

Photo by Jamison Wieser

You know that the new Muni shelters don’t protect you from rain, but did you know that they are protected against small arms fire? From the San Francisco Business Times:

Clear Channel is cagey about what it is spending on this, saying only that kitting out each bus stop costs the equivalent of “several luxury cars.” Part of that goes into the “military grade” screens — the sort used in tanks, capable of withstanding small-arms fire. They are expected to last five to seven years, though the units can be upgraded incrementally.

(Earlier, Gizmodo and Popular Mechanics reported that the shelters cost about $30,000 each.) Wow. Those Yahoo! Bus Stop Derby games are really safe!

The shelters are also wifi-capable, which I think will be enabled in 2013. “In exchange for watching one advertisement, users can also get free WiFi Internet access from a 4G superfast hotspot and use it as long as they want. The hotspots can extend up to three blocks and into nearby buildings,” the San Francisco Business Times reports.