In 1973, San Francisco voters approved a “transit first” policy in connection with our long-term city infrastructure planning. While I firmly believe in a transit first policy, I don’t believe the way to encourage residents to use public transportation is by making driving so onerous that people capitulate and abandon their cars. That isn’t reality.
In my opinion, the way to drive demand for our public transportation system is to innovate, turn MUNI into the most efficient operation possible, and make our public transportation system such an attractive mode of transportation that residents proactively choose to leave their cars at home.
However, the policies coming out of City Hall are very different.
Most recently, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) released [...] Read More

My father would have celebrated his 80th birthday January 23. I think of him every day, but especially on that day because it reminds me of what a childlike love he had for birthdays. Whereas most people want to forget birthdays as they age, my father wanted all the bells and whistles — singing at the restaurant, a big cake, gifts — and he would grin that charming grin of his that never faded even as dementia set in.
When we moved him to San Francisco so I could take care of him, I realized that caring for a parent with dementia was much more difficult than I could have imagined. The roles had reversed: He had become the child, and I had become the parent. My father was an active man throughout his life — he traveled with the circus, joined the Navy, nearly made the Boston Red Sox, [...] Read More

It’s a most cruel twist of fate. People living in the Northside of San Francisco are still talking about how Tom Ferguson, a popular Marina resident, was killed after being struck by a car on Lombard, near Bobo’s restaurant on Sunday night, March 25. He was 45. Tom’s girlfriend, Amy Collins, was with him, but not injured. Tom was a bartender at Harris’ Steakhouse. He loved the outdoors, whether being on the water, hiking up a hill, or playing golf. He once hit a hole-in-one. Amy is the sister-in-law of Peter Osborne, owner of Momo’s and Pete’s Tavern, near the ballpark. It’s astonishingly sad, but Amy’s best friend was Rory Moore, who was fatally injured in the collapse of a staircase behind her home on Russian Hill. That happened on March 18, just days before Tom was kille [...] Read More