You should feel free to refer to this exchange if you want to follow this up
with either the Mayor or with Ms. Saslafsky (Director of Muni
Communications).
Please note that Ms. Saslafsky’s Phone Number and E-mail address are
included in the recent correspondence below.
John F. Hughes
San Francisco
-----Original Message-----
My Recent Letter to Sharyn Saslafsky
From: John F. Hughes <hughesjf@slip.net
To: Sharyn_Saslafsky@ci.sf.ca.us <Sharyn_Saslafsky@ci.sf.ca.us
Cc: Willie_Brown@ci.sf.ca.us <Willie_Brown@ci.sf.ca.us
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 1998 8:15 PM
Subject: Restore FULL Muni Schedule at Transit.org
Dear Ms. Saslafsky,
The Mayor suggests that I contact you on the issues discussed below.
The reason that I sent the e-mail to the Mayor was that my letters to you,
sent by U.S.Mail before I knew your e-mail address, have been unanswered and
apparently ignored.
I would appreciate receiving your reply and your commitment to restoring the
complete Muni Schedule to the Transitinfo.org internet site.
Very truly yours,
John F. Hughes
San Francisco
-----Original Message-----
The Mayor’s recent letter to me:
From: Willie_Brown@ci.sf.ca.us <Willie_Brown@ci.sf.ca.us
To: John F. Hughes <hughesjf@slip.net
Cc: Sharyn_Saslafsky@ci.sf.ca.us <Sharyn_Saslafsky@ci.sf.ca.us
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 1998 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: Restore FULL Muni Schedule at Transit.org
Mr. Hughes:
Muni advises that they are working on an improved posting of Muni
schedules. You should be in contact with Sharyn Saslafsky, Director
of Muni Communications (923-6317), regarding any concerns you have.
Mayor Willie Brown
___________________________
My Second Letter to the Mayor:
Subject: Restore FULL Muni Schedule at Transit.org
Author: "John F. Hughes" <hughesjf@slip.net
Date: 2/1/98 12:37 PM
Dear Mr. Mayor,
I sent the following note to you over two weeks ago and have neither seen
the
full schedules restored nor received any response from your office as to why
they were not. I can assure you that this is an issue that will not go away.
Do the right thing. Instruct Mr. Cruz to restore the full muni schedule on
the Transitinfo.org site.
We are not only the voters who elected you, we are also the owners of the
Municipal Railway. We deserve to be treated with a little respect.
Very truly yours,
John F. Hughes
San Francisco
-----Original Message-----
My Original Letter to the Mayor:
From: John F. Hughes <hughesjf@slip.net
To: DaMayor <DaMayor@ci.sf.ca.us
Date: Friday, January 16, 1998 1:14 PM
Subject: Restore FULL Muni Schedule at Transit.org
Mr. Mayor,
The following arguments were recently posted on the Rescue Muni List. I
agree with them completely. Please instruct Mr. Cruz to return the FULL Muni
Schedule to the Transit.org Web Site.
Thank you.
John F. Hughes
San Francisco
_________________________________________________
Quotation from the Rescue Muni List:
You may remember that in November 1996 Muni started printing a "lite",
aka "more relaxed", version of its schedules for distribution to the
public. (Chronicle 18 November 1996 page A15; Examiner, 2 December
1996 page A1) Instead of saying that a bus would arrive at the corner
of 11th and Market at 0520, 0535, 0545, 0555, 0610, 0624, and so
forth, they now read "0520 THEN APPROXIMATELY EVERY 15 MINUTES
UNTIL..."
This provides a way for Muni to completely miss bus runs without ANY
accountability. An outsider cannot know precisely how many buses were
scheduled to pass a point in a certain period, and hence cannot know
how well Muni is performing, and hence cannot hold Muni's "bright and
energetic" head Emilio Cruz and its transit-hostile Mayor Willie Brown
accountable in any measurable fashion.
This removes assessment of Brown's campaign promise to "Fix Muni, even
if I have to drive the buses myself" (Chronicle, 2 November 1995) from
something which the public can objectively measure to something
contested via sound bites ("it's fixed!" "is not!")
I do not think it is a coincidence that the switch to the "more
relaxed" timetables occurred just after the Rescue Muni group was
formed, with one of its guiding principles being that Muni must be
held accountable. (See the Examiner, 14 October 1996, page A1)
The interesting and disturbing recent development is the following:
The full Muni timetables were still available to interested
passengers via the World Wide Web. The invaluable Bay Area Transit
Information Project's web pages (http://www.transitinfo.org) provides
complete schedules for more than fifty different transit agencies and
operators in the Bay Area. That is, it did provide complete schedules
for all operators, but now there is an exception. Recently, by order
of Muni's Department of Communications, it replaced Muni's actual
schedules, derived from the same computer systems which assign bus
drivers to bus runs, with the "more relaxed" public-fiction
schedules.
They have thus removed the last potential source of public
accountability for running buses on street from the public realm. While
it may be possible to claim that the "more relaxed" printed schedules
are acceptable (because they convey much of the information which a bus
passenger needs in a booklet about half as thick) there is no excuse
for not providing full information electronically.