> This week I finally ditched the upper Market Street Metro and F Train fiascos,
> and walked to 16th Street BART on Thu. and Fri. Trains appeared within
> minutes at 16th St. and Embarcadero stations mornings and evenings, seats were
> free all four rides, and the trip took less than ten or fifteen minutes, of
> high-speed, air -conditioned service.
. . .
> I feel so rested, and have time to still take a nap, after my perfect commute
> home today.
I'm glad you felt rested, but this was hardly a fair
comparison. You cannot compare BART with MUNI, because of
the funding diferential. As a rider on BART, you got
approximately three times the operating subsidy that each
rider gets on MUNI. Your per-mile subsidy was far higher
still. And, BART's infrastructure subsidy (e.g., for things
like computer controls and new cars) is obscenely larger
than MUNI's even though MUNI carries three times the
passengers. (MUNI underground alone carries three-fifths
the passengers that the entire BART system does.)
MUNI's management is a disaster, but so in many ways is
BART's. If BART had MUNI's money, BART service would look a
lot like MUNI's -- and if MUNI had BART's
money-per-passenger-mile, MUNI's service would certainly be
better.
I don't necessarily disagree with your idea of letting a
number of organizations compete to run MUNI -- so long as
current levels of service are maintained and increases to
rider's costs are controlled -- but I don't think that BART
management would be my first choice. Cruz is a far better
manager than any manager BART has had in the time I have
been following these issues, but he has far, far more
limited resources.
I agree that Brown may have lost is re-election this week.
He brought it on himself. After promising to fix MUNI
within one-hundred days, he totally ignored us for his first
two years. Then, when he realized that MUNI is many voters'
number-one issue, and got his butt in gear too late.
However, let's not forget that this is far from all Brown's
fault. It was not Brown or Cruz who ordered these
rediculously complex Breda's and ordered them way too late,
nor was it this administration who bought the Boeings, nor
did this administration choose Alcatel, or keep them on
after the disaster at London's Underground with the same
system. There is planty of fault to go around for this
disaster, and, although Brown has earned his share, he is
not the sole author of this mess, or even the primary one.
-- Donald
_________________________
Donald F. Robertson
San Francisco
donaldrf@hooked.net
76217.2066@CompuServe.com
Donald's Space Exploration page:
http://www.hooked.net/~donaldrf/index.html
The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually
we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of
inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to
reclaim a little more land. -- Thomas Huxley.