Dear Mr Ford:
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Friend of SFst Jamison writes:
As part of the service cuts in September, Muni shortened the 16AX and 16BX lines that ran from the Sunset to Caltrain back to end at Fourth & Market. 16AX and 16BX riders now have to transfer at Market Street to a 30 or 45 bus, and to handle the extra passengers Muni has started running the longer, articulated 30 buses.That doesn't sound to bad, but here's the rub: the 16 buses are still running down Fourth Street to Caltrain, after tossing all their passengers off, for their layover. You'll often find one parked outside the station while the driver takes their break.
So how exactly is this saving Muni money? The driver is still being paid to drive the empty bus, and while it's slightly quicker and lighter without riders, that's still wasted manhours and fuel, while a larger crowd of passengers waits at Fourth & Market for a 30 or 45 bus. Those longer 30 buses also have their drawbacks because with the added passengers, there is a longer dwell time at each stop and with more people trying to get on board it definitely feels like more
people are boarding through the rear doors.
SFist Matt also reises some efficiency questions
Check out the NextBus map for the 5 line. I guarantee that when the map loads, you'll see that there's a 5 bus just arriving at 4th Avenue and Fulton. That's because there is ALWAYS a 5 just arriving at 4th Ave and Fulton. In fact it stays there for the entire day, never actually moving. The other buses creep past like retarded ants, but that one's found the spot that it likes and isn't going to be disturbed.I know this isn't some kind of technical glitch producing a "ghost" bus on the map, because I live just up the street and I can see the bus sitting there ... all day long ... every single day. Once I even tried boarding it, but the driver told me it was out of service, and that another would be along in a minute (a minute which, of course, turned out to be 20 minutes long). I've thought about onfronting the driver, but what can I really say? What is do I ask? It's pretty obvious what he's up to -- absolutely nothing, day in and day out -- and considering the average Muni driver's level of concern for customer service, it's not even terribly surprising. I guess we might even consider thanking him for providing our busy, turbulent lives with one always-predictable, unchanging, immobile institution upon which we can always count to be there.
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