For the last three months of 2010, Muni on-time service was down for a second consecutive quarter, according to a service standards report by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released on Friday. The report states that Muni’s on-time performance fell from 72 percent to 71.1 percent in the October to December quarter last year. On-time […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
Posted inCity Hall, Neighborhoods, Public Safety
Sex, drugs and filth plague city-sponsored public restrooms
Second of two articles about hygiene options for San Francisco’s homeless
San Francisco’s 25 freestanding, so-called “self-cleaning” public restrooms scattered across the city are magnets for prostitution and drug use. They are so filthy that even after automatic cleanings, they require one to five manual scrub-downs a day. The Department of Public Works, which contracted with JCDecaux more than a decade ago to install and maintain the units, blames the company. The company blames the police. And the police say they don’t have time to babysit city toilets 24 hours a day. The homeless are often shut out of the facilities, which constitute the only public restrooms where they are welcome. Meanwhile, San Francisco takes a cut of the company’s profits from billboards that envelope the toilets.
Posted inNews
City transit agency springs Muni fare increase
Update 3/31/11: Muni riders might have been surprised by the fare increase announced Wednesday, but Muni spokesman Paul Rose said the increase was approved last year. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s board of directors approved the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 proposed budget last April, which included the increases to the monthly Fast Passes. Rose also […]
Posted inNews
Industry optimistic about Bay Area biotech future, educators worry about benefits to community
Even in the midst of a recession, the Bay Area remains the leading biotechnology hub. But other areas both in the U.S. and worldwide are making serious efforts to catch up. Can the area hold its position in the next 20 years? That was the question at a recent panel discussion at the University of […]
Posted inHousing
Book examines life along Octavia Boulevard
For San Francisco writer Yvonne Daley, the birth of the city’s Octavia Boulevard signified more than a swanky refurbishment of the streets to replace the neighborhood’s dilapidated Central Freeway. The thoroughfare that was created following the ruin of the freeway in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and its impact on the people who resided there, serves as the backdrop for her latest book.
The book, “Octavia Boulevard,” is designed as a memoir, and Daley moves between stories of her life and the people she befriends in the neighborhood, and intertwines snippets about some of the economic and political issues in the city at large — homelessness, drug abuse, housing woes, same-sex marriage — as it relates to those people.
Posted inUtilities
PG&E proposes charging customers to opt out of Smart Meter program
PG&E has proposed charging residential customers to opt out of having wireless transmission of electric meters turned off at their homes.
The proposal announced Thursday would allow the utility to recoup the expenses it says are associated with running an opt-out program by charging participating customers. The utility has come up with a rate program with one-time charges of either $135 or $270, plus either monthly fixed charges or a surcharge on hourly rates for gas and electric.
Posted inEducation, Technology
City College students struggle to break into biotech firms
City College of San Francisco is helping students without a science background gain laboratory experience to work in the biotech industry, one of the Bay Area’s most promising employment sectors. The idea is to meet the demand in the industry for lab technicians who don’t necessarily have four-year degrees in science. While some big companies have been hesitant to take on two-year college graduates from the Bridge to Biotech program, smaller companies are more willing to take a risk on them. How much education do you need to get a laboratory job? “Science always seemed to me like something for the intellectual elite,” said Kiel Copeland, whose internship led to a job at a San Francisco startup developing drugs to fight HIV and other viruses. “I never saw myself as that.”
Posted inNews
City transit expert, 62, dies unexpectedly
Cameron Beach, one of California’s long-time transit officials and a member of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s board of directors, died from a heart attack last Friday, the agency reported over the weekend. He was 62 years old. Born in 1949, Beach served for 25 years as the chief operating officer for the Sacramento […]
Posted inHomelessness, Neighborhoods
Are food service providers really to blame for human waste in the Tenderloin’s streets?
First of two articles about hygiene options for San Francisco’s homeless
This much is clear: the lack of public restroom facilities in the Tenderloin is causing a stench. Fecal matter covers the streets, making it nearly impossible to walk without looking down to dodge the droppings. But what is less clear is who’s to blame.
At the end of February, SF Weekly, The Examiner and SF Gate each ran stories accusing food service providers of not offering adequate bathroom facilities to accompany their operations – effectively saying that they were stuffing people with food, then giving them no place to go afterwards.
However, an investigation by the Public Press showed that the largest non-profit kitchens, which serve food more than three days a week to thousands of hungry people in the Tenderloin, also provide restroom facilities.
Posted inNeighborhoods, Public Safety, Transportation, Utilities
New Muni crash comes as agency defends safety record
A Muni light-rail vehicle was struck by a big rig Monday morning, injuring six people, according to San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Lieutenant Mindy Talmadge, in an incident that highlights the rancorous debate happening right now at the state level concerning the city’s transport safety.
The California Public Utilities Commission is weighing a decision to penalize San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transit Agency for alleged violations of key safety regulations on its light-rail system, including defective tracks and a malfunctioning automatic train control system.
A failure to communicate more regularly, and transparently, with the state was another charge leveled at the agency in a recent report issued by the commission, which oversees safety guidelines for all rail systems in the state..