Post Punk Kitchen Forum

A fire early Thursday morning in West Oakland disabled all transbay BART services. They're trying to get more buses up and running for the morning commute, but apparently there are no buses to spare. Because we have such a fine transit system in place already!

Anyway, I'm posting here in case anyone sees this on the PPK before the news or, even worse, before they head down to BART for their commute. Also for us to rant, because this is just forking ludicrous.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/wes ... ice/nPTxg/

I also discovered today that you can do a trip planner on 511.org and select 'additional options' and you can exclude BART from your search to find alternate routes into the city.

Here's hoping I can fit on an AC transit bus sometime today!

is that what all the protesting is that I can hear is about? I'm somewhere not far from Geary & Powell, but can't quite make out what the chanting is

No protests, just a fire that shut down service.

I managed to squeeze onto an AC Transit transbay bus today, and only 5 more were able to squish on behind me. We had to pass about a dozen people each at the next two stops, they were majorly bummed. It was an uncomfortable ride, to say the least.

Wow. A fire? Crazy. I heard something happened with BART, but because my job is only a block from my house now, it's not really something I have to think about.

I wonder how long it'll be closed, because I'm definitely going to have to hop over the bay tomorrow... I hope I don't have to drive - I hate cars!

I seriously wanted to scream this morning. I walked into Powell BART, discovered BART wasn't running, walked out to try to find a solution... AND GOT CHARGED $5. And the agent wasn't helpful at all, just told me to keep going to Embarcadero and good luck. The people working at the Transbay Terminal were also crassholes and I missed several buses that would've gotten me much closer to work.

My students had a final exam this morning, so I couldn't be late.

After leaving my apartment at 6:50, I FINALLY got dropped off a little ways from MacArthur BART at 8:10. I ran the 1.5 miles to work (in a skirt and sandals) and got there at 8:25. Thank freaking god.

I wanted to scream. But, Erika, I think you had it way worse... The line for people waiting for a bus at MacArthur was seriously I think about a quarter of a mile long. INSANE.

The fire happened at TWO IN THE MORNING. You'd think that by rush hour they'd have figured out shuttles or extra transbay bus service or SOMETHING.

ARGH RANT WARRGARRBL.



That's people in front of a hotel near... Geary and Mason, I think. I don't know what they're protesting about, but they've been there for MONTHS. On nice days and weekends they'll have a good turnout, but on weekdays it's just a couple dudes (always the same) yelling into a megaphone. I'm glad I live a few blocks further on and don't have to listen to it.

THAT IS THE WORST. I hate that they do that. They claim it's so people don't 'go sightseeing' on BART, riding the rails all day for free. Which is ridiculous. I could ride the rails all day and then get off one station away from where I got on and still only pay $1.75. I could hop back on and ride one stop to where I got on and pay another $1.75. You'd think on the day that transbay service is unexpectedly suspended, they would figure out how to prevent people from having to pay that stupid $5 fee.



I was pretty lucky- my friend called me at around 6:15 to warn me and I was able to plan my alternate route from home. I live close enough to University that I was able to catch a regularly-scheduled AC transit bus. That said, I was squished onto that thing and only 5 people were able to fit on after me. We had two more stops before the freeway and both times the driver had to tell the dozen people waiting that she was full and couldn't take them. The next scheduled bus was 20 minutes away.

apropos mini-rant #1: I'm not a coder or a web developer, but I would think it would be fairly easy to set up a temporary link on 511.org's trip planner to automatically take people to a trip planner that automatically excludes BART? I tried to plan my route yesterday morning and the first thing 511.org told me to do was walk to my local BART station. REALLY? This is San Franfuckingcisco and we can't figure out how to make our website sufficiently functional?

apropos mini-rant #2: This whole debacle just underlines how sorely lacking the Bay Area's public transit options are. With BART shut down and no ferry within ten miles of my house, I was crammed into an extremely awkward standing position for about 20 minutes on an overcrowded, infrequent AC transit bus, while looking through the window onto the new construction of the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge, and thinking how nice it would be if that big wide pedestrian path also had a bike lane! To top it all off, I was reading this article the day before about how forked up MUNI is- seriously, plastic bags and paper clips are holding these buses together! How is it we live in one of the wealthiest areas of the country, with a housing market whose prices are consistently 60-70% above median, with enormous tech & agricultural industries, and yet our public infrastructure is falling apart? Someone's not paying enough taxes.

I desperately want a bike lane on the Bay Bridge. That would change my life in the most magnificent way.

Amen. The traffic yesterday after work was INSANE. I was stuck in gridlock ON MY BIKE. The cars were packed so tight I couldn't even filter through.

I recognize that the bridge is 5 miles long. And that we often have shitty weather in the bay. But SERIOUSLY! Give us the option and let us suffer for ourselves!

I kind of remember Nate once telling me that maybe they couldn't have bikes on the bay bridge because of the wind? Maybe I am making that up.

It sucks aout the BART yesterday. There as a fire up here and they closed down 101 as well, I sear that with our extremely dry winter we are going to have a lot of fires this summer. Last year there was one on the hill where we live.

I would love to get someone who is a transportation planner to weigh in in ways to fix the transportation problems. DC certainly had better public transit and that was also a mess, the metro was constantly being closed for something. The last summer I was there the line I lived on had a collision and then trains couldn't run on part of the track for so long and they had to go super slow.

Yeah, biking on a long bridge in any sort of wind sounds scary.

People on motorcycles have died on the James River bridge in Virignia--one last year was blown across two lanes and over the side.

I used to hate going over that bridge with my dad on his bike. It has an open slat road so you could look down to the water. <shudder>

The DC metro is almost useless except in the city. It's actually often easier and quicker to drive from Vienna vs going through the orange line.

I would ride the hell out of the bay bridge. It might be windy, but so is the golden gate bridge, so...

That really sucks! I was texting with my friend when she was on BART that evening, I guess it was right after it reopened and she said it was so weird being on an empty train during rush hour.

This all sounds like stuff that happens in NY on the the buses and subway, too. I feel like we have the most efficient public transit system i've been on and there are still tons of problems. I think the advantage we have is that we have more frequently running trains and buses. And also it would usually only be one or two lines that were shut down, not the entire system. But there have been times where the rain was so heavy that the subway flooded and i couldn't go to work at all. the entire subway system out of queens was shut down and the above ground trains like the long island railroad were flooded, too.