A new agenda for the supes and new buses for the streets

Anybody who’s sat through a Board of Supervisors meeting knows the torture that is waiting for the one item out of dozens you care about.

First, the 11 supervisors debate the minutiae of all the items you don’t care about. Then, they each offer commendations for the best restaurant or best small business in their district. Then, they talk about legislation they’re introducing and offer their condolences for residents in their district who have died,

Then, dozens of people speak — or sing ( we love you Walter Paulson) at public comment. Then, the supervisors get to your item, by which point your parking meter has long expired and and you need multiple shots of espresso to regain consciousness.

Democracy. Isn’t it great?

Come November, you could help change all that. A group calling itself San Franciscans for Open Government, sporting a photo of a meeting attendee asleep on its website on Thursday will file a ballot measure with the Department of Elections to try to remedy these problems.

David Lee, a political science instructor at San Francisco State University, is leading the effort that would require all city public meetings to be streamed live online, allow people to offer public comment remotely and create a “time certain” agenda designation — meaning any time 50 members of the public petition for a specific time for an agenda item to be discussed it will.

Lee said the current system prevents people with regular jobs, parents, caregivers, students and small- business owners from participating in the government process.

Lee’s group will file its measure at 10 a. m. Thursday. Then the city attorney’s office will have 15 days to write a title and summary. Then, the group must collect nearly 10,000 signatures of city voters to qualify it for the ballot.

— Heather Knight Ah, that new- bus smell: Another crop of shiny new Muni buses are coming soon to a street near you, though that new bus smell probably won’t last long.

The first of the new buses — all 60- foot buses that bend in the middle — were unveiled Wednesday at a city Earth Day celebration at Boeddeker Park in the Tenderloin. Sixty of them are electric trolley buses powered by overhead wires, while an additional 61 are dieselelectric hybrid buses that burn biodiesel.

All of them were clean, bright and free of the detritus and odors all too familiar to Muni riders. Two new buses — one of each type — sat on Eddy Street Wednesday morning, parked headed in the wrong direction. They attracted plenty of visitors awed by the pristine vehicles.

The buses are lowfloor buses that don’t require much of a step up to board. They have more straps, bars and poles to hang onto, and they’re painted yellow to make them more visible. They’ve also got stroller parking spaces and open seating areas in the rear.

Riders accustomed to the long trolley buses will notice that they don’t have seats in the accordion zone, the central area where the bus turns. Also missing: some of the familiar signs, replaced mostly with visual images. That includes the classic Muni message: “Information Gladly Given But Safety Requires Avoiding Unnecessary Conversation.”

The 121 new buses are part of an ongoing campaign to expand, modernize and upgrade the Muni fleet. The agency is in the process of buying 200 standard ( 40foot) buses and up to 163 articulated low- floor biodiesel- electric hybrid buses. The two new buses shown off Wednesday are being roadtested and should be in service within weeks. The current batch of new trolley buses will arrive between now and May 2016. The new hybrid buses are coming between June and September. More buses will arrive in phases over the next six years.

John Haley, the Municipal Transportation Agency’s transit director, said it’s not looks or comfort but reliability that’s the main reason for buying the buses. About 40 percent of Muni delays are attributed to bus breakdowns.

— Michael Cabanatuan