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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San Francisco cabdrivers have decided that it’s time to form a union. The local industry has been reeling for years as venture capital-backed ride services like Uber and Lyft have proliferated and taxi companies’ calls to The City to level the playing field have done little to help. On Wednesday, cab drivers voted to initiate the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)…
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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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Chris Hayashi, head of San Francisco’s taxi industry during arguably its most tumultuous times, told The San Francisco Examiner on Thursday that she would step down from her post June 20. The tall, hard-to-miss, curly-haired blonde took over as deputy director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Taxis and Accessible Services Division in December 2008, a time when the industry was in dire need of reform. A lawyer by trade, Hayashi, 51, maneuvered the…
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Jikaiah Stevens was left with more than just massive injuries — which include permanent brain damage — after being struck by a car at a crosswalk. A $141,760.24 medical bill now follows around the San Francisco hairstylist and photographer. The driver at fault had little to no assets, so all Stevens can receive is $15,000 — the state minimum liability to cover bodily injury or death. That figure became state law four decades ago and…
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San Francisco-based ride service Uber announced Thursday that it had cut ties with a driver involved in a fatal collision with pedestrians on New Year’s Eve in The City, denying that the man was working at the time of the incident. However, Syed Muzzafar reportedly told police he was driving around awaiting a fare. The 57-year-old Union City resident was charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and failure to yield to pedestrians in a…
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Last winter, Kelly Breitenbach and her three kids, homeless for
Santa Ana Police Chief Carlos Rojas has announced his resignation,