"transit first" will drive you crazy

The City leaders in the Mayor's office, City Hall, DPT, and Muni have an open and aggressive policy to make it as difficult and as expensive as possible to own a car in this city, much less drive.  And forget about parking.  These policies fall under the utopian idea of "Transit First," wherein personal conveyances are unnecessary thanks to fabulous systems of public transportation.

It's just that the public transit system sucks epic.  The citizenry's unbridled hatred of Muni service is exceeded only by it's disdain for Muni management.  "Transit first!"  the officials cry as they remove parking, prevent parking structures, and tax the hell out of auto-owners.  "Take Muni to the Insert-Great-Event-Here!"

Trust me, we would all love to take Muni, but the odds we can cross a city only 7 miles across within an hour is a total crap shoot.   Often the emphasis is on the crap.  It kills me that I am only four or five metro stops from downtown, and it often takes an hour to get there, that is if there is not some system failure or unannounced redirection.

The real pain comes when the City expects everyone to use public transit for high-population events, but the transit agency takes no actions to provide increased or adequate service for such events.  Pride brings a half a million people downtown, but more years than not Muni is running it's usual light Sunday schedule leaving hordes of citizens stranded around the city.  Or the Giants' World Series parade.  Or concerts around town.  Or New Year's Eve.

A timely case in point is this weekend for the three-day Outside Lands super music festival in Golden Gate Park:  As reported in the local blog Civic Center:

The Outside Lands music festival started its three-day rock music marathon in Golden Gate Park on Friday, and this was what was printed prominently in an Examiner story:

The crowds on Friday were dutifully following this advice but the criminally mismanaged Muni system hadn't bothered to schedule any extra buses on the few lines that travel close to Fulton and 30th Avenue such as the 5-Fulton, so the vehicles were overfilled before they even exited Market Street for the park.

The crowds on Friday were dutifully following this advice but the criminally mismanaged Muni system hadn't bothered to schedule any extra buses on the few lines that travel close to Fulton and 30th Avenue such as the 5-Fulton, so the vehicles were overfilled before they even exited Market Street for the park. 

Beleaguered Muni drivers were forced to drive by stranded would-be passengers without stopping for them, and frustrated concertgoers were then trying to hail nonexistent cabs.

"With extremely limited parking availability at the Outside Lands music festival, taking public transit or alternate means of transportation is encouraged in order to reduce congestion."

The blog's photos of sardine-packed Muni busses is disheartening.

And according to Akit's Complaint Department: Half of the parking area at Ocean Beach was closed off for Outside Lands attendees, and only one car parked there.