This was omitted from yesterday's blog. The problems of the San Francisco Municipal Railway have been much in the news recently especially concerning late buses and trains. Yes, there are quite possibly internal administrative problems but the problem of slow buses is another matter. As anyone who drives knows, you can not make much headway if you have to stop at every corner for a red light. Well, the Muni, in a number of cases, has bus stops at every corner. In fact, in my neighborhood there are at least two instances where the #27 bus makes two stops in the SAME block. That is ridiculous! Another problem is heavy traffic downtown. There are too many vehicles on the streets for anything to move efficiently. Even in the early 20th Century the officials in New York City recognized that problem and began building subway lines all over the place. In fact, in 1931 there was a proposal, prepared in San Francisco by City Engineer M. M. O'Shaughnessy for several rapid transit lines in the city: 1 - Market Street, 2 - O'Farrell-Geary, 3 - McAllister, 4 - Mission-Capp, 5 - Van Ness-Potrero, 6 Kearny-Third St. - 7 - Sunset Route, and 8 - Seventeenth St. Route. With some modifications, there was also the Ridgway-Brahdy rapid transit report of 1935 for rail subway and elevated routes. These are illustrated in Anthony Perles' excellent book "The People's Railway". So who dropped the ball in this every important matter? Now we are paying the penalty of not following through and building some of those lines. Ironically, the Third Street route has now been built, or at least part of it. Phase two must be completed to Chinatown and then phase three on out to the Fisherman's Wharf area must be implemented as well. Since building subways in the 21st Century is such an expensive task we need to find some other way to lessen downtown traffic and should consider banning private autos and trucks from certain streets during the commute hours. If Market Street east of Van Ness Avenue, for instance were car free from 7 AM to 9 AM and 4:30 to 6:30 PM Monday through Friday this would go a long way towards speeding up Muni buses. The same applies to Sacramento and Clay Streets east of Powell Streets. Unfortunately Van Ness Avneue is part of U.S. 101 so that can not be touched but SOMETHING needs to be done. How about our own version of Boston's "Big Dig"???? :-( Well, then, maybe not, but San Francisco officials need to bite the bullet and take some sort of action on this matter.