Have you noticed that your evening commute on Muni has been just a little more reliable lately? Yeah, we haven't either. But allegedly Muni's on-time performance was up six tenths of a percentage point in the last quarter of 2011, up to a whopping 71.7 percent of the time. So, yes, Muni is still late a little more than a quarter of the time, and usually at rush hour, but they are maybe, just maybe, getting a little better.

Of course, the problems with faulty digital sensors that detect ghost trains going by, halting other trains in the tunnel behind them for no good reason, still remain. And occasionally a Muni employee pulls a lever and shuts off power to the entire system for hours. And we're not just talking about the underground here — the on-time metric pertains to buses too, which have to contend with traffic. But, alas, they just might get some of this figured out. Someday.

And as the Chron is quick to note, 71.7% is still a far cry from the 85% on-time performance called for by voters in 1999's Proposition E.

[Chron]
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