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A Wednesday on the J
Yesterday evening we had one of San Francisco's primary rules illustrated to us in vivid detail. You all know it: if you want to get somewhere on time, don't take MUNI. We were headed to Noe Valley to meet a friend and cadge a ride to Oakland, and we'd told her that we would be there at 5:25.
"5:25?" she said. " You're pushing your MUNI karma by saying such a specific time."
After the jump: what happens when you push your MUNI karma, and video goodness!
How right she was. When we got to 18th and Church, the train stopped. After about five minutes, the driver told us that the train ahead of us was having a door problem, maintenance had been called, and we'd have to wait for a few minutes. Some people who were smarter than us immediately took off. We waited.
Five minutes later, the driver told us that we had to exit because our train was going to push the broken train out of service, but the train behind us would be happy to pick us up. So we all went out to the stop, where several dozen people were waiting. And waiting. The drivers mated up the trains, moved an inch or two, and...
The second train died. So, they got everyone off the third train and mated that one with the first two, creating a traffic mass of three mated MUNI trains and a couple of hundred frustrated commuters. Most people took off at this point, trying to find a cab or hoofing it up the big hill at Dolores Park:
Eventually, the three trains started to move...backwards, probably to head to the N tracks and out of the way. Some poor folks kept waiting at the stop, looking bewildered.
We're not blaming the drivers here - those trains probably conked due to MUNI's ongoing inability to maintain their trains, which break down all the time. We do blame MUNI because we never heard an announcement as to how they were going to get to where they wanted to go. Another train? Shuttle busses? Why wasn't that information given to the drivers, who could then have told the people waiting?
That so many just up and left is a testament to what San Franciscans expect from MUNI these days - when our bus or train breaks down, we start to walk because we don't have faith in the ability of the system to actually fix the problem and get us where we want to go. What scares us is that the J is the line with all of the big on-time guns aimed at it this month. Even with all that attention, a one-car breakdown killed the line for nearly an hour and nobody was able to tell us if anything was coming to pick us up. Come on, MUNI. Just tell us what's happening - that way we'll be able to figure out best how to get where we want to go. Just tell us...please?