May 1, 2008
Got Cash? Stay Away From Church Station
Discerning MUNI rail riders have known for a while now to bring small change to Church Street Station, as the quarter-dispensing machine has been broken there for over a week. We were (thankfully) exiting Church this morning, and saw that the other, dollar-coin-dispensing machine, is also broken. That explained the poor woman we saw at the turnstiles, pleading with the gate agent to accept her U.S. currency.
No dice. The only choices she had were to "go to Van Ness or Castro stations."
Really? Really? Are you kidding us, MUNI? Here's a hint, guys: let people pay on the train. Or let the gate agent make change. Or anything other than "walk to another station." The sad thing is, those two suggestions aren't even creative thinking. They're just thinking, something MUNI management doesn't seem to do all that much.
PS: there were switching problems at Duboce Street as of about nine this morning, delaying inbound trains. Take the bus.
Image credit: Wikicommons
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I'm sure that the change machine repairman is busy collecting overtime on some other fake project, travelling to a conference in Israel, or on long term disability.
I'm sorry everyone, this may be my fault. I told someone the other day that "Muni couldn't get any worse" and I didn't knock on wood.
Muni needs to replace the old faregates. Dump them all and do a POP program where you buy the tickets at the station.
i've been buzzed through and told to pay on the train. no problem at all. several times now.
As if I needed yet another reason not to use Muni. Thank goodness I bought a mountain bike a couple of months ago.
Just buy a freakin' car you hippies! Haha.
C.W. Nevius's column in the Chronicle is about Muni cheats. As usual, Muni gets you coming and going. I think most people that hobo hop the Muni aren't doing so because trying to buy passes or tickets is so damn inconvenient, but how's this for a major city's transportation system payment situation?
fury-inducing. and when those ass machines work it takes, like, five minutes for them to spit out coins.
But the side gate is always left unlocked, so just walk on through. Even if there's someone in the booth, are they going to get off their ass and chase you?
The newspaper guy at castro station is the nicest and most helpful I have ever come across. He goes out of his way to make change for folks, (no newspaper purchase required).
Man I had the same issues when CalTrains stopped letting you buy tickets on the train.
I hadn't ridden the train in years and had to take it up to SF from Palo Alto one day. I get on the train and have my money out thinking that I could buy my ticket from the conductor like I had in the past.
When I made the motion to hand the conductor my cash when he came by he went ballistic on me raising his voice and telling me that he was going to kick me off at the next stop, etc. When I told him that I hadn't ridden the train in at least 7 years and didn't know you had to buy your ticket ahead of time, he starts in with accusing me of copping attitude with him.
It just baffled me that these people still have jobs. I mean they don't even sell tickets anymore. Literally their job consists of getting up off their asses every 10 minutes to open the train doors. Can't the train just automatically do that?
They don't even check anyone's tickets either! A while after that incident I took the train every day up to SF for a month. Not once did the conductor come by to make sure I had bought a ticket before I boarded the train.
These guys literally have the easiest job in the world. I bet they even got a raise out of it.
Yeah the newspaper guy at Castro station is like, the nicest human being on the planet.
This happened yesterday morning but the woman in the booth let me through. I paid on the train, slit a dollar bill and what I thought were two quarters into the machine. The driver turned around and told me that I had just put $3 in and offered me a pass good until 6:30 p.m.
Pepe -
Tell me, if someone gets hit by the Caltrain, should the passengers go out and investigate the scene? Or should the overpaid conductors deal with it.
Should the passengers self police drunks on the train?
Most of the time, the job's pretty straightforward. But when it's not, whoa nelly...
Fuck MUNI! Who ever designed a transit system where 6 different metro lines all funnel through the same tunnel should be dragged through shards of glass and showered with lemon juice. Yeah Castro Station newspaperguy!
Time for proper POP. Geeeez.
You could just use your Translink...
in 2002
You can still use your TransLink in 2008. TL works just fine on the metro, and they're even retrofitting readers into the turnstiles.
The problem, as I see it, with TL is that there's zero accountability. With my FasTrak I get a paper invoice every quarter. I can eyeball it and spot the $9 charge to cross the San Mateo bridge. I can then call them up and ask them to reduce that charge. They may even remove the whole charge.
WIth TL, you've got none of that. No paper trail. No automated invoices. Nada. You can call them up all you want, but, too bad, so sad if you want any info older than a month(!).
Sometimes I take the bus. Ergo, Translink doesn't work for me. I think we went back and forth on this a long time ago - the system should work, and now it doesn't. That Translink works sometimes (the readers on the trains themselves are often down) does not help for the large percentage of MUNI customers who either bus it or get on the trains aboveground.
I'll be happy to get Translink when it works on all MUNI vehicles. Until then, I'd like MUNI to allow me to board at stations with US currency. Seems like it shouldn't be all that hard.
Except that TL readers are being deployed on more MUNI buses. Certainly by the time I had stopped using TL, I noticed them on most of the buses I was on. As for non-working readers, just flash the thing at your friendly fare cop and you're home free. Explain to the driver your situation, etc. I've never been ticketed with my TL card.
This is why I always carry a Muni token booklet in my wallet.
"This is why I always carry a Muni token booklet in my wallet."
A who?
A token booklet, good for 10 rides on Muni. I get it at the local pharmacy for $15.
Odd, aint it? Looks like Muni will never give out the real tokens anymore.
They don't give a discount anymore! You use to save a quarter for every token.
murphstaho: Honestly, I wouldn't have an issue if, for the most part, the conducters I've seen weren't so surly.
And, yes, I actually do think that people should get more involved in those situations that you mentioned instead of waiting for some overpaid lardass with an attitude problem to get on the scene.
And I'll actually correct myself. I think BART drivers are the most useless jobs in the Bay Area. You could literally replace them with robots and no one would even know the difference.
ievans -- the turnstiles also take dollar coins. I *hate* paper dollars and wish they would get rid of them.
Actually, every so often I take my dollar bills and convert them all to dollar coins at the stamp machine in the post office. It will happily do arbitary amounts for even tiny stamp purchases, and it will even TAKE PENNIES. =)
Regarding the token booklets -- they're really nice. You can buy them with Commuter Checks for an instant tax writeoff, or if your employer doesn't do CCs's you can still save your receipts and write them off when you do your taxes (Commuter Checks are way easier =p)
I get $45 commuter checks. If it's a month where I'll be using MUNI/BART in the city a lot, I get a fast pass. If for some reason I don't, though, I use it to buy 3 10-ride booklets. Considering my tax bracket it's a nice instant discount. The booklets are also nice to hand to friends/relatives when they visit the city (just make sure they know not to detach the tokens until they are in front of the ticket agent).
I should mention that the token booklets that I bought last week say they expire Dec 31, 2007. Muni doesn't seem to care, though.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19417968@N00/2458925902/
Sigh.
It's not well posted but Muni decided to officially ignore the expiration dates on the token coupon books. Looks like the real tokens will never return.
and now I only have 1 token left...... hopefully I never have to use it considering the horror stories I have heard , read, and scene.
if you dont have a fastpass, you're a tourist, and who cares if you have to walk to another station?
just walk up to duboce and wait for an N.
tourist.
I ride my bike to work downtown.
I take MUNI four or five times per week, to go to SF State for class (biking over the hill at night is kind of iffy).
Ergo, a fastpass makes no financial sense. And the N doesn't go to State. Does being logical make me a tourist?
And shouldn't part of the point of public transportation be to encourage out-of-towners to shelve the car and walk/MUNI around?