It's certainly not the first time someone in the media has noticed this and photographed it. In fact, a few years ago I worked on a remodeling job across the street from the Green and Leavenworth highrise pictured at right and I can tell you his people park their car like that (or worse) every morning, idling the engine for an hour or more while waiting for him.

SF Weekly reports

[SFMTA Spokesman Judson] True notes that the mayor is not any more entitled to park illegally than you or I -- but adds that PCOs are not in the habit of ticketing cars with drivers sitting in them. -SF Weekly

Which neither surprises nor comforts me.

I'm convinced that San Francisco needs a mayor who takes the bus every day. It's insane to think that Muni will run reliably and conveniently when the chief executive of this city gets rides everywhere in a chauffered SUV. Our streets look very different when viewed through those tinted windows.

Not bloody likely anytime soon

In the meantime, at least we do have a Board of Supervisors President with a Fast Pass. It's a step in the right direction, and here's to hoping that Chiu's experience mingling with the common folk has some bearing on the policies his board enacts.

But with a mayor so distant from the lives of his constituents, livable streets advocates have our work cut out for us.