Articles Posted by Susan Vaughan
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Minding Muni, Part V
All over the country, public transportation systems are cutting back service under the weight of huge budget deficits. Most people think these agencies are casualties of the recession, and to certain extent they are probably right. But to me, these agencies and their ballooning deficits are something else also — they are canaries in the coal mine, indications of problems that go deeper than even the subprime loan fiasco that many are blaming for the current state of the economy. Collapsing transit agencies are signs that the anti-tax mania of the last few decades is a failure. They are also signs that our western lifestyle — dependent as it is on plentiful and cheap natural resources, especially fossil fuels — could be reaching its limits and going into decline as demand now begins to outstrip supply.
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Minding Muni, Part IV
If you’ve gotten on a 38L recently and noticed newspapers strewn about, banana peels here and there and graffiti all over the floor from front to back – as I did recently – there’s a reason: in response to ongoing budget deficits, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) cut 14 transit car cleaners on January 25, leaving 84.
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Minding Muni, Part III
The SFMTA – an agency that required $800 million plus annually up until last year – has been suffering budget deficits on and off since 2005. Last year’s deficit reached an initial $128.9 million in February and March.
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Minding Muni, Part II
Concerned citizens watch a February 26 meeting of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency which met to discuss Muni service cuts and fare increases to close a $12.1 million budget shortfall in the current fiscal…
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Minding Muni
Muni drivers have incredibly hard jobs. They sit in the same position for hours and take all kinds of abuse from the public. They deserve to be paid well. At the same time, they are not completely blameless. Perhaps the work rules do need to be tightened up, but the general public should be clear: getting changing operator work rules will bring back some money to the agency – but $15 million is not enough.
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ACLU Responds to US Government Reluctance
to Defend CIA Torture ProgramBy Susan Vaughan July 6, 2009 American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing five victims of a US government clandestine extraordinary rendition and torture program, filed its response yesterday to US Justice Department lawyers seeking to…
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Federal Judge Issues Mixed Rulings
in Warrantless Wiretapping CasesA secret room in the offices of AT&T in San Francisco where internet and phone data is allegedly being surveiled by the NSA without warrants or subpoenas. By Susan Vaughan June 5, 2009 A federal…
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