In this week's installment, our Security Guy answers questions that were asked in last week's segment. But before we get into it, we'd like to point you to this story, about more concerns involving the collecting of fares on Cable Cars.

And with that, let's get it on.

It'd be cool if the streetcars could have fare machines in the cars like the ones on the platforms out on the Embarcadero. Sometimes you can't get on the first car to pay the driver. Sure, in theory you shouldn't board the train if you can't pay the fare, but the one time I got off the back car and reboarded the front one, the driver told me off, saying it was a good way to miss the train.

Has something to do with the streetcars being historic vehicles and being a violation to modify / add items not originally installed on the vehicle.

I remember reading an article on "forged" Muni Fast Passes that made it sound like they are quite common. Is this actually that big of a deal? Ever see any forged/modified transfers?
Do inspectors ever bust people for "reselling" their transfers, which says right on the transfer that it is forbidden? I see this quite often though, especially on Market downtown.
"Transfers for a dolla! Good all night!"

They are out there. Common? sort of. It takes a sharp fare inspector to catch it. The fake passes are that good.

We have a collection of the fake passes - and part of them were given over to Mr. Ford during that news conference for display.

Busting people for reselling transfers? yes, we've caught and cited those persons too.

We have good news, and good news, and we also have more good news: you SFist readers have generated more TextMarks. So there are now additional Muni stops at which you can get arrival predictions via text-message, yay! If you'd like to generate a prediction keyword for your favorite bus stop, check out our instructions here. The full list appears after the jump, and we invite all readers to participate in the success of this fun experiment, since Muni's never going to get around to it themselves. And even if you find commuting to be boring as shit, we still love you.

And: Ariel Poler, the CEO of TextMarks, has caught wind of our DIY transit project. In a comment on our last post, he writes, "I LOVE how you are using our service! If you have any suggestions on how we could improve, please let us know." You can get in touch at ariel -- AT -- textmarks -- DOT -- com. Awesome, a company that observes its customers wishes and then accommodates them -- you might call such a mythical concept, oh who knows, "customer service" or something.

And and: you'll be delighted to hear that a Yay Area transit agency is now officially offering SMS support, yay! Unfortunately, that agency is the Emery-Go-Round. Wait, the what? It's a shuttle bus network down south.

Muni has no plans to follow the Go-Round's lead, because clearly there's no public desire for such a time-saver. Meanwhile, more and more riders take it upon themselves to create TextMarks of their own. Can an offline variant of this rein-seizing be far away? Headline prediction: Riders, Fed up with Ludicrous Schedules, Storm Muni Offices in Bloodless Coup.

That brings us up to $298,829.61 since February that Muni's paid out in litigation. But they might pay out approximately that much for just one case if this thing goes the way the plaintiffs hope.

Details are sadly limited, but apparently, back in 2005, a Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones (their real names!) were crossing the street when the 19 broadsided them. Ker-pow. That'll be $300,000, please. Muni conferred with counsel in closed session at their May 29th meeting -- best of luck to all parties involved.

In today's installment, our Muni Driver takes a look at the Transit Effectiveness Project and gives us his thoughts on it. As always, drop us a line if you have any questions you'd like answered.

Our driver begins: Before I start on a new topic, I’d like to add an addendum to last week’s post. When I was talking about schedules, I was referring only to bus schedules, not train schedules. Train schedules are a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, trust me.

We can talk about those fish and how fast or slow they swim in their too-small pond at a future date.

Question: “what do you think of the Transit Effectiveness Project?”

What do I think of the 18-month “study” known as the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP)? Well, for starters TEP is a classic example of a bureaucratic make-fake-work, fail-to-address-the-actual-problem approach. It’s being completed as a partnership between the Municipal Transit Authority (MTA) and the San Francisco Controller’s Office. The stated goal is to discover what’s currently working for MUNI, what needs to be changed to satisfy as many riders as possible, and how to lower transit costs. It’s the last bit that’s the tip-off. Let me put it this way: If the final TEP report doesn’t contain a strong recommendation for adding service, it’s garbage. A big, fat, time-killing, bean-counting exercise in futility.

Flickr user JM3 reports a heck of a time finding a Muni pass -- despite going to a Muni station to obtain one, he had to get on the train and ride a few stops before reaching an actual vendor. "You almost have to HAVE a muni pass in order to GET a muni pass," he says, which is still only a partial list of requirements: you also have to have the secret unauthorized Muni-map hack to find a vendor nearby.

On certain days, you can also buy monthly passes online -- but you can't buy weekly passes, or use Commuter Checks at all. That functionality is "coming soon," like oh so many promised improvements at Muni. August is the latest estimate we've heard for online Commuter Check usage.

So it's videos of the 38 you want, is it, Diego? Well, knock yourself the hell out with the above movie. The 38 isn't officially wired for NextMuni yet, so it looks kinda funny. (Actually, we prefer the transparent labels, as it makes it easier to see when buses get behind each other.) Our main observation: it sure does take about an hour to travel seven miles. And, as usual, many of the buses prefer to travel in pairs. (If you need to release some anger, a set of beautiful Muni revenge photos can be found here.)

Check out the half-hour wait at Van Ness for a westbound bus starting at 4:00. A half hour wait on one of the busiest bus lines in the country! Fun. Then there's the systemwide outage at noon. All in a day's work.

Since we had so many questions asked of our Muni Security Guy last week, we decided to split his comments into two. Today, he answers the few remaining questions that were asked.

And away we go...

Why do the fare inspectors seem to cluster together in packs of 4 or more? Safety in numbers? Or because it's an easier way to check for passes/transfers?

They work in pairs, for their safety. They shouldn't be clustering.

How many times in the last year did SFPD/MTA Security respond to 5150 calls regarding disruptive/mentally ill passengers aboard Muni vehicles?

SFPD respond to 5150's? We don't keep records of that however SFPD district cars will respond to handle.

What did you think about the whiny Ken Garcia column... the one about how his daughter and her friends were "mortified" after they were caught without transfers?

The staff have the discretion to cite / not cite. It appears there was a valid reason / violation for a citation to be issued. Insofar as Mr. Garcia's complaining - he is entitled to do so.

Thanks and stay safe out there.

Thank you.

If you can stomach one more post about the new bus shelters, take a look at Muni's spread and vote on your favorite. Nearly all of the designs seem to have NextMuni displays, thankfully -- but they're itty bitty teeny tiny wee little adorable things that would be hard to read from across the street. And a couple designs have frosted glass that would obscure the arrival times, and also makes the shelter feel a bit like a shower stall. Muni's requested that you comment heavily on the designs, so have at it!

Today, our Security Guy would like to start off by alerting everyone to the fact that the Proof of Payment rules are actually online. You can check them out here and here.

Then there's last week's story about Aaron Peskin trying to propose new rules to make paying Muni fines easier then we guess the process is now (as we've never been fined-- we once hopped off the N before a fare inspector could get us-- we don't know how hard it is now).

Now, back to the feature. For this week, we are once again going to post the Security Guy's answers to questions asked by our commentors. Since there were so many last week (and thank you, dear readers, for asking so many interesting questions in the comments), we're going to run this as a two-parter. One will come today, another tomorrow.

So, after the fold, we have the first part.

Hey what's this on the Muni site ... could it be ... could it actually be ... dare we hope for ... maps? YES! Muni finally appears to be offering actual MAPS of service changes, eliminating the need to encyclopedic knowledge of San Francisco street names and the ability to visualize complex spatial transformations! This is the sort of thing that could really come in handy for drivers, who are apparently not immune to taking a wrong turn now and then, even when driving a train.

This notice of service changes offers up two different map formats (one simple, one confusing). Which is your favorite? We prefer the one that doesn't look like a trail of drunken ants on a puke-green 1950s stovetop. Compare this with Muni's older service alerts, which don't offer any maps at all. Yay Muni! Tanks fur teh mappinz lol!

For the last few days, we've been having a productive email-chat with friend-of-SFist Blarfiejandro, and we just wanted to run a few ideas past you, the clever SFist reader. Whaddya think about this:

Since Muni has been made reluctant, thanks to the union, to release any details from customers' complaints, let's start our own website where people can submit reports. The data from those reports would get forwarded along to Muni, but it would also be aggregated so that the public can see actual statistics on which areas, drivers, and routes are causing problems. And like Chronwatch, you could also see how long recurring problems have lasted, and find out when Muni finally fixes them. Incidents would also tied to your YouTube videos, and Flickr pictures, and a Google map. You could call it "Busgripe" or "TransiChart" or just "Chartr" if you're all twopointohey.

There's a few obvious problems right off the bat:

- Maria Williams, Muni's head of customer service, probably wouldn't like it. She might refuse to accept Chartr's data, which would remove one of the big motivators for submitting complaints in the first place: the idea that your complaint might help improve Muni, or more deliciously, get someone in trouble.
- It sure would be hard to publicize it.
- Someone smart's got to build it and host it.
- Do you really think it could make enough Adsense to defray costs?

In this whole city, do you think there might be at least one person polite enough to broker an agreement with Muni, someone else shrewd enough to market it, and someone else smart enough to build it? Maybe even more than one? As Scott Adams might say, there's a nonzero change that it could work.

We like to compile these little time-lapses of the 33, since that's the bus we take to work every day. But would you like us to make one of your favorite route? Just say the word! If you think we can catch some Muni laziness -- such at the drivers in the above video, who intentionally bunch-up all evening long -- drop us a line and let us know of the lines to which we ought turn our cruel scrutiny. It's a little time-consuming to put together the videos, so it may take a day or two to assemble them.

The benefit of having such a video: you can point to it and say, "see, look there! I'm not crazy! Those drivers really are dreadful!" And don't forget to submit your complaints to Muni, too. Lately, SFist has been permitted some insider peeks at Muni's human resources, and we're cautiously optimistic that some folks actually do really care about responding to riders' complaints.

Yes, folks, we here at SFist are proud to announce that "Ask a Muni Driver" has returned and will run every Monday for as long as we have our new Muni Driver around to answer all your Muni related questions. And, hell, maybe even a few others-- he could be great at all of your relationship questions too. So let's start in with today's question, about our new drivers' thoughts on what's good and what's bad about Muni.

And, as always, if you have a question you'd like to ask, e-mail us at editor at SFist.com

{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.}

While there are many problems with MUNI, I think the #1 problem is the unrealistic schedules. People complain about buses not coming on time, or coming bunched together, but there’s no way for buses to come on time because of the schedules, and the schedules cause the bunching. For example, anybody riding the 48 Quintara should know that the MUNI schedule gives 6 minutes for the bus to go from 24th & Mission to 24th & Castro (during the busiest time of day – otherwise it’s only 5 minutes).

Let's see… big event? Check. Lots of people involved? Check? Lots of drunk people involved? Double check. Muni somehow screwing the pooch? Check, check, checkity check.

We stumbled out of the park around 2 in the afternoon, full of that dread that comes from being tired, sun fried, and a little drunk and knowing that there was no easy way to get from here to there without having to rely on the kindness of Muni. We had read that Muni was going to take care of things, but that still didn't make us feel better. Especially when that thing Muni was going to do involved the N Judah. As much as we appreciated the idea of extra Ns, the thought of being on a crowded N full of drunken B2B revelers didn't quite fill us with joy. Which is why we stood on Lincoln Street and were cheered by the fact we could see several buses all ambling down the road, all headed our way.

One problem, though -- they were all out of service. Seriously. For the ten minutes we stood there, we saw seven empty Muni buses go by, all with signs saying "Out of Service." What were those buses doing? Did the drivers run the race and park it at Ocean Beach so they could drive their way back home? Was there some sort of Muni Driver Beach Party they were returning from? Was it some sort of racer drag race?

Needless to say, this didn't please us. So we packed our things up and walked up to Judah Street to cross our fingers and wait for the N.

Now the N was actually running fairly often. We saw one pass us and then ten minutes later, another one appeared at our stop. And it was crowded, but not too crowded and the crowd appeared to be sober enough we didn't have to worry about drunk Marina girl puking on our exhausted selves. Yay, Muni! But when the N hit Church Street, the driver just stopped the train for a few minutes and then announced that there were more trains behind us and so we would have to get off and wait for the other trains.

Boo, Muni.

If it weren't for the 22 Fillmore actually showing up when NextBus said it would, we would have ... well, we don't know what we would have done, other than be super pissed.

That, however, was our experience. We've heard from other folks that Muni rocked their world yesterday. So what about you? Did Muni do the job or did Muni do what they usual do?

Picture by us of one of those completely empty buses going by us, taking all of our dreams and aspirations of an easy commute home with it.

Hi, folks -- as promised, here's our very first "Top 5 Comments Of The Week Audio Podcast."

While there's a clear reason we're not in radio, we hope you'll check out this five minutes and 48 seconds where we present the editors' arbitrary favorites from the great discussions always churning in the comments sections.

Take a bow, Steve Portigal, DT, Dave (which one? There are so many . . . ), NoeValleyJim,and Matt from le blog exuberance. But which comments? From which stories?

To find out, either download the file (5.3M) or click here to access a page where you can listen through your Web browser.

Remember our earlier post about how Muni's not going to be providing much information at Bay to Breakers? You'll be delighted to hear that Muni will, in fact, provide "special posting" of their very highest quality. Such as the example pictured here, which advises riders that the stop at Fulton and Stanyan will be moving ... to Fulton and Stanyan. Thanks for clearing that up, Muni.

There's probably no shortage of folks who'll claim that this is yet another polite platitude. But check out this leaked Muni memo from Nat Ford: "we need to take steps to ensure that unacceptable conduct does not continue and that people are accountable for their actions and understand the consequences." Okay, okay, it's only a memo, not some kind of shift in the Muni zeitgeist. And yet ...

Well-placed sources in Muni tell us that Nat Ford isn't just talking the talk when it comes to professional conduct. Check this: "Managers and supervisors, in particular, should monitor, track and address concerns, making staff aware of expectations and of what is and isn't acceptable as well as enforcing the proper procedures to correct problems." This isn't just a memo floating through the ether; according to folks in the know, it's accompanied by directives for managers to set the bar high for their subordinates, as well as a closer scrutiny of customer service -- and that includes the reports that you file online and by calling 311. You are filing those reports, right? EVERY SINGLE TIME something happens? Muni can't heal itself without your input, and with actions behind Mr. Ford's very sound words.

Remember how effed-up Muni was at last year's Bay to Breakers, with no signs and riders vomiting and drivers getting lost and nobody having any idea how to get anywhere? Yeah, it's probably going to be rough this year, too. (The race is on Sunday, the 20th.) We've got some reasons to be scared, very scared, but also some tips for avoiding the worst of it.

Muni promises to be doing their best to keep things flowing smoothly, but we're skeptical. If you see any Muni signage, take pix and tag them with SFist on Flickr to we can find them -- we're head-over-heels for infrastructure stuff like that.

Warning sign #1: The B2B website advises that you call 511 for transit info. DO NOT USE 511. We cannot emphasize that enough. In all circumstances, it is a waste of time. You will not find the information you need. Use SF's 311 instead -- that's 415-701-2311 (voice) or 415-701-2323 (TTY). They'll be insanely busy on Sunday, so call a day or two in advance.

Warning sign #2: No maps of shuttles and service changes. There's going to be, in Muni's words, "major reroutes and delays," but they're not offering any maps of where those re-routes and delays are happening, or for their special shuttles. This doesn't just affect internet geeks; it extends to real life, as Muni will not be posting any maps along the parade route. All of the people who get to the end of the line will have almost no access to information about the changed routes; they'll have to to guess their way home. But lucky for you, we put together a map of where Muni's post-race shuttle bus will be letting people on and off -- hop aboard! Oh, but you'll need a special ticket.

Warning sign #3: You can get tickets for express service, but there's so many restrictions you may not be able to get one; and if you do, it might be useless to you. They're $3 if you've got a Muni pass, $5 for kids and seniors, and $7 for everyone else. You can only buy them under very specific circumstances: during a three-hour 5am to 8am window at West Portal, Castro Street, Church Street, and Van Ness stations, or at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park. Or you can get a ticket by paying the special fare on any Muni vehicle. Tokens and transfers will not be accepted. They're only good until 5pm, and don't work on cable cars. SFist is offering a bounty* if you can find and photograph any Muni signs that provide this information.

Warning sign #4: There'll be special shuttles in the very early morning, but only in one direction, and some of them won't make any stops outside of the Richmond and Sunset: from 5:45am to 8am, the 5, N-OWL, and N-JUDAH will be running limited-stop service from the end of the parade route to the beginning. The 5 Express won't pick up riders east of Fulton/Masonic; the N-Owl Express won't pick up riders east of Carl/Cole; and the N-Judah Express won't pick up riders east of Van Ness. (Again, we're offering a reward* for anyone who can locate signs that explain all this.) They will not be running this service at any time later in the day, so you can't use it to get home from the end of the race. You won't be able to board this special shuttle unless you have your special ticket.

After the jump: How you can avoid misery and heartbreak on race day.

Hey check out these totally sweet NextBus thingies from Melbourne! Man, those rock. Anyway, how was your subway ride this morning? Awesome? Was it awesome? We bet it was awesome. Awesomely MELTY!

"It should reduce the delays,'' says Muni about some software switches they made this morning, in response to complaints from people who don't live here. But uh-oh, our informants tell us that the clogging was worse than ever during today's commute.

Reader Michael writes, "This time it was described as a 'software problem' at Embarcadero. I boarded a 2-car inbound L at Castro just after 6:20 am. ... Finally at 6:50 am I gave up and started walking so I could catch the 8:11 am train. [The driver] was obviously frustrated because she was being told that things would move inbound slowly, but we never got a chance to move at all. I did make the 8:11 train, but I normally wouldn't need to get up at 5:30 am and walk most of the way to do so."

How was your trainride, readers? We were getting text messages this morning from our friends saying things like, "ARGH GRR NEXTBUS SEZ 42 MIN WAIT." When you see bullshit like that, take pictures and tag them on Flickr with Muni and NextBus and SFist so we can post them!

SFist reader Darren stopped by Muni's town hall meeting at the Ferry Building on Tuesday, and sends this account:

I thought the head of Muni was very forthcoming when stating that things did not go so well with the launch of the T and it's ripple effects on the system. Unfortunately the director of Muni pointed out that they want to "make sure they don't make the situation worse" so they are going to take their time before making any changes. They then opened up the floor to hear comments from commuters about what they're seeing and how things are going. People seemed most upset with the safety at CalTrain and the discontinued 15 line.
Seems we are stuck with the current situation until a new solution is attempted in a month or two I suspect.

Anyone else stop by the meeting? Leave your account in the comments, or send them to editor - at - sfist - dot - com!

Looks like there's a stuck train blocking all inbound MUNI traffic from Civic Center on. We're still looking for info (and a sufficiently whimsical picture to illustrate this post) but figured we'd pass the info along for now.

Update: Okay, now the story we originally found is gone, and we can't find anything about this. Any reports from the field, readers? (We did, however, find this gorgeous picture by Thomas Hawk.)

Picture by Thomas Hawk.

In today's installment of "Ask a Muni Security Guy" our security guy answers questions that commenters asked last time around. He will also discuss this week's Muni news about budget cuts and their impact on Muni security. And before we go to the post, we'd like to formally announce that "Ask a Muni Driver" will be returning next Monday as we have another driver willing to answer all your questions.

As always, if you have any questions to either the driver or the security guy, e-mail us at editor@sfist.com.

Now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

Earlier this week, the Examiner had a story about Muni's attempts to deal with their budget problems. One of the reasons for the budget problems is that they haven't been able to hire the fare inspectors needed to collect the money that was projected to come in.

Here is our security guy's response:

"Fare Inspector hiring was delayed due in part to SFPD Deputy Chief Tony Parra (the "head" of the MTA Security and Enforcement Division) and MTA Human Resources / City - County Controllers office.

I don't think the extra personnel will help put a dent into the "fare evasion" but their presence would help. The fare inspectors are only assigned to trains. There is a pilot program to get the fare inspectors onto the buses and this is being met with resistance - internally and externally.

Externally - SFPD is arguing we're taking their jobs away by doing this.
Internally - the MTA is scared to face up to the real facts. Most riders take the bus, not
trains.

Cable Cars: We have fare inspection staff working in plain clothes "monitoring" the conductor, the person who received and handles the cash and issues receipts. WAIT until their union finds out. fare inspectors are in Local 250-A as are cable car conductors and gripman. Their own union members reporting on their counterparts... !!!

And in case you were wondering, fare inspectors make between $50,102.00 - $60,892.00 a year. You can read all about it here.

After the jump, he answers your questions.

Well this is going to be awkward: a public town-hall meeting with Muni Director Nat Ford. It's this Wednesday, May 16, at noon; at the Ferry Building in the Port Conference Room on the second floor. As is usually the case with anything Muni-related, we have no idea how to get to that location. If manage to figure out how to get there, take notes and pictures! We'd love to hear your feedback on how the meeting goes. Cordial and even-tempered, we're sure.

Rescue Muni is tickled pink, of course -- they say that the meeting's being held thanks to a petition organized by disgruntled peninsula commuters. So, if you want your complaints about the city's transit to be addressed, all you have to do is not live in the city.

We've got some awesome pix of the shelterpalooza, courtesy of SFist_Jim. He's color-tweaking the batch right now, but you can check out a preview over on our Flickr account. The latest news from Muni is that they won't be posting their own photos of the shelters on Monday; there've been some unexpected delays, y'see. Unthinkable!

Did you check out the shelters on display yesterday and today? What are your thoughts?

The Chron reports that Gavin's forming a panel to look into ways to raise money for Muni. Hey, great idea! In fact, it's such a good idea that SPUR already did it over a year ago. Remember March of 2006 when we wrote about the report entitled "Muni's Billion Dollar Problem"? It was about how Muni's budget shortfall will total a BILLION dollars in a few years if they don't get their act in gear. Lack of funding was a big cause of the T-line problems you just saw -- Muni couldn't get enough working trains for the line, and they couldn't hire enough drivers to support their ridiculously high absentee rate.

Fortunately, the report also had a list of the ways that Muni can turn its losses around. Here's a handful, with more after the jump. No need to convene a freakin' panel, Gavin -- the work's already been done.

- Hire more fare inspectors. That'll bring in up to $5 million more a year.
- Parking Control Officers (PCOs) are deployed along obsolete beats. Update them. That'll bring in an extra $4 million a year.
- Collect the taxes that you said you would. There's $1 million a year in uncollected parking taxes.
- Enforce the rules that you said you would. It's illegal for downtown garages to offer all-day,weekly, or monthly passes, since that discourages people from taking the bus (sec. 155 (g) of the planning code).Enforcing that rule would bring in $5 million a year.
- Put cameras on the street-sweepers to collect license plate numbers, thus freeing up PCOs to enforce parking laws elsewhere. It would bring in $6 million a year.

More after the jump.

Those NextMuni LED signs are popping up at shelters so fast we can hardly keep track of them! (And neither can Muni, apparently -- we asked for a map of NextMunied shelters, but according to sources, no such thing exists.) But what do you do if there's no LED sign in sight? Or if you're down the street from a shelter, hanging out with friends or enemies, and you want to know when to say goodbye and stroll down the street to hop on a once-an-hour bus?

Fear not: simply create a Textmark so you can get arrival times via SMS. Check our handy guide to existing marks after the jump, and you'll never be caught waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting ever again. Post new marks in the comments as you create them!

(For more details on Textmarks, and instructions for setting up one of your own, check our last post on the subject. the ACTUAL instructions.)

Rescue Muni's handy new blog reminds us that Tuesday's TA meeting will tackle the topic of dedicated bus lanes on Geary. That includes opportunities for public comments, which are always well-reasoned and insightful. Bus lanes (or Bus Rapid Transit, as nerds call them) would speed up everyone's commutes: no more pulling in and out of traffic means faster buses, faster cars, and a 25% rise in bus ridership according to a recent study. That means more people can get to and from the Richmond; a good thing for everyone.

As always, the project's being held up by a one or two critics who insist that nobody wants to move any faster on Geary than they already do, and that people who ride buses never buy things from merchants, and that the transit authority is secretly motivated by a desire to eliminate all local business. Ooookay. But aside from a kooky shampoo peddler, everyone else is pretty psyched about faster travel on Geary, especially since the plans could eventually one day morph from buses to light rail. Don't miss your chance to skip out of work Tuesday morning to give the city a piece of your mind: it's at Tuesday, May 8, at 10:30am in City Hall room 263.

Muni's giving us the chance of a lifetime: come see the proposed new transit shelter designs! Y'see, we're going to be getting a revamp of our familiar domed-roof shelters, and Muni's in the process of deciding how exactly the shelters of the future should look. They've got a couple designs picked out -- but no peeking! Like the MPAA jealously guards its movies from cyber-pirates, Muni has declined to make pictures of the designs available online.

So you're going to have to journey downtown in person to sneak a peek. Here's the location and viewing hours:

City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
* Van Ness Lobby Thursday, May 10, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
* South Light Court Friday, May 11, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Elusive devils, these proposed designs. Catch 'em while you can!

Our beloved Muni Driver may have stopped writing for us, but that doesn't mean we can't get another part of Muni to take their chances posting for us. So without further ado, we'd like to start our new feature, Ask a Muni Security Guy. And standard rules apply-- we're really lucky to have this feature and our Muni Security Guy is not a writer, so be nice in the comment section.

It goes without saying that if you have any questions, drop us a line at editor @ sfist.com.

First question, what exactly is Muni Security

MUNI security detail entails:

There are a bunch of SFPD "assigned to Muni (officers, TSA K9 and a SGT). These guys are supposed to handle any criminal matters on MUNI. MUNI pays 1.8 million a year for these guys (who don't do much).

MTAP - Muni Transit Assistant Program personnel. These guys are from the program for kids from the lower income areas, to give them skills. 3 year maximum term limits, 4 supervisors and overseen by a manager. They work mostly with the various projects/ communites and the "high risk" schools-- as a go between AND along various bus lines to help educate "no rear door boarding." Mostly the 14 mission line.

Fare inspectors- these guys handle the proof of payment enforcement with Supervisors. They ride the trains (only) and issue citations as necessary. Supposed to have up to 64 fare inspectors soon. 9 new inspectors are in training now. The new inspectors have one, maybe two more weeks on their field training and they'll be cut loose.

King Security the contract company that provides for physical security at the bus and rail yards at night. The entire security program (other than for SFPD) is to be eyes and ears for the SFPD.

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.