Mission Mission

[via Tara]

Our pal Inna saw her life flash before her eyes this morning:

Ok not even funny anymore – I just had a terrifying moment with a Google bus turning from 24th onto valencia that nearly killed me and one other person. We had the green light still – it was very clearly green, and he just plowed into the intersection. Cars stopped and honked, people screamed, and even google’s minions waiting in line to board the thing looked up from their phones.

I don’t even know what to do – who do I complain to? Who will listen or care? It’s simply not safe for these gigantic buses to have complete reign of the streets. It’s a terrible feeling to not feel welcome in your own city- this is the icing on the cake.

I also experienced a harrowing moment last week while biking north on Valencia approaching 25th Street.  One of the behemoth buses pulled up alongside me and then tried to beat me to the stop on the NE corner, almost pinning me to the sidewalk.  Luckily I was able to maintain control of my bike and sprint past it, but damn!

I don’t drive, but if I did I would be livid with these buses.  I routinely see a tech bus chilling at a green light waiting for another tech bus in front of it to finish its business at the stop located across the intersection.  So imagine you’re stopped behind a bus at a green light and it just sits there for a couple minutes while the lights cycle through, and finally when the first bus is finsished unloading or dropping off or whatever does that green-light-chilling bus cross the intersection and awkwardly pull over in just enough of a diagonal to continue blocking the street.

Did we really kill the 26 Valencia Muni just so these giant out of-control buses could run wild?  I know it’s a broken record at this point, but just remember that these buses are another example of something that incoveniences (and sometimes endangers) the public and whose only benefit is increasing profit for private companies (by enhancing their recruiting efforts and employee productivity).

Essentially, all the buses really do is transfer the extra minutes that their employees would have to wait if they took regular public transportation along to everybody else.

Previously:

• The Google Bus: “If you want an iPhone, a Facebook profile, and Google Maps, this is part of the price you’ve gotta pay”

Our pal Carlos noticed something quite peculiar the other day:

An NYC cab spotted on Camp and Albion streets this morning.

Must have been a pretty pricey ride!  Perhaps they should have taken Uber?

[via Elle]

Well, just look at this beauty.  It’s even got one of those rad triangle antennas on the back, but you’ll have to trust me on that one because no pics.  Why someone decided to take a road trip from Texas to the 22nd Street Caltrain station is beyond me, but at least we get to marvel at this magnificent chariot while they’re here!

Neighbor Natalia wants to know:

Any idea what is going on with the property/parking lot on Shotwell & South Van Ness between 23rd and 24th?

People there have regularly been burning trash there in what appears to be a metal barrel, creating a lot of flames, smoke and foul odor. The past two nights the Fire Dept has shown up.

Seems like a pretty cool club to me. (Bummer I got rid of my old Volvo.)

I swear, renting a car in this city is one of the most inconvenient activities one can do.  You have to take BART all the way down to SFO ($10), deal with the airport crowds, and finally hope that you’re driving down south for whatever it is you’re doing because otherwise you’ll have to backtrack all the way back north to and through the city.

City Car Share and Zipcar are doing a pretty good job of filling the gaping hole left by the unpleasant rental car experience, but this entrepreneur has taken it one step further by cutting out the middleman entirely!  Just try to do a better parking job when you return it.

Not sure if this is real or fake (or some daft new food truck), but hey, San Francisco everybody!

[Photo by Captain Alex DeWall]

Whoa, did you think I was talking about these bad boys again? Nope.

Watch:

Not quite as good as that Maserati owner that drove his own Maserati into a Muni maintenance trench, but pretty good.

Although, these Seattle vandals could use some dick-drawing lessons from the pros here in SF.

P.S. This is a $2.5 million car.

[via Metro]