[Carfreeliving] beat LA! beat LA! beat LA! (for the Giants fans out there)

[Mike Sallaberry]

I'm not going to convey all that's gone on here with the merger.  I will 
say I have nothing against the concept or the goals, per se, or the new 
guy on the block who has given more than a few people jaded from the 
merger process, including me, some hope.  The past MTA director was not 
well in tune with what DPT was or did, generally treating/dismissing the 
department like an ugly step child.  We suspected he didn't know or 
perhaps care how DPT really worked and that was confirmed by him 
supporting the article.  Our frustration's been directed in a number of 
directions, including that past director and his yes-men staff...our barbs 
were not aimed just at the messengers (who in this case also have the 
power to create messages, and do use that power frequently - what should 
be a big responsibility).

I'd prefer to let the past go, but unfortunately it keeps coming up in 
various forms.
Mike




Tom Radulovich <tom at livablecity.org> 
Sent by: Carfreeliving-bounces at livablecity.org
08/24/2005 06:19 PM

To
Carfree Living <Carfreeliving at livablecity.org>
cc

Subject
Re: [Carfreeliving] Will LA leapfrog San Francisco?






Thanks, David, I guess i never felt I had a quarrel with Mike, and 
although I haven't worked with him directly, he is pretty well thought of 
here at the treehouse. I'm sorry he feels like I peed in his corn flakes, 
but I swear I have never been anywhere near his corn flakes.

I have been at the receiving end of a lot of vitriol from Mike and Oliver, 
which I feel is misdirected. Killing the messenger, by carrying on about 
how uniformed, misguided, negative irrational etc. that I, or Jim 
Chappell, or other folks on the receiving end, happen to be, won't serve 
to advance their cause. If the TLC/SPUR report was hopelessly inaccurate, 
it is hard to believe that the MTA Executive Director (who was given a 
draft to review in advance of its publication, and well as a meeting to 
make sure we were on the right track) had no problems with it, told us 
that is was pretty much what he had in mind, and chose to enact almost all 
of its recommendations as presented. And it's not as though I have any 
undue influence at MTA; this year's awful MTA budget pretty well proves 
that.

What was very revealing about writing the paper was the extent to which 
the DPW and Muni sides of the house viewed the other as the problem. I  
received a few calls and emails from Muni folks castigating me for the 
merger proposal, swearing that Jack Fleck would be put in charge of the 
whole thing and it would be the end of Muni as we know it. DPT folks also 
called to tell me that Peter Strauss would be put in charge of MTA 
planning, and that it would be the end of the happy DPT family, as well as 
the bike program, livable streets, etc. In the end neither 'side' won; a 
qualified outsider was chosen to lead the combined department. But the 
more it went on, the more the necessity of the merger became apparent; the 
culture of both organizations, so negatively fixated on the other, must 
change if we are make this city livable. And while it may feel like a 
shotgun wedding to those inside, I think that when all of the rancor is 
over (hopefully soon!) that MTA will live up to the promise of its 
creation, which was really quite bold; create an integrated agency that 
runs the transit system, allocates space on city streets, controls the 
on-street and city-owned off-street parking, etc. MTA controls most of the 
policy levers necessary to make this city a livable and sustainable one, 
if they can only figure out how, politically and administratively, to work 
them in concert.

How is that for a half-full glass?

Best,

Tom

Tom Radulovich
Executive Director
Transportation for a Livable City
995 Market Street Suite 1550
San Francisco CA 94103
415 344-0489
www.livablecity.org
tom at livablecity.org
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