»In which the N is near

The optimistic folk at the N-Judah Chronicles are selling their witty t-shirt, ha ha ha ha. I do like a cheap pun. In other MUNI news, I overheard one young woman telling another that "MUNI downtown is now free. It's a fare-free zone, from Van Ness." The other woman did not know about this development, perhaps because it's not true. The Mayor is again making noise about making MUNI fare-free, while blithely ignoring the related woes of the MTA. This happens more-or-less annually, whenever the Mayor needs to distract from the city's general budget morass. Last year, cable cars were the whipping boy.
The Chronicle had a surprisingly insightful analysis of fare-free initiatives in the US, including Portland's Fareless Square. The lowdown: "The experience of other transit agencies has shown that the ridership would go up -- a benefit if the goal is to get people out of their cars. But that creates a need for more buses and streetcars and additional maintenance crews, drivers and security workers." One, ironic aspect of this change for MUNI would certainly be that the on-time arrival and speed of buses would need to increase, thus making the service actually appealing. ... And an appealing service would be worth charging for. But since San Francisco cannot really afford to make MUNI free, this is pretty much an "academic" argument. And those women on the bus, well, they will just keep on fare-dodging, as do thousands of riders each day.