San Francisco Enlists Bus Cameras For Traffic Law Enforcement

Lashat writes with news that San Francisco's Muni bus system has outfitted 30 buses so far with "cameras capable of snapping photos of vehicles illegally traveling or parking in The City's transit-only lanes," and that 15 months from now, all of Muni's 819 buses will be equipped with the cameras: drivers caught on tape violating the bus lanes will be subject to fines of up to $115. 'The cameras have been instrumental in changing driver behavior. When cars see a bus coming, they get the hell out of the way now,' said John Haley, transit director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates Muni. Now for the scary part: 'We're starting to get a lot of experience with cameras,' said Haley. 'With all the footage, I'm starting to feel a bit like Cecil B. Demille.'"

Peterbilt parking

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Drivers are parking in bus lanes? Man, but these people are desperate. I always thought a solution to the parking nightmare in SF and elsewhere would be to modify those car carrier semi trailers so they could be used as mobile mass parking in some fashion; build upwards, in other words. Might block the view from somebody's Queen Anne though, so scratch that.

Re:Peterbilt parking

[drinkypoo]

The solution to car problems in SF is to get rid of cars. That moves the problem domain but I can't think of how many times I've thought of how fucking great SF would be without all those damned cars everywhere. Maybe just push them out of the city center, don't allow people to drive in the marina either, et cetera. As it is, it's just another noisy collection of imbeciles that it takes ages to get across at traffic time.

Re:Temptation

[Ihmhi]

Some cultures are heading more towards a 1984 style of control and some go for the Brave New World approach. San Francisco seems to enjoy taking the worst elements from both books and just running with it.

Points on your license?

[rsilvergun]

without that it's just another regressive tax on the working poor. And before a bunch of /.er's chime in with 'How can you be poor & live in San Francisco', don't forget the rich hire maids, gardeners, bus boys and other low income workers that still have to get to work at their wealthy boss' house. I always found it odd there was always a ghetto nearby every rich community until I realized this.

Maybe it's different in San Francisco and they can get around on the bus system quickly and conveniently. Aw, who the heck am I kidding. Why spend good tax money on public transportation when you can just make the poor get up 2 hours early to ride the bus in.

Now, if they're putting points on your license then I like. Here in Arizona we learned from California's mistake and stopped putting red light cameras in rich neighborhoods where the stay-at-home moms could organize a vote to ban them. We keep 'em in the poor neighborhoods where everyone works two jobs. Unlike a cop a camera doesn't know not to ticket a late model BMW or Mercedes.

so

[unity100]

best use of public land would be to stuff more people, each one of them occupying some 10 m2 area with their cars to transport their single person, instead of fitting bus lanes in there, which will provide transportation rate of 1 m2 space occupied per person ?

excuse me, but engineering-wise, that would fail you an exam.

Re:Points on your license?

[Afforess]

Lol what? I visited San Francisco over Christmas and rented a home inside the city center, the bus system was great! The waits at any station was never > 7 minutes, and usually 2-3 minutes. Almost everyone there used the bus systems, and you can also use BART to get outside of the Bay area if you need to. I wish the public transportation in my area (Grand Rapids Michigan) was half as good as San Francisco.

I think commentators should stick to topics they are familiar with instead of making wild, false claims.

Re:Flag Button

[TaoPhoenix]

Wow, that's right.

We've had 10 years of crappy First Posts but it was in the name of freedom of speech, and NOW we get a "Flag" button? And that actually leads to potentially having the comment *totally disappear*?

When did THAT arrive?

Re:Points on your license?

[adenied]

I live in SF and this is true for a very small portion of the city. If you want to get many places be prepared for a 45 minute bus ride for something that would take half as long or better to drive. I'm sure it's better than Grand Rapids. But Grand Rapids is about the same land area as SF with about 1/8 the population. For things as spread out as that mass transit is difficult.

There are many times where Muni buses only show up every 30 minutes or so and many cases where you need to take two buses or a bus and a Muni Metro train where you're going to wait 15+ minutes at the transfer. I try and use mass transit as much as I can and I'm luck to live near the Castro so I have a lot of options. But in many cases I'll just say screw it and drive because it'll be so much faster.

Re:Points on your license?

[AK Marc]

I've found that greens pushing public transport prefer to punish cars with parking fees and changing light timings to cause traffic problems to encourage bus riding, rather than admitting that public transport sucks and working to improve it.