Car traffic in Silicon Valley

If any drivers is getting bored, they can look at the huge billboards lined up along the edge of the highway. There, companies like Oracle, Microsoft, or sometimes a clothing chain like Gap advertise their products. Traffic planners also come up with the craziest things to regulate traffic: for example, traffic lights at highway on-ramps that turn green for exactly one second and then switch back to red. This way, a car enters every 10 seconds, quickly merging into the constant flow of traffic on the highway without causing anyone to slam on the brake. Although this means a long wait at the entrance, once you're on the highway, the traffic is flowing smoothly. At least in theory.

I have already mentioned the carpool lanes before: During peak hours, only cars with two or more occupants (sometimes the limit is even three) are allowed to drive in the leftmost lane, encouraging people to form carpools. By the way, a child in a car seat also counts as a passenger. A pregnant woman once even tried to argue before the California Supreme Court that she should count as two people -- but she was unsuccessful.

But even the carpool lane is congested in the morning hours. Instead of getting upset pointlessly, I like to hop on my bike -- as I mentioned in an earlier newsletter -- to ride to the train station, and take Silicon Valley railway to commute to work.

The Silicon Valley Railway

Every morning when leaving the San Francisco station, the conductor announces over the loudspeaker that 1) smoking is not allowed (in California, you can't smoke anywhere except on the street), 2) you are not allowed to put your feet on the seats (which is an imposition for Americans, as they tend to put their feet up everywhere, some even put their feet on the conference table during meetings!), and 3) you should not adjust the seats. These seats have backs that seemingly allow you to adjust them to face forward or backward -- but if you try, the backrest gets terribly stuck halfway, making the seat unusable and requiring the carriage to go into maintenance. I laugh myself half to death every time an American, who has never taken a train in their life, tries it and spends the rest of the journey trying to fix the backrest. No one has ever succeeded; it's hopeless. At the station, people often ask me if you know where to buy tickets. There are Americans my age who have never taken a train in their life. And I'm not getting any younger!

The conductor remembers whose ticket he has already punched by hanging a small card over the corresponding seat. If you change seats because your neighbor is snoring or smells of alcohol, you have to take the card with you and move it, otherwise the conductor will ask for your ticket again the next time he comes through. By the way, why don't train conductors in Germany remember it this way and runs through with "Shift change, tickets please?" instead? Incidentally, changing seats is a typical American phenomenon that I have never found described in literature and that I want to discuss today: People here, on the bus, tram, or train, tend to change seats unexpectedly. In Germany, if your seat neighbor gets up and moves three rows ahead, you think, "Did I eat garlic yesterday or what?" I have often noticed in Munich that I stayed in my seat even if it was drafty, smelly, or the sun was glaring--just to not offend my seat neighbor. Here, it's not uncommon for people to change seats three times if they are traveling ten stops. Mysterious America! You read it first in the newsletter!

In America, by the way, employees cannot deduct commuting expenses from their taxes. If you live far from work, it's your own fault. However, Netscape pays each employee $30 a month if they use public transportation to get to work. You receive a check that can only be cashed by train, bus, and subway operators. This only covers about a quarter of the costs, but it's at least a step in the right direction. Additionally, Netscape offers a shuttle (a private bus) that picks people up from the train station and takes them to work. In Mountain View, private buses arrive in the morning with "Netscape," "Microsoft," or "Hewlett Packard" written on them. Public transportation in Silicon Valley is practically useless; I've never seen a bus going anywhere I wanted to go. I would never get on the Microsoft bus, of course; I would rather walk the three kilometers to Netscape in torrential rain.

The one-way trip from San Francisco to Mountain View costs four dollars. If the station has a ticket counter but you buy the ticket out of laziness from the conductor on the train, it costs an extra dollar. In Germany, this is quite normal. But anyone who thinks an American would accept this is mistaken: If the conductor asks for the extra dollar and politely explains why, there are regularly people who get upset and start lengthy discussions! Some conductors simply no longer charge the additional dollar because it doesn't really show up in the evening's accounting; after all, the passenger could just as easily have boarded at a station with no ticket booth. There are only three stations with ticket booths between San Francisco and San Jose, which is 90 kilometers further south! As we hear, ticket machines are supposed to be introduced soon everywhere! Wonders of technology!

By the way, no one is expected to deal with any confusing zone systems here like in Germany. In illustration 6, you can see a 10-ride ticket (costs $34, saving 15%) that shows "Zone 4." But that's only for the conductor; no passenger would know that. Instead, you simply tell the ticket counter person where you want to go. It's also straightforward in the subway: you pay the same price ($1.10) throughout the entire city, and if you want to go to the suburbs, every ticket machine indicates how much it costs to go where. No one is required to abstract themselves into any complicated grid or zone systems.

Bringing a bicycle onto the train, as I have written before, is often an incredible source of frustration, especially when the bicycle car is full, which is when you're not allowed to board, and you have to wait half an hour or an hour for the next train. Some conductors allow more than the maximum number of bicycles on board, and there usually are no problems with that. But if a conductor is strict and leaves people standing outside, they get a lot of flak from the cyclists. Here in California, it's common to be flexible when the situation requires it. Anyone who blindly follows silly rules is considered a fool. I still remember Munich, where it's a regulation that buses must have "contact" with the bus stop sign, meaning they can't stop beforehand, for example when traffic conditions would allow it. Here in San Francisco, a bus might stop well before the stop depending on the traffic situation, and then you just quickly walk between stalled cars to get on, no problem at all. Recently, a bus driver didn't open the door beforehand when traffic came to a halt and drove all the way to the bus stop sign. People couldn't stop complaining about it!

By the way, someone who is very meticulous, as I have mentioned before, is called a "Nazi." The first time I heard this was on the TV show "Seinfeld," where it was about a soup vendor who always harassed people and was colloquially called the "Soup Nazi." If someone from the Seinfeld crew didn't follow the soup nazi's rather arbitrary rules, he simply wouldn't sell them soup and would yell with his Argentine accent: "No soup for you! Come back next year!" But the soup was so good that people came in droves and allowed themselves to be harassed. I laughed tears!

Many people are typing away on their laptop computers during train rides, which is okay. But, to my dismay, there is too much mobile phone use. I've heard that, by now, everyone in Germany has a mobile phone too. I also have one because it's practical if my bike has a flat tire or if I miss the last bus. But I would never think of making a phone call on the train, where everyone can hear what I'm saying! I don't know why, but when someone next to me is on the phone, it annoys me more than if they were talking to their neighbor. Probably because the protocol is so predictable: "Hello, this is...!" ... "Good, and you?" ... "Hey, I'm on the Caltrain!" ... "So, I have to go now!" ... Arrrgh! I would be a regular in mobile phone-free carriages! By the way, more and more fine restaurants here are starting to note on their menus that a) smoking and b) letting mobile phones ring is not allowed.

In Mountain View, through years of pioneering work, I've discovered a route from the train station to Netscape that goes over a few bridges designated only for bicycles and through parks, instead of following the congested main roads. Initially, I asked colleagues based in Mountain View if such a route existed, but received negative responses, as no one in Mountain View is riding a bike or walks. In suburban America, people tend to drive even for small errands, like buying bread, even if the supermarket is only 100 meters away from their home.

In the Los Angeles area, this sometimes leads to the police stopping and checking pedestrians, as no "normal" person walks. As a result, locals are familiar with every car shortcut that involves briefly getting on and off three highways, but they know nothing about routes through parks where you can zip through on a bike like lightning. Going on a tangent, I firmly believe that Mountain View has the slowest traffic light in the Northern Hemisphere. At the intersection of Central Expressway and Moffett Boulevard, it surely takes five minutes to change!

But in Mountain View, there is actually a bicycle bridge that goes over highway 85 (Figure 9). In winter, by the way, it is pitch dark there by 6 PM, and in the park through which I ride after work, there is no light anywhere. My bicycle only has a blinking light, which makes me visible but does not illuminate my path. The result is a 1.5 km long blind ride through the park, and every rustle in the bushes makes me pedal faster. It gets my adrenaline pumping, and I wouldn't stop for anything or anyone!

The Streets of San Francisco

Michael Apart from the unbearable traffic conditions, there is another reason why I don't like to move our car: It is very difficult to find a parking spot in San Francisco. Since we don't have a garage, if one of us comes home with the car after seven in the evening, we sometimes have to drive around the block for up to half an hour to find a spot. If we happen to have parked the car near our apartment, we think twice about moving it again. Parking spots are evaluated based on street cleaning days -- a "Monday parking spot" has to be vacated on Monday because that's when the street sweeper comes. Getting a Monday parking spot on a Tuesday, where the car can theoretically stay for a whole week, is considered a superhuman achievement, often celebrated with champagne. On the other hand, if you park your car late on Tuesday evening on a 7 AM Wednesday parking spot due to lack of alternatives, you might as well go to bed wearing a fool's cap.

The best parking spot is, by the way, what I call the "Pole Position" -- right in front of the house. ("Pole Position" is what they call the best starting position in car races). We get this parking spot extremely rarely, maybe once every three months. Then the car is only moved if someone needs to go to the emergency room at the hospital.

Furthermore, you are not allowed to park near fire hydrants; you have to keep a distance of about eight and a half feet or so. Back when I obtained my California driver's license, I had to memorize that, but by now, I don't remember it anymore. It always reminds me of an old movie with the Marx Brothers, in which Groucho Marx had an inflatable hydrant in the car that he would place on the sidewalk when needed to scare away drivers parked in that spot. There's also some rule about intersections, but it's not taken very seriously. The actual rule is more like: if it doesn't directly harm anyone, it won't be punished. In Germany, I once received a ticket for parking against the direction of traffic--here, no one cares which way the car is facing. What's important on steep streets is to turn the wheels in such a way that if the gear slips and the handbrake fails, the car rolls against the curb and stops there. If you don't do that, you'll get a ticket because there have been serious accidents when old cars started moving on their own and thundered down the hills. Angelika always scolds me when I only gently turn the wheels and not, as the lady wishes, so that they almost pop out of their sockets. However, my dream is to one day get such a ticket, frame it, and hang it in the bathroom.

A recent update: The other day, I wanted to drive to the office in the morning, went over to 23rd Street where our car was parked, and couldn't believe my eyes: On a 30% incline, there was a black Acura Integra parked sideways on the sidewalk, right in front of a garage. And the license plate read "PERL MAN"! An approximately hundred-year-old woman was frantically moving around it, and a younger gentleman, who could no longer get out of his garage because of it, had just called the towing service. It turned out that while parking, the woman had bumped into our car with her massive 1960s Oldsmobile from above, causing our car to roll down the hill on its own, despite the handbrake being engaged and the gear in place. Thanks to the wheels being turned towards the curb as required (Angelika had parked), it only hopped up the curb and came to a stop just before the garage. The woman had kindly already tucked a note under my windshield wiper: "Please ring 647-92.. -- will explain." Well, I would have been curious about that explanation. But luckily, I happened to be there, found that nothing much had happened to our car (minor scratches don't count in America), whereupon the woman thanked me with "Thank you for being so nice." The garage guy quickly canceled the tow truck, I drove the car off the sidewalk, and headed off to work in Mountain View as usual. In all the excitement, I unfortunately had forgotten to photograph the scene. You experience things in this city!

Radar Traps

Michael I had already written that on California highways, the speed limit is usually 65 miles per hour (100 km/h). However, on weekdays, outside of rush hours, hardly anyone adheres to this limit -- 85 mph (130 km/h) is more common. You can do this safely as long as you're not the only speeder on the road, because in America, there are no speed cameras.

Instead, a police officer in an officially marked patrol car has to park on the side of the highway, measure a passing car's speed with a radar gun, chase the speeder, catch them, pull them over, and issue a ticket by hand. This takes a good 20 minutes, so if there are maybe 5 patrol cars between San Jose and San Francisco, the chance of getting caught speeding is almost zero. You usually see the police car from a distance, and then the whole line of cars magically slows down, only to speed back up to 85 shortly after.

It's only dangerous to drive faster than everyone else or to keep changing lanes. That stands out, and it can also happen that a police car or motorcycle cop comes up from behind faster than everyone else. In that scenario, you need to be careful and keep an eye on the rearview mirror. If it does happen that a "Ford" brand car, model "Crown Victoria," with flashing lights is following you, you should immediately pull over to the right and stop on the shoulder, even on the highway, if it's safe to do so. It's also very important to stay calm and not get out of the car, as police officers in America are allergic to any kind of sudden movements. When the officer gets out and approaches the car (on the highway, by the way, they approach on the passenger side), you roll down the window, and if he says "License and registration please," you hand over your driver's license and vehicle registration. If the latter is in the glove compartment, it's advisable to open it with a quick hand movement -- but only if you want to hear the sound of a cocking hammer and look into the barrel of a handgun. By the way, police officers in the US don't collect any fines; that is done via a transfer, and any waving of cash is considered bribery, so be careful. If you receive a "ticket" for speeding, you get penalty points in California, which not only go on your driving record but are also 100% certain to be reported to your auto insurance. The insurance then promptly raises the premium. However, you can work off the points by attending traffic school. Usually, this involves sitting in a classroom for a few hours on a Saturday, listening to accident statistics and driving tips, but recently, in some counties, you can also work through a traffic rules catalog online, take a test in the form of a webpage, and if you pass, have the points removed. That's progress!

Parking in the City

Michael Regarding our parking situation: In San Francisco, a street sweeper truck comes by on most streets once a week. During this time, parking is not permitted, as the sweeper needs to pass through without obstruction. Therefore, it's important to always check the displayed street cleaning signs before parking your car. Each street has its own cleaning schedule. For example, on the east side of Church Street, where we live, it's Wednesday from 8 to 10 in the morning. On the west side, it's Monday, also from 8 to 10. On the north side of 23rd Street, it's Friday from 12 to 2 in the afternoon. On the south side, it's Tuesday, also from 12 to 2 in the afternoon. The street sweeper usually comes by right in the middle of the two-hour window, accompanied by some ticketing officers who issue $30 tickets for each parked car--but only immediately before the sweeper passes through. Once the sweeper has gone by, you can park again on that side right away, even if the two-hour period hasn't passed yet.

However, 22nd Street down to Church St is so steep at 31.5% that no street sweeper can drive there. And the trash rolls down the hill on its own! That's why you can always park there. However, parking your car at 90 degrees as required, and it'll end up sitting at a disturbing angle, and would likely tilt during an earthquake. If you go on vacation for a week, you need to find someone to keep moving your car around according to the schedule.

Since our car is often parked five minutes away from the house, I tend to forget exactly where it is. Who was the last person to come home with the car and when? Where is the parking spot this time? That's why Angelika once went through all the streets in the neighborhood, noted down the respective cleaning times, and manually created a nice plan that now hangs on our door. An oversized thumbtack always indicates where the car is currently parked at and whether the street sweeper is coming by today.

Public Transportation

Michael San Francisco also has a public transportation system called the "San Francisco Municipal Railway," or "MUNI" for short. Bus lines with numbers and streetcars with letters (J, K, L, M, N) transport people above ground. The line that passes by our house on Church Street is called J-Church. By the way, there is a fairly well-known alternative rock band in the USA named "J-Church." The music might be rather ungrounded, but guess which city they come from?

There's also a subway: the so-called 'BART', which stands for "Bay Area Rapid Transit". However, one shouldn't imagine it as a subway network like those in European metropolises. Instead, there is exactly one line from Daly City (south of San Francisco) up to the Bay Bridge, to continue under the Bay. On the other side (in the East Bay), it continues in various directions. While BART is much more reliable than the MUNI, it still doesn't run as regularly as its European counterparts: on weekdays during the day, it might run every 10 minutes, but on Sundays and public holidays, you might end up waiting around at the subway station for 20 minutes and more.

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs!

Michael When you're on foot, you no longer have to worry about being ambushed by some wild street gang members -- San Francisco has become very tame lately. Instead, there's a new nuisance: Recently, while I was training for the marathon and running through the "Glen Park" neighborhood, I encountered a woman pushing a stroller, and a dog. The dog was a completely unremarkable-looking like a Collie (like Lassie), and I unsuspectingly ran past the trio. Suddenly, the unleashed mutt snapped at my calf and bit into it!

I barked a few words at the woman that were shocking even by American standards (see the newsletter before last on freedom of speech) and ran on, only to realize shortly after that I was actually bleeding! Fortunately, the tetanus shot I had received six years ago in Munich was still effective. Funnily enough, a somewhat more tragic incident involving a fighting dog had occurred a few weeks earlier in San Francisco: In a high-rise building, a leashed fighting dog had snapped at a neighbor's neck and killed her! The two owners were then charged with attempted murder or manslaughter because they had allegedly trained the animal that way. I realized I could have easily gotten millions out of the stupid cow with the unleashed collie, but I am generous and do not sue mentally challenged people.

Generally speaking, dog owners are a bit eccentric. If a dog poops on the sidewalk, the owner must clean it up immediately, or else they face fines. People use a transparent crinkly bag, which they bring with them, to cover their hand, then they reach into the -- I speculate -- still body-warm clay-like droppings, pull the bag off like a glove, and wrap it around the brown giant. Well, to each their own. This does have the advantage that in America, you rarely step in dog poop -- in four and a half years, I've only had a stinky lump on my shoe once. But that's not all there is to say about dogs. Angelika, take it away!

Angelika Not only since Michael was bitten by a dog have I been observing the dog epidemic in San Francisco with suspicion. Until now, I have held back with my comments, thinking that I might be suffering from selective perception. I am simply afraid of dogs. Dog owners also make me uneasy, as they always claim their Fido is the most peaceful. Even if Hasso is baring his teeth and pulling on the leash. I am one of those people who often cross the street just to move in a "dog-free" zone. This is becoming increasingly difficult in San Francisco.

Walking up 24th Street in our neighborhood "Noe Valley" (or is it perhaps already "Dog Valley"?) on the weekend is no easy task for a dog-phobic person like me. Every three meters (I'm not exaggerating), you stumble over a dog surrounded by a crowd of people: "Oh, isn't he beautiful!" "What's his name?" "Can I pet him?" Many shop owners also have their dogs with them during the day. A nightmare for people like me who love to shop but prefer to avoid every dog. That's why I don't enter the new boutique on 24th Street called "A Girl and Her Dog." They do sell very nice clothes, but, you guessed it, I would also have to deal with the shop owner's dog. A few doors down at "Tully's," a small street cafe, you'll find a water-filled dog bowl and a friendly note that they have small treats for four-legged friends inside the cafe.

San Francisco loves its dogs. I am no longer alone in this observation. Just in May, I read an article in the "San Francisco Chronicle" that extensively reported on this "crazy love" and raised the question of when the humanization of dogs began. The concept of the dog as man's best friend is not exactly new, but the services for dogs and stressed dog owners that are mushrooming in and around San Francisco are.

I'm not talking about the traditional dog boarding facilities that take care of the beloved four-legged friend when the owners are on vacation. I've long gotten used to the many professional dog walkers, who can be recognized by the cluster of dogs that always surrounds them (which always reminds me of the Pied Piper of Hamelin). The latest establishment is day care centers for dogs, called "Doggie Day Care." Since Americans--and employees of Silicon Valley in particular--are known to work a lot, man's best friend often stays home alone for many hours. This triggers the dog owner's guilty conscience. The solution: you take your dog to dog kindergarten. Don't think I'm crazy. The "Doggie Day Cares" actually have a lot in common with a kindergarten. There are toys, sofas for resting, and often a playground-like outdoor area.

They go out for walks, groom, pet, and train the dogs, and if necessary, even celebrate the dog's birthday. Kennel-like structures are, of course, absolutely taboo, as the dogs are supposed to interact with each other. Some "Doggie Day Cares" even install web cameras so that the working dog owner can check via the internet from the office how their four-legged friend is doing. However, "Doggie Day Cares" are not cheap. "Every Dog Has Its Day Care Inc." charges $395 monthly if the dog is registered for three months, $345 monthly if it's six months (www.everydog.com). At "K9to5" (www.k9to5.com) in San Francisco, it costs $32 per day for an adult dog, $300 for 10 visits, or $455 per month. The whole thing has become so popular that there are waiting lists. Of course, not every dog is accepted. Unsocial or even aggressive dogs are excluded. Therefore, dog owners and their dogs go through an admission process. An interview is scheduled. I know this firsthand because my photography teacher's dog was rejected because it didn't fit into the dog group.

"Doggie Day Cares" are not only extremely popular in San Francisco and its surroundings, but they can also be found elsewhere in the USA. However, San Francisco claims to have started the movement. The private organization "San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" (SPCA), which is funded solely by donations, launched the first "Doggie Day Care" as a pilot project in 1994. This animal-loving society (SPCA) is heaven on earth for dogs and cats. It has been advocating for animal rights in San Francisco since 1868. Today, the SPCA ensures that abandoned, stray, or neglected animals are not killed but are nursed back to health and rehabilitated so they can live in families rather than shelters. Even fighting dogs are given a chance. However, since 1997, it has been the policy that Pit Bulls are euthanized if their past is unknown. Incidentally, in 1998, the SPCA opened an animal shelter that, according to their own description, resembles the Ritz (Hotel)>https://www.sfspca.org/maddies.html>resembles the Ritz (Hotel)). Dogs and cats have their own rooms with hardwood floors, sofas, aquariums, toys, and televisions. Rumor has it that the shelter offered homeless people the opportunity to stay with the animals some time ago, which the homeless thankfully refused indignantly. Sometimes one wonders at the things that exist.

Finally, two very current stories about dogs. On Tuesday, twelve jurors in San Jose found Andrew Douglas Burnett guilty of animal cruelty (in America, the names of defendants are boldly published in the newspaper), which could mean up to three years in prison for him. After a rear-end collision, in his anger, he dragged the dog of the woman who caused the accident out of her car and threw it into oncoming traffic, which the dog did not survive. Not that I want all the animal rights activists to get upset with me now. Of course, I find such behavior wrong, and it's right that he was held accountable for it. I just wanted to report on the commotion this case caused. Animal rights activists quickly raised $120,000 to ensure the suspect would be appropriately sentenced (court proceedings in America are expensive), which drew criticism because the amount was far higher than the rewards offered for several open cases of missing children combined. Some said that the priorities here are somewhat misplaced. Many were also outraged that the dog owner spoke on camera about her child/baby being brutally murdered. Just to avoid any misunderstandings: she meant her dog.

Also on Tuesday, on the other side of the bay, in Richmond, three freely roaming fighting dogs attacked a ten-year-old boy who was out riding his new bicycle. The dogs injured the boy so severely that he remains in critical condition. He not only lost both of his ears but also suffered deep lacerations on his face, which will take years to fully heal. What particularly shocked me was that in the neighborhood where the dogs attacked the boy, it is quite normal for fighting dogs to be roaming around. This incident, along with a few others, sparked a debate about fighting dogs, similar to the one you had in Germany some time ago. On both sides of the debate, the same arguments are presented: that the real problem is the owners or the breeders who breed the most aggressive dog breeds. But I wonder what on earth goes through the minds of dog lovers for whom there is nothing better than owning a fighting dog? Why not a peaceful Saint Bernard? That's not normal!

Muni Street Cars and BART Subway

I am also often a passenger on the "J" streetcar, as it takes me from downtown to Church Street, where we live. It always gets interesting when school is out and the students from "Mission High" board at Dolores Park. The reputation of this high school leaves much to be desired, and I often feel sorry for the teachers when I observe the students' behavior, even though I'm not particularly sensitive about such things due to my profession.

Recently, I was quite surprised when suddenly some girls from this school, about 13 or 14 years old, entered the streetcar with life-sized baby dolls in their arms. Since Americans are known for their love of conversation, I didn't have to wait long before someone asked the girls what the dolls were all about. It turned out that the "baby doll project" is a type of sex education. The girls (I didn't see any boys armed with baby dolls) take the dolls home over the weekend. The homework is to take care of the "baby." To make the experience more realistic, the dolls have a computer chip installed that makes them cry at irregular intervals for extended periods (including at night, of course). Thanks to technology, the "baby" also starts crying if it is held awkwardly, for example, with its head down. However, you can't feed the doll, and the diapers stay clean. The girls keep a diary over the weekend, writing down how they feel when their baby cries. One of the passengers then asked a pedagogically valuable question to one of the girls about what they were supposed to learn from this. She received the answer: "To take on more responsibility!" WRONG, I thought! Ideally, the crying of the babies is supposed to annoy the girls so much that they resist sex for a long time and don't get pregnant. I immediately felt that the baby project is not the right way to reduce the high number of teenage pregnancies in the USA. This approach is like putting the cart before the horse, which is known not to work.

And now a little story that will make the fare inspectors of the Munich public transport services perk up. We've mentioned before that Muni (you remember, that's the public transport service in San Francisco) is not exactly super reliable. For quite some time now, everyone who is anyone has been trying to improve the Muni. And I admit that it's not as bad as it once was. There still isn't a proper schedule for buses and streetcars, but the waiting times have shortened somewhat. As part of these improvements, about six months ago, it was introduced that passengers with a valid ticket are allowed to board at any door of the bus or streetcar. A valid ticket is considered to be a monthly pass or the so-called "transfer," which you receive as proof when paying your fare, to be possibly used for connecting rides.

Until recently, you could only board at the driver door, where you paid or showed your monthly pass, or "transfer." Boarding and deboarding took forever with this procedure. Since humans are known to be creatures of habit, the new boarding method had been in the works for a long time. There were brochures, loudspeaker announcements, and signs, because passengers had to be drilled to always carry their "transfer" with them from now on. Inspectors are also needed from now on, because someone might just jump on the bus or streetcar without a ticket. The concept of inspectors is relatively unusual in American cities with public transport systems.

Usually, a turnstile or a person prevents you from fare evasion when boarding. Inspectors seem suspicious to Americans, as they are authorized to restrict individual freedom and impose fines. Naturally, the new inspectors are wearing uniforms so they can be easily recognized. Sneaking onto the bus in plain clothes would be considered an imposition by American passengers.

I've already been checked twice. The last time, it so happened that two passengers couldn't show a ticket. I watched with interest to see what would happen next. The passengers simply jumped up, ran to the front and paid with the driver. The inspector politely remarked that they should please pay when boarding next time to avoid misunderstandings and so he wouldn't have to impose a fine. Wow! I remember the story from Munich with an American tourist who took the S-Bahn from the airport to the city and forgot to validate his ticket. He was checked and had to pay the fine, even though it was obviously a mistake. Sometimes San Francisco really shows its extremely friendly side.

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