<< Regarding Muni's ability to get cars towed: I'd like to know about that
too.
Last week on "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving, I rode my bike
downtown. I was flabbergasted to see a dumply little car sitting in the
right lane of inbound Market Street near fourth, in front of Walgreens.
Hazards lights and emergency brake on, and noone in the car. It wasn't
causing a complete impasse, but it slowed down everybody's ride down market
street because all cars and busses had to use the center lane.
>>
Super Bowl Sunday, 1981. I'm working in Amtrak's Oakland 16th St. Station.
The Oakland Raiders are in the Super Bowl and are winning. All the people with
seniority are home watching TV. Down on Jack London Square the revelers are
pouring out of and into every bar and restaurant. Finding it hard to park
some wound up leaving their cars on the railroad tracks that go down the
middle of The Embarcadero (that's Oakland's Embarcadero, gang). We're waiting
for train 14, the Coast Starlight, Los Angeles-Oakland-Seattle. It's stuck at
Jack London Square. I have a railroad radio in the back of the ticket office.
On the radio the engineer is saying there are cars on the tracks that need to
get towed so he can continue on. Dispatcher: "It's going to be a bit of time
getting the tow trucks, and the police are raiding the bars trying to find the
owners. You may be there a while." Engineer: "I got 6000 horse worth of
locomotive here. Maybe I can do it a bit quicker." The dispatcher and
engineer talked more on the subject and the engineer finally thought better of
it. The train was almost an hour late getting into Oakland.
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