Dear Mr Ford
By our count, The new head of Muni has been in office about 7 weeks, but so far the most interesting thing we've heard from him is his letter to employees, in which he states:
I encourage each of you to keep focused on the services you perform daily that keep this organization running. Stress and distractions can make this difficult. As you are aware, during my first days here there were several unfortunate incidents that brought us negative attention. I know these are exceptions and not representative of the work of the MTA. We must acknowledge the challenges and attention that being a visible public agency brings, but not be discouraged or diverted from our mission. It is clear to me that the employees of the MTA are experienced professionals, dedicated to providing exemplary service to all our customers.
You can't make this stuff up, folks. "Not representative of the work of the MTA" Wha? "The employees of the MTA are experienced professionals, dedicated to providing exemplary service to all our customers" Huh? Has he even ridden Muni? Mr. Ford, our readers would beg to differ on both counts.
Readers share their "not representative" experiences about the "exemplary service" Muni provides, after the jump.
Image from Latin_KNOW: The Latino Marketing Report.
From SFist reader Jen
The other day I was riding the F and the driver and an off-duty substitute driver were chatting. The train was fairly empty, so I could overhear most of what they were talking about. Here's the gist of the part of the onversation that outraged me (not exact quotes):Sub: I've been filling in on the 14.
Driver: The 14?! I'll give you a tip about the 14. The bars let out at 2am, right. If you run about 20 minutes late they'll get tired of waiting and take a cab.
Sub: Oh, I've already been doing that.!! They then went on to talk about a fellow driver that was suspended for turning off his lights and not picking up passengers on the 22. I like to think that Muni's problems are just incompetence, which could be fixed, but it seems to be part malice as well.
SFist Matt makes this observation:
According to Muni at night, the 5-Owl runs every 30 minutes, weekdays and weekends. According to real life, the 5-Owl actually runs every 65 minutes. Who waits an hour for a bus? Nobody, that's who. It might as well not run at all. What's extra-annoying is that after 6pm, the 5 stops running on Market Street; so not only is it infrequent, it doesn't go to a major transit destination.
Another Jen points us in the direction of Latin_KNOW: The Latino Marketing Report, which castigates Muni for its "massacre" of Spanish grammar and usage. An excerpt:
Apparently Muni believes that using double the words will make it easier for Spanish riders to understand the message, when in reality all it does is confuse. Shame on the poor soul who translated this, and all of the signs in the Muni trains. Just atrocious.
Finally, have you ever filled out the complaint email form on the Muni site? SFist Matt did, more than once:
I wrote a few days ago about this problem but haven't received any reply, so I think it might not have gone through. Sorry if this is a duplicate message.The timing of the last 21 of the night is very inconsistant from day to day. Some nights it comes just before 1am; others it comes at 1:30; andother nights it can come anywhere between those two times. The website, maps, posted signs all have conflicting information about when the last 21 is supposed to run, so there's no shortage of confusion. This is a problem for me because I work until 1:15am, and live along the 21's route. It is impossible for me to predict whether I'll be able to catch the 21 home, or whether I'll have to take the 38 and walk.
Could Muni please clarify the official time of the final 21's westward-bound run? Could Muni ensure that the driver of the 21's final run adhere to the schedule? I greatly appreciate any assistance you might be able to provide, and look forward to hearing from Muni soon.
So far, all Matt has heard is
From: Vigil, PabloDate: Feb 27, 2006 2:46 PM Subject: RE: Feedback to Passenger Services To: REDACTED Yes we did receive the first e-mail. It has been forwarded to the appropriate department for investigation.
Pablo Vigil is just about the most awesome name we've ever heard. We want Pablo Vigil and Nathaniel P. Ford to fall in love and become Nathaniel and Pablo Vigil-Ford. But you know what we want more than that? SFist Matt to get the response he deserves -- hell, the response we all deserve -- from the increasingly floundering MTA.
How about you? Got any tales of "not representative" incidents? Send them to us!