Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Let’s hope not. SFGate’s Rachel Gordon has the story of a new citywide program to encourage people to eat healthy and exercise by sponsoring an art contest for kids. The tikes’ posters will adorn 800 or so buses in upcoming months.
Cute.
Thx: SF City Insider
Photo by Jonathan Snyder, of @jonsnyder fame.
It sure was a busy weekend on the wires for transit news. While we would’ve loved to have been out in the cold, breezy sunshine, instead we were stuck indoors, with our eyes glued to the wires. Here’s what we found.
SF Appeal followed up with answers to their question, Have you ever seen SFPD on Muni? The article includes an interesting field report from Steve Rhodes. And San Francisco Citizen caught wind of a wicked photo of a Muni bus that had been co-opted by the police during Saturday’s war protests. Still trying to get to the bottom of the bizarre SFPD-SFMTA-City and County of San Francisco love triangle. We’ll let you know what we and others find.
Just before we left the office Friday, we noticed this article on Streetsblog, picking up on this report from The Examiner, which asks the pertinent question: Should Nat Ford stay or go? The original reporting in The Examiner’s post sounds like Ford’s departure is a done deal. It seems to us the rumors of his leaving serve as its justification at this point. Better to get someone new in who’s committed to not using the position of general manager as a stepping stone, we say.
Happy a wonderful first weekend of spring, despite the Bay Area weather forecast.
Photo by davidimlaydotcom from the Muni Photos Flickr pool
The following is by Suzanne
Has anyone noticed how the baristas at the Embarcadero Peet’s Coffee are incredibly friendly and nice? I remembered them being peppy. The other morning I walked up to the counter bracing myself, ready to cringe at “happy happy happy” service, but instead I was charmed. This is no Burger World. The workers at Peet’s seemed genuinely nice. Their smiles were real! They made real eye contact. They joked and teased each other. It was mesmerizing. In a silly way, it melted the grumpster in me.
Cynics might say, “Wonder what they put in their coffee.” Sure, the coffee is good. But it was seeing people having a good time at work, being nice and silly to each other and customers alike that put a smile on my face. And then, when the caffeine kicked in … even the dullest doldrums in the T were looking pretty good.
Second update: ABC 7 now has a slide show of the war protest up.
First update: Looks like SFGate is the first bigger operation (the kind that pays its staff) to get the story of the Market Street protest online. Nice work, Rubenstein. We still want to know what you think of this sort of protest. Tell us in comments.
Original post: Are you downtown? Do you see this happening?
A couple of tweets on the event:
dreamnotoftoday Four protesters removed from train track and arrested. Tracking now flowing on Market. #sf #iraq
californiabeat DEVELOPING: Anti-War protest blocking Downtown SF intersection at Market & Montgomery Streets. Police preparing for arrests.
Here’s a post with photos from last year’s (pre-President Obama, mind you) Iraq war protest.
What do you think of these Iraq war protests, where people are lying across the F tracks on Market? Let us know your feelings on this, the anniversary of the war, in comments.
Photo by Twitterer dreamnotoftoday