Muni Forward! RT @MrCleanSF: More red lanes coming to make traffic safer & quicker. pic.twitter.com/cS1pouRDay
— Ed Reiskin (@EdReiskin) May 7, 2014
Ed, you lovable doofus. "Muni forward!" That sounds like either the lamest office party chant or a leftover Cold War-era Soviet Young Pioneers slogan.ANYWAY, here's the idea. These red lanes are supposed to be for buses (and taxis I think) only, thereby making buses go faster because they have their own special lane and don't have to sit behind cars while cars sit still at stop signs because the drivers are reading text messages or looking at Twitter on their cell phones. I don't do that and I would never do that.
The way they work is that sensors inside the red paint can detect when a normal passenger car is driving in the restricted lane and the sensors activate a series of embedded electrical generators, which send a powerful shock up through the street, leaving the driver of the car in intense, excruciating pain.
j/k, that doesn't happen. The way they work is they rely on the Inherent Goodness of Humanity to keep people from driving their cars in the red lanes.
THERE'S ONLY ONE CATCH: There is no Inherent Goodness in Humanity. People drive in the red lanes all the time! WHEEEEEEEE LOOK AT ME IDGAF!!!!
And that just happened to be randomly captured by the Google Street View car. If you ever go to the Safeway on Church & Market, you know what I'm talking about.
What's the solution? Wait for the Sun to swell and engulf the Earth as it dies in 2.8 billion years. Pending that, a little enforcement! Not SFPD's strongest suit, but it's so crazy it just might work.
Muni forward, comrades!
3 comments:
Given the number of cars that already drive in the green (bike) lane on Folsom in SOMA every morning, I find this result to be COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED.
I'm not sure "safer and quicker" go together when talking about traffic, but I get the idea. Sometimes (about 0.05% of the time) drivers honestly don't know what's going on and get stuck there. But 99.5% of the time, they just don't care.
This enforcement thing you mention, how does it work? SFPD isn't just going hang out and suggest people obey the law, you know. It's almost like we need a financial incentive for the cops to do so, and a disincentive for the drivers to be where they shouldn't... OH WELL I GUESS THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN...
If only the SFPD brought forth the enthusiasm towards ticketing cars in red lanes as they did towards busting cyclists on bike to work day.
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