Southside inside - Enhanced coverage of San Francisco’s southern communities
July 2011
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Serving the Potrero Hill, Dogpatch, Mission Bay and SOMA Neighborhoods Since 1970
T-Line Frustrates Southside Riders By Simon Stahl
Photograph by Paul McDonald
T-Line trains roll along Third Street in Dogpatch.
Starr King Open Space Elects New Board By Sasha Lekach, with support from Tim Henry Five years after embezzlement emptied Starr King Open Space’s coffers, the revamped nonprofit is still working to recover its financial footing. Last spring the second batch of board members were elected under the organization’s new leadership structure, responsible for maintaining the 3.5 acres of grassy hillside located between 23rd and Carolina and 24th and De Haro streets. Seven new directors were installed on the board in June, following a May election. The election marked the last time all nine board positions will be open simultaneously; the previous board updated the nonprofit’s bylaws, establishing staggered terms for board members in the future. New members include president Julie Shumate – who replaced Caroline Bird – vice president Webb Green, co-secretaries Christina Quiroz and Jannella Stebner and treasurer Daniel Fineman and directors Alexander Jones, Jennifer Serwer, Kathyjean Boise and Christa Conforti. Conforti and Green are returning board members. Overhauling the bylaws was just part of the former board’s legacy as the first board to take over the beleaguered SKOS after the remnants
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of the previous board departed in 2006. “Things got tightened up,” Green explained. “The old bylaws we were running by before hadn’t been tightened for 10 years.” Bird, who will be leaving Potrero see Starr King page 10
Last month District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen solicited public opinion on the Muni T-line’s effectiveness at a City Hall hearing. Along with Supervisor and Land Use Committee chair Eric Mar, a frustrated Cohen sat through Municipal Transportation Agency director John Haley’s presentation on the T-line and its challenges. Haley inexplicably left meaningful data out of his introductory speech, promising instead to deliver the statistics at a later date. The combined K-T is Muni’s longest and newest light rail line, operating since 2007. It extends from the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Balboa Park station, up Market, past Embarcadero and AT&T Park, and along Third Street to Bayshore and Sunnydale, making 43 stops on its 14.5 mile route. It takes roughly 76 minutes to travel the entire line, though most passengers use it to commute in and from downtown. The line carries about one-fifth of Muni’s riders. “The single biggest customer complaint is travel time,” said Ha-
ley. “Why can’t it go faster? It is the fastest line in travel speed.” Muni cars have average speeds of 11 miles per hour (mph) from Sunnydale to Mission Rock. The Mission Rock to Folsom segment is slower, at eight mph, below the 10 mph average for other light rail lines. A three mph difference in speed translates into a half hour longer trip over the entire route. To increase speed, Muni cars are equipped with V-Tags: transponders that alert traffic signals in advance of their arrival at an intersection. Without shortening pedestrian walk times, the lights are supposed to change before the trains ar rive. “Sometimes they don’t work,” explained Haley. “Are they on every car? They’re supposed to be, but…I’ll check. The T-line is only on schedule 58 percent of the time, well below the system-wide average of more than 70 percent. Equipment failure was responsible for more than half of the 302 delays longer than five minutes that Muni’s light rail experienced between last March and May. Failure of the Auto Train see MUNI page 12
Changes at Farley’s, But It’s All in the Family By Sasha Lekach This summer longtime coffee shop owner Roger Hillyard will retire from Farley’s, located on 18th and Connecticut streets. Hillyard won’t be moving to Palm Desert, or Florida, but rather to Hayes Valley. But after more than two decades as a neighborhood fixture, stepping away from his beloved café is a big change for Hillyard, his family and the community. Farley’s – named after Hillyard’s infamous grandfather, Jack Farley, who disappeared in 1921 and whose silhouette marks the company’s logo – has kept the Hill caffeinated since 1989. Two years ago Farley’s expanded to the East Bay, with Farley’s East on 33 Grand Avenue, in Oakland; last year Farley’s flag was planted at 1195 65th Street, in
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Emeryville. While the café has expanded, Hillyard will, perhaps, contract. The café owner will move to the San Francisco Zen Center on Page Street to live and practice meditation. For the past four years Hillyard has been traveling to the center from his apartment above the Potrero Hill coffee shop. At the age of 68, he’s fully committing to Zen practice, and handing the business over to his son Chris and daughter-in-law Amy Hillyard. “I’m extremely excited about retiring. I’m happy Farley’s gets to stay within the family,” he said. “While Chris and Amy are going to make some changes to suit their style, it will always maintain some essence of what Farley’s is.” Chris, who helped build the original Farley’s 23 years ago as a teenager, will take the helm of the
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three Farley’s locations, following his experience managing the East Bay outlets. The couple live in Oakland with their four- and five-year-old daughters, but will move into Hillyard’s apartment above Farley’s for six weeks this summer to get a firsthand view of the neighborhood, meet employees and customers, and implement their “enhancements and improvements,” Chris explained. Amy, Farley’s coffee shops’ creative director, is in charge of the café’s food and interior design. Design and dining changes to be implemented on the Hill this summer may include sales of beer and wine, and an expanded food menu, similar to the East Bay stores, which serve paninis and soups. Changes will be made to table and chair layouts, see farley’s page 6
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