Cable cars rip off everyone

Photo: Michael Macor, SF Chronicle

Heather Knight in the Chronicle the other day:

...Here’s one little idea for throwing that rare breed — children living in San Francisco — a bone. Stop charging them $14 for a round-trip cable car ride. The fares for those charming symbols of San Francisco that climb halfway to the stars, as Tony Bennett so famously crooned, have blasted through the stratosphere. And unlike the rest of Muni’s public transportation system, there aren’t discounts for kids ages 5 to 18. Or transfers to get you back for free within 90 minutes.

That means that if a family of four wants to ride the cable cars, it’ll cost them $7 each way. Per person. Yes, to ride the cable cars from Powell and Market Streets to Fisherman’s Wharf and back just because it’s fun for kids and a quaint part of our city’s history will set that family back $56...

Rob's comment:

Yes, I bitched about the cable car fare a couple of years ago: San Francisco's cable cars: Hand-crafted---to rip off tourists.

And recall that several years ago the MTA was thinking about raising the F-line streetcar fare from $2 to $6, since many tourists rode that line to Fisherman's Wharf. 

Supervisors Wiener and Chiu reminded the MTA that many locals rode that line to and from the Castro district, and the idea was scuttled.

The implication: Okay to rip off tourists, but not residents/voters.

See also San Francisco's "predatory government."

Literary criticism

An editor to Dwight Garner:

“If I have to read another thousand words about John Updike, I am going to hurl myself out that goddamn window.”

Rob's comment:

Okay, but I liked the Rabbit series. It's usually better to read writers than read about them.