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Ask a Muni Driver
Our beloved Muni Driver has been sick for the past few weeks so we haven't been able to do our little feature. Well, he's back this week with an answer given to us by a reader.
Question: "Why do bus drivers pass up stops and what goes into the decision-making process?"
{Disclaimer: I am not an official spokesperson for anything except my opinion as a MUNI driver, San Franciscan, and daily passenger just like the rest of you sorry sods relying on MUNI to get us to work on time. If you figure out who I am, please, please don't tell my bosses 'cause I want that pension some happy day – assuming there's any money left in the fund for the lowly drivers by that time.}
There are a couple of legitimate reasons bus drivers pass up stops. The bus could be an Express or Limited bus, scheduled to pass up certain stops. The bus may be too crowded to safely allow any more riders to board the bus. Lastly, the bus could be on instructions from a Supervisor or Central Control to skip stops in order to make up time on the schedule.
There are no other legitimate reasons to skip stops. As we've all experienced, however, some drivers DO skip stops without adequate reasons. Don't tell me you haven't seen a half-full, non-Limited, non-Express drive past us to our dismay. There really is no justifiable reason for this. If this happens, there'd better be a bus right on his ass - within sight. If there isn't, I recommend calling 673-MUNI and reporting the bus number and the time of occurrence (the bus number is located in multiple spots on the outside of the bus, just look for it. If you can get the run number, which is in the small lit-up box in the lower-right-hand front windshield, so much the better).
If the driver has been instructed to skip stops by Central Control, of course he won't get into any trouble despite your call because records are kept of such commands. But if he's skipping stops on his own accord, he absolutely deserves to get into the weeds for this behavior.
Hell, if we don't pick up passengers, this would be the easiest job ever. We're not underpaid so there's just no excuse for not doing the work.