And Now, A Study on Muni by the Institute of No Duh

Betcha didn’t know that Muni’s been running kinda slow lately, did ya? Well just in case you really didn’t know, a new study was commissioned that found MUNI has been slowing down 1% a year, for the last 20 years!
Now, what struck me was not so much that the MUNI system has been getting slower and whatnot due to traffic and the like – rather it was the fact that these kinds of studies hadn’t been done over the last 20 years. Now you would think that a system that keeps saying it “needs money” and complains about “no money” but can only seem to come up with fare hikes and crappier service as a stopgap would instead take a look and ram through some real changes that would make the system work better.
Then, oh I don’t know, if it worked better, maybe more people would ride it, sans bribes from Spare the Air folks. But instead, we’ve had pencil pushers who just look for some half-assed fix, and never really confront how to make a system that works, how much a functional system costs, and then find stable ways to pay for it.
The report on KTVU was illuminating in one respect – it seems Mayor Newsom was delayed so much by a 1BX bus he ended up walking to work. At least he rides the bus once in a while. We all knew Slick Willie was too arrogant to even look at a bus, much less ride it, and I don’t know how many of our esteemed electeds actually ride a bus anymore.