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Indybay Feature

Failed T Line is 1st Stage; Central Subway Part Way to Chinatown is Next Horror

by +
If you have not had enough of the disaster in capitalist "planning" with the failed T Train line, you should know the horror show has just begun, courtesy millions of our hard-earned tax dollars. The next stage is the Central Subway EXTENDING the T line from 4th & King to Clay and Stockton, with no connection to the Market Street subway!
If you have not had enough of the disaster in capitalist "planning" with the failed T Train line, you should know the horror show has just begun, courtesy millions of our hard-earned tax dollars. The next stage is the Central Subway EXTENDING the T line from 4th & King to Clay and Stockton, with no connection to the Market Street subway!

The preliminary announcement is on the SF Municipal Railway website at:
http://www.sfmuni.com/cms/mproj/indxmuproj.htm

This little handwarming boondoggle, which like the rest of the T line, exists to make the construction contractor friends of the Democratic Party machine at City Hall richer at taxpayer expense, will not solve the problem of overcrowding on the 30 Stockton line from Market to Columbus as (1) it does not connect to the Market Street subway and (2) it ends at the beginning of Chinatown, namely Clay Street, instead of going to Columbus. The overcrowding on the 30 Stockton is from Market and Kearny to Columbus and Stockton going north and from Columbus and Stockton to Market and 4th Street going south. The digging for this Central Subway is sure to disrupt the current Market Street underground and above ground transportation, and all of Union Square shopping, should they actually construct this completely unnecessary theft of our tax dollars. All that is needed on Stockton is more buses.

This must be an issue in the current year's mayor's race and we all expect to have at least a Green Party candidate for mayor. The current anti-rent control, anti public schools (Newsom promotes "charter schools" on his website although the City does not run the school district), election-frauding idiot, "mayor" Gavin Newsom, cannot even guarantee decent, timely, affordable public transportation in San Francisco, a city that is very suited to public transportation and cannot tolerate any more cars. The Democratic Party promoted the re-building of the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park instead of moving it downtown or to the Fisherman's Wharf area as 80% of the visitors are tourists, and the new building is a monstrosity with a hideous tower. Neither the art museum nor the aquarium/science museum should be in the park and the park should be closed on the weekends. Parks are for people, not for cars. Cars are global warming machines and must be scarce while public transportation and bicycles should be common.
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Everyone looks for big bucks solutions.

Why not fit the Stockton Street Tunnel with "people movers" (moving sidewalks like at the airports)?

In the meantime it is horrid how crowded the Chinatown buses get today.

People movers would be a simple, beautiful solution with a small enviornmental impact and many advantages.

Imagine it.



We can all walk on the sidewalk through the Stockton tunnel on both sides, and hundreds of people do so everyday. It is about 4 blocks long, from Sutter to Sacramento Streets. That certainly connects Union Square to Chinatown. We can also walk on Grant Avenue and the very flat Kearny Street. There is no need to spend any money at all on electricity using "people movers" or on construction projects. Most of the people riding the 30 Stockton do not have packages and are not disabled. They could easily walk from Market Street via Stockton, Grant or Kearny Streets to their destination in Chinatown, as well as uphill to their apartment. It is 1/2 mile on Kearny from Market to Columbus. Anyone between ages 10 and 60 who is not disabled and not carrying packages should be able to walk from the Union Square Shopping District to North Beach (Columbus Ave) EASILY, and should make it a habit to do so. Anyone ages 10 through 40 who is not disabled and not carrying packages should be able to walk the one mile from Kearny and Market to Columbus and Lombard or from 4th and Market to 4th and King Streets EASILY. It is ridiculous for very able bodied young people who are not carrying any packages to be crowding onto buses for 1 mile or less, and teenagers and 20 year olds should be able to walk 2 miles EASILY from Geary and Market to Geary and Fillmore, for example. Now that we have knapsacks and suitcases on wheels with handles, we can pull lots of packages easily while walking. Along with encouraging bicycling, we should encourage young people to walk at every opportunity. It beats paying to exercise and we all need to exercise for good health. This idea that we have to sit in a vehicle or be carried on some conveyor belt to get anywhere, especially for short distances, is deadly for our health and for the planet. Walk for your life and the planet's survival!
The "solution" the Democratic Party machine of San Francisco, led by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, has for their TOTAL DESTRUCTION of the Muni Metro is to ATTACK LABOR by cutting the measley $26 per hour (about $55,000 a year, enough for 1 person, but a family needs $120,000 a year in and near SF to live decently) and changing their work rules and schedules. This viciously reactionary gang also wants to use regressive taxes such as parking meter and garage fees to pay for Muni, which can only be paid for with federal income taxes. GREEN PARTY: WHO IS YOUR CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR?

This plan, supported by 4 of the Democrats sitting on the totally inept Board of Supervisors, and for which 6 supervisors or just the mayor alone are needed to put it on the mayor's election ballot this fall, is more fully described in the SF Chronicle, 4/15/07 at:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/15/MUNI.TMP

In case anyone who has not ridden the Muni Metro and/or the T line has any doubts, please look at the rider comments at:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/15/MUNI.TMP
People are waiting 20 to 35 minutes for the train, sitting on the Metro in the tunnel for 20 minutes at a time, taking HOURS to get from point A to point B in a town that is 7 square miles. This is what the Democratic Party CELEBRATED on April 14, 2007, including but not limited to "mayor" Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. WHERE IS THE MONEY, NANCY PELOSI? DID YOU GIVE THE $124 BILLION TO THE MILITARY ALREADY FOR OIL PROFITS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN?

IT IS TIME TO GET RID OF THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MACHINE AT CITY HALL NOW. We need lots of Green Party and Peace & Freedom Party candidates to run for office as most of these supervisors are termed out in 2008. Meanwhile, there is the mayor's race this year. The election calendar at http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/election/Candidates_&_Campaigns/FinalNovemberCityCalendar2007.pdf indicates that signatures in lieu of filing fee must be gathered in June. Any Green Party candidate will do as they all have the same program, being pro-rent control and for working public transportation systems, as opposed to the current election frauding Democratic incumbent who is anti-rent control, staunchly supports the real estate speculators, wants to promote anti-labor charter schools although the City does not run the school system, and HAS DESTROYED MUNI METRO. STOP VOTING FOR THE DEMOCRATS. They need to be replaced with Green Party and Peace & Freedom Party candidates immediately.
by Scott Mercer
Buses are not the solution. They can only handle so much capacity. Since buses ride in mixed traffic with other vehicles, they get backed up and can cause gridlock. If the headways are too short, you get 2,3, or 4 buses "bunching up", and then no buses arriving for 15 minutes. If you don't want a subway, the only answer is bigger (60 foot articulated) buses, and reducing the private automobile traffic in downtown by imposing massive congestion charges for entering the downtown area (which would reduce the traffic downtown, here's hoping).

Yes, there should be a connection from the Central Subway to the Market Street subway, but this can be built later, with simple underground pedestrian tunnels. This would involve a one or two block walk through an underground passageway to switch from the T to the M, for example, but this is doable. There are several points in the New York subway system where this happens, and it's no problem, people walk through it every day to switch trains. There's even underground shopping with stores along there.
by small is beautiful
Walking through the Stockton Tunnel is not pleasant. Many elderly have told me they are currently afraid to walk through the tunnel.

It could use better lighting, and it should definitely be cleaned up. It is an eyesore now.

Speaking of eyesores-- has anyone noticed how completely Chinatown and the rest of the city has become?

SF has always had tagging and graffiti-- but since Newsom became mayor, it is as if the vandalism is on steroids. The problem is of little concern so long as the wealthy can shield their eyes from it by living in their bubble worlds.

Even inside of every bus. Walk past the first section of seats nearest the driver and you will notice every available inch taken over by gang graffitti. They are advertisements for intimidation.

I love to imagine a city that is smart, enviornmentally sustainable, frugal but accomodating.

(Therefore my idea about people movers through the Stockton Tunnel-- technological tools that work somewhat like accelerators on a HOtWheels (TM) track! Of course-- unless they were attractive-- and worked as intended-- there is no point.)

Airports and ballparks get all the juice it seems-- like AT&T park which gets Homeland Security funding which pulls police from the crime-ridden neighborhood it sits in. Visit either and you begin to get an idea of how plewasant life can be-- unless you become entrapped by them (their monopolistic purpose is to shake you down because of your need for something that you cannot live without: sport and travel).

Like Kennedy said-- you can measure a society by the way it treats is least priviledged citizens.

Look around.
by HOW COME
how come none of these white liberals ever mention the mass gentrification and repression of workin class people of color that this T line is going to cause? the same way the mission district is being gentrified for yuppies and tourists, this will happen to all the workin class hoods the T line goes through (double rock, sunnydale, bayview/hunters point, visitacion valley, potrero hill, kirkwood). Gentrification means increased police terrorism, evictions, cultural whitewashing of the neighborhoods culture, and much more. Many of my friends families have already gotten eviction notices in the hunters point area since the T line started. The whole direction of the debates around the T line and muni show the complete ignorance about and disregard towards poor people of color by san francisco's "liberals". liberals dont give a fuck about poor latino and black people. Like those adds that says "discover" the bayview? WHAT THE FUCK?? its already been discovered, a lot of poor people live there, they just want yuppie white people to discover it. the city wants to make san francisco a city for tourists and the rich.

what the fuck happened, i thought indybay was strongly anti-capitalist (as it says on the website), but it seems like yuppie liberals have taken over it.
by +
To "how come," please see the other article on this subject and its comments at
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/14/18398398.php
and
http://www.indybay.org/comment.php?top_id=18398398
This is certainly an attack on the entire workingclass, regardless of color, and of whom I am one. This is an effort to privatize our bus and train system, which will hasten its demise and make San Francisco a city where the rich live and the rest of us are outside the City, commuting on non-City transportation, such as expensive BART. This is, of course, all not feasible. A City must have a public transportation system and a workingclass to provide the labor for all the businesses. However, stupidity knows no bounds when it comes to maximization of profit, the primary goal of capitalism. We are certainly not liberals on this website. Most of us are tenants who benefit from and depend upon rent control for a roof over our heads, said rent control being opposed by Democrat Gavin Newsom and his predecessor, Willie Brown. This writer also walks the Stockton tunnel, Grant Ave, Kearny Street, and many other streets in this City as my aging legs permit, has ridden the 15 bus from 4th and King to Market many times, the 30 Stockton from 4th and King to the Marina and many points in between and has called San Francisco home all my life, over 50 years. The graffiti started around 1990, as the school system declined. The buses I ride,which are many and varied, are not filled with graffiti. The Stockton tunnel does need more lights and there are other options for walking through Chinatown such as Grant Ave and Kearny St, the last being the best. The elderly should be on buses; it is able bodied young people who should be encouraged to walk. After all, it is a cheap way to loose weight in our sedentary society. Clearly, the 15 bus line needs to be restored until the problems with the T line are fixed. I do ask that everyone stop voting for any and all Democrats. This attack on the workingclass by Democrat Peskin should be a clear warning to all that the Democratic Party has finally removed the veil of a pretense of concern for the workingclass and is showing its true capitalist colors. The Green Party and Peace & Freedom Party need your support if there is to be a good public transportation system in this City, affordable housing for the workingclass, good schools and all the other services we workers need and will run more candidates if you show you want them in office by voting for them.
by responded to me
i followed da links you posted, and still didnt see any significant mention of gentrification. Although these attacks are on da workin class as a whole, people of color are affected worst. Regardless of whether a white person is working class or not, they wont face da same harrassment and attacks as workin class people of color, especially youth. black and latino youth have to trip over kickin it in their own neighborhood because of police. people of color get harrassed, robed, beat, and even killed by police, and this aspect of gentrification (not that this violence of the police towards us is absent without gentrification) primarily hurts people of color. We also cant ignore that while yuppies can be of any race, the yuppie invasion of the mission district overwhelmingly consists of whites. because of this race dynamic, when gentrification starts to change the cultural aspects of a neighborhood, it is practically a form of cultural colonization. gentrification also cant be stopped by voting, the people from these neighborhoods need to take direct action, in whatever form that may be.
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