Links of Interest: Muni Town Hall Meetings (again), Twitter Talk, Etc.

There’s quite a lot going on around town. The biggest and most fascinating and important one is of course a Town Hall Meeting on Muni, tonight at 6pm at Muni HQ. A word of advice if you plan on attending – just showing up and telling a horror story about your commute isn’t enough to really do anything to impress the MTA commissioners to do anything for you. If such pleas did anything, well we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in.
Instead, you really should try and push them to consider real revenue measures to plug the multi million dollar hole the state created for Muni (and all transit agencies). We can’t plug that hole with a few parking meters and more parking tickets and declining service and fare increases. Until the Mayor and his crew get serious about that, all the pleas in the world will fall on deaf ears. The Examiner had a summary of what other agencies have done in similar situations you might want to read first.
If you can’t be there, but want to follow along, you can go to SFGOVTV.org, or watch it on cable TV, or follow any one of a number of people who will live tweet the meeting.
But not all is doom and gloom out there. The other day I was pointed in the direction of this Trulia website by SallyTV, and it’s an interesting look at neighborhoods, based on when homes were built. It’s rather startling to see an area like the Inner Sunset, which had the majority of homes built before the 30s, and hasn’t really changed that much. Other neighborhoods spring up at different times. Try it out, it’s fun!
Finally, my friend Joe at SF Weekly called and we had a talk about Twittering Muni. They were even kind enough to post an image of the FailWahle N Judah, which my friend Lauren designed. (Although to be fair, they did repair that sinkhole rather quickly on Saturday, which averted a Hellish commute on Monday.)
UPDATE: I caught up with some twitter coverage of the hearing, and it was nice to hear so many people at least try and offer the MTA some suggestions on ways to find a real solution, and not just complain. Will the MTA Board listen? Probably not, but that’s because their boss, King Green Gavin, doesn’t want Muni to work, and is committed to destroying the system.
Oh, here’s something else to consider- Nate “300,000/year+benefits” Ford gets paid for the length of his contract NO MATTER WHAT. That means he can screw up as much as he likes, get fired and STILL GET PAID. Kinda puts that driver bonus into perspective, eh? I mean, the man makes more than a Supreme Court Judge….and yet he can’t explain why a train in the West Portal tunnel in 2010 can’t run faster than a train did in the 1930s.