May 2007

All entries and daily links from May 2007.

Dropping Knowledge

Thursday, May 17, 2007 at 1:05pm 0 comments

Catching up with favorite sites the other day, it was very cool to discover I was one of SFist's top commenters of the week.

Sometimes I feel like I've become their resident Muni apologist, but not every Muni problems rests with the SFMTA. The hardworking employees trying to make things better could use some slack and some public support and understanding.

That is the point of having an Advisory Council of course. We watch through the presentations, learn the bus maintenance details, work with them on the budget, etc. so the public does have a voice and we can relate important information back to everyone else.

Maybe I need my own column, ask a Citizen Advisory Council member.

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Sleepyhead

Monday, May 14, 2007 at 11:05am 2 comments

My brother woke me up saturday morning asking if I wanted to go with the rest of the family and take the kids to the Santa Cruze Beach Boardwalk.

I seldom went there when I lived in Santa Cruz and still as ghetto as I remember, but I'll jump for a chance to spend more time with my niece and nephew. Their legs aren't very long, but it takes a lot of work to chase after them all the time.

Towards the end of the afternoon, my nephew was getting tired and it was my turn to carry him. My sister-in-law said he'll probably just fall asleep in my arms and I had him for less than two minutes when I felt his little body go limp.

I don't know quite why, but that meant a lot to me to just be holding him, just being his loving "uncle Jamie" as he slept.

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Designing Transit Maps for the Rider

Sunday, May 6, 2007 at 4:05pm 4 comments

Last week (via 37 Signals) I found I came across this story of designer Eddie Jabbour who created his own simplified version of the NYC Subway map.

Hundreds of millions of dollars get poured into transit projects, building complex systems like the New York subway. A lot of money is spent studying transportation needs, engineering the best way to get between Point A and Point B. Yet next to nothing is spent once the transit infrastructure is built on explaining to the people it's built for how to actually use it.

It's like buying a Lego set and not getting the instructions.

If the signs don't make sense and people can't read the map, that shiny and expensive subway is going to be useless. Jabber designed a map which doesn't just have colored lines to show the subway routes, he designed a map which represents how the subway works in a way humans can understand.

He designed something his mother could use and even had a chance to present it to the MTA:

[When] he showed up at the agency’s Midtown offices with copies of his work, they were quick to find fault with it. According to Christopher Boylan, the transportation authority’s executive director of corporate and community affairs, who recalled the meeting, the main criticism was that Mr. Jabbour’s map [...] was artistic but geographically inaccurate.

While our own subway map was recently redesigned, it's not any better than before and I wonder what a designer could do with the Muni map.

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