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So there you are in the morning. You woke up, you got out of bed and dragged a comb across your head. Then you found your way downstairs and drank a cup but when you noticed you were late, you found your coat and grabbed your hat and before you went to make the J Chuch in seconds flat, you went to NextBus to see just how long you'd have to wait only to see-- holy frickin' cow!-- the next bus will be coming in 47 minutes.
Yes, while everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that all the iner-city public transportation systems is handling all the transit chaos with aplomb, the intracity public transportation system is doing what it does best-- sucking. It's almost as if Muni felt ignored during these past few days and decided to screw up just so everyone could start paying attention to it again.
We have no idea what caused the trouble (we haven't seen any news on it yet) but we do have to give Muni credit for actually being honest about the f---up. It's much nicer that they do something like this as opposed to how they have often handled it, by either saying it'll be a wait of "Five Minutes" for at least half-an-hour, or completely taking bus information down so that nobody knows nothing.
Feel like ranting? Know what happened? Still pissed about the Warriors game? Well, rant away in the comment section. After the jump, yet another glorious captured moment from this morning's commute.
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You forgot it is raining too. Yes, someone is standing outside waiting for a bus on crutches getting soaked.
The reason this person doesn't hobble over to Market and catch the N or the other direction to catch the 38 is because there is TWO FREAKING STEEP HILLS.
Add in slippery sidewalk meets worn rubberstop on end of said crutches and you got a hell of a bruise on your butt or head.
So yeah, feel sorry for me but, at least unlike the warriors I tried and didn't choke.
Having lived there during the troubles of the late 90s, the meltdown, the under capacity of the dot-com years, the switch to the new trains, etc. etc. I can only be thankful that we didn't have all this extra information -- NextBus and train maps. Because that only would have added to the frustration. Before it was like, "oh, gee, here comes the J-Church. what a pleasant surprise."
I live on Dolores Park, one block from the Church and 18th stop and I still walk to BART every morning... I prefer walking past tranny/crackhead hookers to riding the J.
Yeah the J sucks. But the still N rules the suckage roost, young grasshopper.
I feel optimistic, however. As Nathaniel Ford said a couple weeks ago, "It’s going to be fine in a couple of weeks".
I have learned to stop trusting NextBus. I have been burned by the NextBus signs on the #1 line several times now.
Once, I waited for 10minutes while the sign said "Arriving", another time I waited for 20 minutes while the sign said "5minutes" then "4minutes" then "3minutes" then "5minutes".
Finally, something in my favor... the sign said "23minutes" and the bus came in 4minutes. Go figure?
ride a bike, then.
whiner.
Maybe all the buses were hiding in Alameda.
No, really... ;-)
I live in Alameda. On the way to the bus (obviously not Muni), I saw two 37s going down Central Avenue. Wish I had a cell phone cam.
This was around 8:30 this morning. Anyone know what's up?
The J definatley sucks, but what about the M? No one seems to notice, perhaps becuase it goes through Lakeview, and nobody even knows where Lakeview is, except M riders. I waited 50 minutes the other day, and 35 minutes yesterday while waiting at Balboa Park -- it's point of origin. And both times the driver, amazingly, stopped at a corner store to get chips and a quarter water! Muni sucks all around.
I completed my first online MUNI complaint form today. Cheers!
I called 311 to check on the L this morning around a quarter to 10. The polite woman mentioned that NextBus was down(!), and couldn't tell me if the next train down Taraval was going to be an L, M, or K.
Thankfully the next train was only 10 minutes behind schedule.
If you'd like to take your comments and concerns straight to Nate Ford you can do so tomorrow at the Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday night. Check out my site for details, and feel free to let 'em know how you really feel.
Playing nice and appeasing MUNI management and the politicians does not work. Maybe it's time transit riders took a cue from the bike people. I mean, hell, more people take MUNI than ride bikes and not only do bike people get everything they want, they get one of their own appointed by Moderate Mayor Newsom to the MTA....
Muni really effed up my morning today too - I wrote my own blog about it:
Click here for Muni blog
Just when I think I've got it all together, Muni reminds me to reconsider.
I have to say that I'm not really disappointed in Muni anymore. If it's late, or if a bus driver tells me to just get a car, or if the train is packed, I just take as par for the course.
What I am disappointed in is the near zero citizen revolt to this awful service. Where are the protests? Why aren't people standing in front of City Hall with pitch forks and FastPasses? A biker gets hit on Octavia and it's the end of the world, but 500,000 people are late for work and people whine in their blog about it.
Am I missing something here?
that screenshot with the times is funny, but take it with a grain of salt, those numbers don't actually have any relation to the actual times the j will show up.
i've seen times where it said "10 minutes, 21, 33, 42.." then proceeded to walk to the stop (church +24th) only to wait around 35 minutes for any train to arrive. if you watch the numbers live sometimes they will drop really quickly, or go up and down, etc. either way it's basically useless other than for a chuckle or for when the train is 1 or 2 minutes away from the stop, which by then you can already see it if you are standing there.
as to what the other poster said about how it's time for a riot..i'd love to do a protest or something but i just ain't got the time, and really doubt it would make a difference anyway, i mean, it's not like any of the folks at muni don't already know what a clusterfuck their system is. i already spend 15 hours a week commuting the 4 miles between my apt. and office so the free time i have in evenings is pretty hard to give up.
Andy,
Of course the politicians and Muni employees know the system has massive problems. The difference is that the citizens of San Francisco, as well as the commuters from all over the bay area, need to stand up and say that they aren't willing to put up with poor service. Let our civil servants see that people are no longer willing to send blackholed complaints and want action now might just shake up some change.
We're all busy Andy, and being delayed by a transit system for the people that doesn't work just steals more of our valuable time.
Mark, isn't that why we have Rescue MUNI? Not that they've accomplished a whole lot recently, but in theory, that's what they were created for, right?
My two cents. There are three parties involved (management, union, and riders) and all three share some of the blame.
As riders, we really ought to rethink just how necessary it is for a bus or train to stop every block or every other block.
Management... they need to work on communication. 311 is a great resource, if only they'd give more than the bare minimum of details to the folks workin' at 311. When stuff breaks, or service is altered, people need to be informed.
And, of course, the union needs to make concessions allowing for appropriate nondisciplinary action to be taken, to allow for a more reasonable minimum code of conduct (expecting professional bus drivers is not too much to ask!), and doing such radical things as agreeing to actually show up (17% absenteeism is not acceptable!).
The union contract is up this year, no? What a perfect opportunity to enact some much needed changes. Let's let Nat Ford AND Irwin Lum know that the status quo is unacceptable.
Sooooooo.... how do we shake things up? How's about a boycott? Seriously. If either group rebuffs the people they're supposed to serve, we could give up MUNI for a few days to demonstrate just how fucked up the whole system is.
Or, we the riders could float a ballot initiative taking some of these things out of the hands of the people who seem to be mucking the system up. But that just seems like an invitation to permanent, unwanted consequences to me.
Rescue Muni can't do anything without volunteers. They would love some of your enthusiasm Alex.
I was down at 2nd and King and could see a dead MUNI car on the tracks.It was like 3 hours before they figured out what the hell to do.
The problem is that MUNI has no competitors.
Oh but it DOES have competitors: walking and biking and driving. The problem is the Muni doesn't behave like it has competitors.
Why doesn't Muni feel competition? Because they don't see their "competitors" as competition.
Muni loses more money the more buses it runs (depending on who you read, fares only pay 18-23% of Muni's costs).
Attracting more riders would require more buses, resulting in additional operating costs not covered by fares or any other funding source.
Give Muni a stable source of funding tied to ridership and quality of service. Provide incentive where none currently exists.
@Jim: Thanks. The RM Yahoo! group seems mostly dead, and I certainly haven't had time to actually show up to some of these public input forums. I've been happily driving places, and getting there in record time! Just today, it took me maybe 15 minutes to get to UCSF's Parnassus campus. I even got to call 311 to report a MUNI operator yammering on his cell phone and running the train with no headlights. Such luxury! Via MUNI, the same trip takes about 40-60 minutes + wait time.
@PJ: Nice idea, but, this *is* California, remember. Prop. 13 + "stable" sources of funding have given us the absolute mess that is the state budget. Time to analyze where MUNI's funding comes from I guess. Or.... maybe penalties for not meeting on time requirements? Penalties for ridership dips? Hmm.
Murphy's Law on the 38: guess I need to chime in on how much I love how 1 bus will come after a 50 minute delay, jump on it out of sheer frustration despite wanting the express because I'm late for work, then watch 2 or 3 empty 38 expresses that sandbagged 1 block behind pass it by.... at least the 38 doesn't run on the electric rods, because this would naturally be the ride they fall off in Muni world.