A Newsom-appointed panel of transportation experts recommends raising the monthly Muni pass by as much as $15 in the next two years — from $45 to $60 — to offset the potential of a $66 million budget deficit by 2010. Muni's chief financial officer Sonali Bose puts the options in pretty stark terms: Pass the burden onto Muni riders or cut back new services. But wait! It's not all bad: According to Muni, raising Fast Pass prices will actually help poor people:
Bose said the fare increase would also offer justification for Muni’s poorer commuters, who cannot pay the $45 monthly up-front fee and are forced to dole out $1.50 each time they use public transit — a cost that can accumulate greatly over a month of travel. “It’s unfortunate that those who can’t pay for monthly passes are subsidizing transportation costs for those who can,” Bose said.
Did I miss something here? Because the Examiner story never mentions the possibility of $1.50 individual tickets prices going up or down, just monthly passes, and — correct me if I'm wrong — helping poor people usually involves lowering prices, not just raising prices for "rich" people who can afford Fast Passes. At any rate, despite all the fare increase chitchat, MTA director Nathaniel Ford says it's all "purely speculative" at the moment. (via SF Examiner)
Image courtesy/TransBayBlog
I don’t believe that local movie, TV, or music critics have a great amount of unique local value in the era of Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix. I don’t believe that a newspaper in San Jose needs a national issue on its front page every day, with few exceptions. I don’t believe in the Editorial We. I don’t believe that the best newspaper columnists can keep up with the best bloggers in the niches or styles I care about.Read the whole piece here.-Andy Wright
The Associated Press reported on yet another gender-based study today. This particular report was compiled by the Council on Contemporary Families and concerns the changing roles of men in contribution to housework and childcare. The study findings are pretty predictable: men are doing more than they used to. But the aspect of the study the press has clung to is the "Men who do more housework get more sex!" angle. The text of the actual report contains one reference to the amount of sex being had in correlation to the amount of male housework being done, and it is this: "Equitable sharing of housework is associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction — and sometimes more sex too!" All the best scientific reporting has exclamation points in it. (click, 'more')
Forbes came out with its annual list of People Who Can Buy More Things Than You, and the Chronicle was nice enough to parse out the Bay Area individuals who made the cut. There are 1,125 billionaires in the world and 101 of them live in California. Forty-seven of them are in the Bay Area, including the youngest billionaire in the world, 23-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Oracle founder Larry Ellison is the richest Bay Area resident with $25 billion. Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, is the only area woman on the list. Forbes created a visual aid to help readers pinpoint where billionaires congregate in the United States and the result is a map that looks like it's covered in Metal Money Phalluses. Ours is about as big as New York. The rest of the country has confidence issues. — Andy Wright
The boy was easy to find because he spray-painted “bicks one” and “socks” on the door of his own apartment and on the apartment door of his grandfather, who lives in the complex as well, Voetsch said.Don't tag your own door. Also, don't tag your grandpa's door. Seriously. That's just poor form. Also, don't dress like this. –Andy Wright
William W. Piegorsch, a researcher at the University of Arizona, has come up with a very complicated system for predicting what cities are the most vulnerable to bioterrorism, according to an article yesterday on Science Daily. The good news is that he has managed to distill the information down to a pretty map with three colors on it. Green is Good, yellow is Okay, and red is Oh Shit Run. The map takes into account "social aspects, natural hazards, and construction of the city and its infrastructure." San Francisco is ranked a solid yellow. Score. If you are planning a move to Boise, however, you may want to reconsider. — Andy Wright
