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Dear Mr. Ford,
So here you are, on your first day of work as the new new Muni transportation director. If your first day was anything like ours usually go, you've probably learned how to use your new email, opened a new box of pens, and gotten to work (that is not what we actually did on our first day of work but our parents read this site, OK?). And what work you have cut out for you, for while we occasionally dig Muni, we hate it way more frequently.
In fact, we think Muni's such a problem that we encourage readers to email us their own Muni tales, concerns, and suggestions. Concerns about Muni are like assholes, Mr. Ford, in that they both involve stinking.
Welcome to San Francisco, and to your new job. You don't have an easy path ahead of you, so drop us a line any time you want to give us your side of things, reach out to our readers, or to go for a cocktail (we're buyin'). You're going to need it.
xo SFist
The 5 Fulton, at 3 p.m. on Jan. 5. "Dear Muni: Stop ... hurting ... America."
From a reader with the nom de plume "Magical Dog":
Muni isn't solely to blame for this, but have you ever tried to get from the Oakland airport to SF after midnight? It's not possible. Once Bart and AirBart stop running, you're screwed until 5am when they start back up. A cab to the city is $60. AC Transit's N line keeps running; it picks up passengers at the airport ONCE AN HOUR, and it takes AN HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES to arrive at SF's Transbay Terminal. And then once you're there ... what? Muni doesn't run enough busses late at night to get anywhere. In fact, AC Transit's bus is scheduled to arrive at the Terminal ONE F**KING MINUTE AFTER the 38 leaves, so you'll have to wait 29 minutes for the next one. So, a trip from OAK to, say, my house would involve a wait of up to an hour for an AC Transit bus, then a ride of an hour and five minutes, then a wait of 29 minutes, and a ride of about a half hour to get home. That's little over three hours. Long enough to drive to Chico.Chico, Mister Ford.
Chico.
"Fraggle" writes:
Unscheduled overtime for Muni drivers ... were one of the most significant factors pushing up costs, MTA acting chief financial officer Deb Ward said. ... As it stands, Muni spent $2.1 million on unscheduled overtime during the first quarter -- even though only $2.7 million for unscheduled overtime was budgeted for the entire year."You know, i've worked for a number of companies that had fallen on difficult financial times. and one of the first things they did was tell us, "no more overtime," then hired some part-timers to make sure we didn't have to work over 40 hours.
And you've just gotta click through this link to read frequent SFist commenter Able Dart's Muni adventure (thanks, SFist Rita, for sending this our way). While not officially sent to us, Able's blog post is too freakin' sweet to pass up.
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After about 30 seconds of looking online, I was able to find an airport shuttle to take me from OAK to San Francisco for only $25, and it'd probably be quicker than BART at that time of night. Seems reasonable to me.
Something odd was up on the N Judah outbound yesterday, oh around 3pm or so. I was walking from UCSF to 9th and Irving and there were like, 4-5 streetcars stacked up from Carl/Hillway to 9th/Irving. It was really weird.
Called the Muni line and asked what was up, and of course they said nothing was wrong!
it's true, there's supershuttles that can take you to SF for about $30. but that's only useful if you know what to look for; if you've never heard of an airport shuttle -- as i hadn't until recently -- you'd never know about them. bart doesn't have a sign saying, "now that we're closed for the night, call supershuttle to get home;" their attitude is "we're closed, screw you all."
and: one of the good things about nextbus is that you can see live maps of where all the busses are, so if you see a huge bunching-up and you're near home, you can check the map and get a screenshot of the train-orgy and send it to us for this very feature.