What The Heck Happened Yesterday, Muni?

Yesterday our Giants played here at home at the first game of the World Series. Awesome!
People chose to take transit home to watch the game, instead of driving like Muni said to. Awesome!
Then the system decided to choke in ways we haven’t seen in a while. NOT AWESOME.
I knew something was up when a friend of mine who wanted to watch the game with me at the Blackthorn on Irving wasn’t around at the agreed to time. Then I got a text indicating that “something is up with Muni” and figured maybe it was just being slow.
Then the Twitter exploded with tweets about stalls, a broken set of doors, and more. At first it seemed that the trains were just in manual mode (i.e. slower) but more and more people reported they were not able to get home. Several people reported being trapped on the train, with no information as to why they were stuck in the tunnel. All they knew was they were missing a great Giants game, and this reinforced the all-too-frequent “Muni sucks” meme. Worst of all, riders on the N were short turned after this incident, making them even later getting home.
Now, I know and accept that things break down – heck when you have a backlog of maintenance like Muni does, inevitably things will break down – but it’s a bit hard for the average owner/rider to fathom how it is that Muni could pull off 3 days with many well-attended events (Fleet Week, America’s Cup and a ton of neighborhood events) without many problems, but can’t handle a basic rush hour commute + a Giants game. I mean, WTF?
This situation is a reminder that we need people at City Hall and the MTA and Muni who can be responsible with limited resources. Thus, it was quite aggravating to hear, on a day when we are reminded the system is literally falling to pieces, a few greedy politicians at City Hall want to use one-time grant money for giving away fake “free Muni” to the kiddos, instead of using to do something like, um, oh I don’t know FIX THE DAMNED TRAINS AND BUSES.
I think we have to call it like it is here – these greedy politicians (people like “Supervisor” David Campos) are proving that they are either too stupid or too greedy to understand how Muni works or how best to spend our money. Greedy David Campos doesn’t really even care about fake “Free Muni” for the kids – this is just a stunt he can use, along with all that money he’s raising from special interests – to boost his campaign for Assembly in 2014.
What’s that you say? You didn’t know that Greedy David Campos, who is running unopposed this year, is raising money for a campaign? And he’s not even going to serve a full term if elected in 2014? Well now you do – and you can see why Stalin-style elections don’t serve anyone well. No one can stand up to his politics of personal greed and his anti-Muni policies – he gets a walk, and he gets to dole out your money to a narrow faction of people in town he’ll need in 2014 to run for another office.
Supervisors, naturally, are threatening to hold a hearing on this issue. You can bet that the greedy politicians and their apparatchniks at politically connected non-profits will be there for public comment to blather on about how we have to give the “gimmes” another goodie, even though we don’t have the cash to operate the system properly.
If you’d like more reliable service, and would like to put a stake in the heart of greedy politics, send your Supervisor a note telling them just how stupid it is to take one-time grant money and blow it on a program that’s all about politics, and not about making Muni better.