At the Van Ness station platform on a recent morning, three men wearing Muni uniforms stood alongside others waiting to board the next light-rail vehicle, chatting among themselves. The moment an inbound, two-car J-Church train arrived, the men broke off their conversation and methodically entered through different doors — one at the front of the first car, the second at the rear of the same car and the third at the rear of the last…
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There was no arresting explosion, no sudden, defining crack announcing the breakthrough. Only small rocks – occasionally a large slab of concrete – periodically tumbling down a crumbled wall 47 feet below ground level as “Big Alma,” the second of two tunnel-boring machines excavating San Francisco’s first new subway in nearly a half-century, slowly peered its cutterhead out Wednesday. A few dozen neon-vested, hardhat-fitted workers on the project — from the contractor’s foremen to the…
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On weekday mornings, San Francisco residents, mostly in their 20s and 30s, many in jeans and hoodies, a few in khakis and tucked-in dress shirts, form a single-file line against a mural-graced wall by the Muni bus stop at the southeast corner of 24th and Valencia streets. They know each other well enough to line up following a system that lacks public signage, but rarely engage in conversation. Here they wait to catch a ride…
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Last winter, Kelly Breitenbach and her three kids, homeless for
Santa Ana Police Chief Carlos Rojas has announced his resignation,