These 5-Fulton riders were disappointed with their 20-plus minute wait during mid-day. Service cuts to this particular line a few years back are still being felt.

One way to gauge the frustration level of mass transit customers is to see how many people stand in the street (or crosswalk or intersection) in order to take a gander for the next vehicle. Moving into the street appears to be a strategy for coping with a longer than expected wait. It doesn't make the next bus come any faster of course, and those who loiter in traffic run the risk of collision with those cyclists on the look out for John Law. Rider beware.

Today we explore when and why Muni Drivers leave people in the lurch at bus stops.

"When do you decide to wait for somebody who is running to a stop and when do you decide to just go anyway and leave them as they're approaching the bus stop?"

{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.}

The first point to make is that there isn't an official MUNI policy on this; it's pretty much up to the driver. The reality on the ground is that if a driver is behind schedule, or is cutting it close, there's a strong motivation not to wait.

Personally, if I see someone within reasonable distance of where my stop is making a real effort to get to the stop I'll wait regardless of my time on the schedule. I may complain bitterly inside, but I'll wait. On the other hand, if someone's three blocks or on the other side of a major thoroughfare and waiting for what I know is a long light, I'm not waiting. Mind you, I will definitely NOT stop once the bus is in motion and moving (or already in) traffic. That's just stupid and dangerous frankly it's pretty damned rude of anyone to expect it. But of course in our me-centric culture they do, and often.

Well, first and most importantly! -- SFist MattyMatt's started a new job so he's been pretty busy at work and hasn't had time to post lately, for all folks asking about him in the SFist Tips column!. But he's still here, we promise! We miss him too! (Meanwhile, you guys can always check out his personal blog.)

And second of all -- goodness, what a terrible day on the commutes. It's like when the sun, the moon, and a bunch of other planets all line up in a syzygy: all K, L, and Ms got stuck due to inbound line damage in the West Portal tunnel on MUNI, and a train went out of service at 24th Street on the BART. Nightmare.

On the bright side, we managed to use all the transit tie-ups as an excuse for our late arrival at work today (we didn't get stuck in the mess, we just woke up late). How was your ride in? Maybe SFist MattyMatt will get a break at work and can give us the zingy in the comments!

Current status: BART up and running again; MUNI to come back within an hour or two.

Picture of MUNI shuttle bus madness from the Chron, by Marcus Chan.

You have questions, we have answers.

I agree with the earlier comment regarding dogs on the MUNI. I didn't know that it was okay to have dogs on the MUNI, unless the dog was to assist a person? Another issue... I was on the J-Church on Tuesday, July 17, and a woman ran to the front of the car to advise the driver (who also had another person just sitting in the cab talking to her) that someone tried to rob a woman of her Ipod (knocking her to the floor) at the back of the car (near 22nd and 24th Streets) and to please call the police. Instead of doing anything, the driver ignored it and continued driving. When we left the 24th St stop, a couple ran to the driver to tell the driver that the same person who tried to rob the woman was now fighting with other people on the train and to call the police. Again, the driver ignored the requests. Many of the women on the car were afraid and got off at the next stop (Clifford). What is the protocol for drivers to do when police are needed on MUNI cars? It should not be up to the riders to police the MUNI cars!

Drivers (Operators) are to call in to Central Control and have the police respond, not ignore things - then again, this is an Operator Training issue (which they are taught to be helpful and notify the police).

If I'm not mistaken, 1 dog (must be muzzled) on a vehicle at a time.
I like suckafree's idea of the kiosk. Maybe not at every stop, but every so often or at the busy ones (duboce park, for example). Also to #16, I think it's aweful that the driver didnt' give a shit. You should complain to MUNI to get the video of the situation. Also, doesn't everyone cary a goddamned cell phone these days. Anybody else could have called in the attempted robbery...

Non service dogs are to be muzzled, period.

Perhaps when the police DO respond, have them (the police) arrest the Operator as an acessory. They were told of a crime, they ignored it and therefore helping the crime to go down. ?

Maybe it's because we're fascinated by its garish, antique iMac-y design more than what it claims to do -- explicably, we still have faith in visiting NextBus -- but something like this would be ideal for bedrooms and offices all across SF. The alarm clock indicates all of Tokyo’s major train arrival/departure times all while getting your sleepy ass out of bed. What won’t the Japanese think of next?

Reader and contributor Ted, who sent this to us, argues that if MUNI was tied to it, it would "be spinning backward and forward and grinding and whining non-stop, until it died." Which? True.

But still…the pretty lime green is just darling in an ugly sort of way.

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.

Muni continues to put food on lawyers' tables: we're up to $538,686.33 in claims since February. The big case this month was settled for about $40,000, but we can't look up the details because it's unlitigated. The other two cases seem unremarkable -- fourteen thousand, also unlitigated, and six thousand for a bus driver whose driving knocked a disabled person off her feet.

But can we just say -- what is up with the law offices of Aspelin and Brigman? Not only does their initial complaint misspell their client's name, but it contains weird run-on sentences and grammatical gems such as "As a result Plaintiff fall." Did they hire Caveman Lawyer?

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!

SFist Dan reports that the J-Church "is dead from 18th Street/Church" and on. "Clusterfuck"ing and madness found at the site of transportation-free chaos.

UPDATE: J-Church is up and running.

In this week's Ask a Muni Security Guy, we wonder just who is that bald security dude? The answer will surprise you. And as always, we have answers to last weeks questions. Remember, if you have a question that you want answered, either email us at editor@sfist.com or post it in the comment thread.

what i want to know is who the bald security guy is and his female coworker. they are EVERYWHERE! seriously, those two must be cloned for the number of times i see them

Which bald guy? we have a few. fortunately, they are all good. Thanks for the observation and comment on them.

I have an observation and question for the Muni security guy:

I was on the Van Ness platform, and two fare inspectors were on the platform talking and laughing while myself and other passengers exited and entered trains. Not once did they ask anyone for their POP, and instead were deep into a conversation in the middle of a briskly active platform.

When I arrived at Powell station, I headed up stairs and was asked for my POP by an inspector. Confused, I politely asked him why he asked me, but the two jokers at Van Ness ignored me. His reply was that those guys likely were waiting for a specific train they worked.

It seems to me that it is a waste of time to have inspectors just standing around the platform waiting while on the payroll, when they could check POP while they waited for their train.
Is this a union rules thing, or am I missing something here?

You are right. Due to complaints by their union (shop steward in particular - a fellow fare inspector) and the subsequent agreement made, pair of inspectors #1 are working (we'll say, the J line). Pair #1 enter at Van Ness and we know all lines run through Van Ness. They are to NOT do anything else until they get on a J line train. Stupid? Yes! This was mostly due to the complaint that other pairs of inspectors are "taking away their stats". Stats meaning contacts, warnings and citation issuance rates. I.E. they argued this because other inspector pairings made them look bad by their rates of contacts, warnings given and citations issued.

Please complain to management about this. We, as supervisors, had no say in the agreement made by the union and our higher ups (management).

We're startled to report that Muni has, in a surprising and awesome display of openness, decided to make public a ton of information regarding their ongoing Choose-Your-Own-Shelter-Adventure. Check out the reams of dataz they've just posted online -- it's all there: facts! Figures! Feedback!

And we do mean feedback. They've just posted every single public comment they received, and boy howdy did they get a lot of comments. (Profanity, you'll be relieved to hear, has been excised, so the delicate sensibilities of Victorian transit enthusiasts will remain unassailed.)

So, what does it all mean? Ah, well ... hmm. Hard to say. The one thing this report seems to lack is an Executive Summary. There's about a million points of data here; but making sense of it, as always seems to be the case with Muni, is up to you. But for once, we're willing to overlook the confusing barrage of information, simply because it's just so nifty of Muni to have make this info available.

So now, readers, it's up to you to sift through some of the comments, find your favorites, and post them here. We're partial to a remark directed at the above design: "Looks like it belongs in Rochester, NY." Oh snap.

A footnote: whenever this topic comes up, someone always grumps that Muni should be spending its money on making the buses run on time instead of buying new shelters. But fear not: Muni doesn't pay for the shelters, advertisers do. So there.

While the Powers that Be continue to dicker around with the idea of a very expensive Central Subway that will go from Market through Chinatown, one man has an idea to save us all the trouble and expense. That man is Howard Strassner of Rescue Muni.

Strassner thinks that if we just implemented the BRT plan in Chinatown, the 30 Stockton will move much faster and thus alleviate all the complaints that have been fueling the calls for the Central Subway. Strassner even suggests that if implemented, the commute on the 30 Stockton will only be a minute or so slower than the subway. Most importantly, it'll save us major amounts of money, like over a billion dollars worth and yes, that's "billion" with a b.

The plan would call for having a bus-only lane through much of Chinatown so the bus can zip through that section of town. As anyone who has ridden the 30 Stockton knows, it feels like it can sometimes take like fifteen minutes to go four or five blocks and by blocks, we mean every block as it seems like that line has a stop on every damn block. The problem with all this is whether the merchants in Chinatown will go for it as even plans for a BRT on Van Ness and Geary have met with major resistance. We're also unsure as to how this will work as it's not like Stockton isn't crowded enough with cars and pedestrians and who knows what. Wouldn't blocking off one of the lanes mean more traffic?

Anyways, it's not a half bad idea.

And on the lighter side of MUNI news, this swiped-genitalia graffiti was found on the J-Church this past Friday night. Not sure if "they" means women, queers, Noe Valley residents, all three, or what -- or why it's on masking tape. Enjoy!

(Thanks, Greg, for capturing this for us.)

...but then again, neither does the engine! Ha ha ha! Just kidding of course; Muni does a fantastic job. Really, top-notch service. Never a single complaint.

SFist reader Bob sent us this photo of a Muni bus decorated in a USA-themed color scheme, or maybe disguised as Homestar Runner. He writes, "Muni must have run out of buses or something today as they are using the craziest, busted old ass bus I have ever seen. ... It was late morning making a right hand turn from Clay onto Drumm."

Oh come on, it's not so bad. Just another normal day on the ... wait, does that say "43 Roosevelt"? What the hell? Is that even IN San Francisco?

DROP EVERYTHING. Seriously, clear your calendar for this one: it's a good old fashioned bell-ringing contest! By gum, it's been a while! Well, a year. Oh, and it's happening today. You didn't have any plans, did you?

Sorry this post is so last minute, but once again displaying their organization's characteristic timeliness, Muni sent out a press release at the end of the day on Wednesday, letting us know about an event on Thursday. It's the 45th Annual Cable Car Bell-Ringing Contest! A chance to recognize the Muni employees who do their rounds on-time, never bunch up, always check for proper fare, and offer polite directions to commuters. HA HA HA! Just kidding, it's actually a chance to recognize the folks who can bang two pieces of metal together.

We're doomed.

Our security guy returns this week with a post about the measure taken before a big event as well as some more answers to recently posed questions.

Do you guys have to be at full staff for big events? And is part of your job to be tour guides?

At major events - yes. (i.e., New Years Eve, Halloween in the Castro, etc.) We try to get as many there. On the last NYE, the union balked at having people "ordered" to work / having their days-off cancelled. So, we schedule the available shifts and posted up OT slots for the events..

tour guides? A byproduct of the job and what management wants us to do -- "be nice to the tourists."

How will you handle the All-Star Game and all the increased traffic for it?

Most of us are out at 2nd / King Streets, watching the crosswalk and tracks. At this location, we may be out along 3rd and King, too. Some of us are out at Embarcadero / Powell Streets to help point the out of towners toward the right direction (AT&T Park). We have been told to not cite the out of towners...

There is not much fare enforcement going on now....

Wait -- a program for operator training only just started in the last few months???

Our involvement? Yes - we've attended training classes for about one half up to one (1) hour to educate the new operators on fare inspectors, the POP program. This came about after we asked to be a part of the training and management thought it would be a good idea (duh). Prior to this, new operators didn't know about us until they got to the subway.

When he's not busy getting impeached or whatever for indecent exposure, Aaron Peskin's trying to fix Muni. And SPUR, the urban-planny folks, are grateful: they're encouraging everyone to give Aaron's amendments a thumbs-up. You can read it in loathsome .doc format here, or as a Google Document here -- but honestly, you don't want to read either, since it's about a billion pages long.

Here's a condensed version of what the amendment would do: give Muni more money (it's currently underfunded by millions and simply can't afford to meet its service requirements), make it easier to fire awful employees and reward awesome ones, and institute some clean-air planning. Predictably, it's the labor issues that have some folks riled up: although nobody would be kicked out of a union, it would allow Muni to hire more folks "at will" -- that's the way that most people are hired, and it means that you can be fired if you're grossly negligent. Sounds fair enough. It would also let Muni offer more merit-based raises, which sounds even better.

Jake McG's floating a Muni amendment of his own, which would give the Supes more control over Muni (which always works out well). Beyond Chron seems to have taken a shining to it, as Paul Hogarth has doubts about Aaron's labor reforms: "I doubt it's appropriate to scapegoat the system's problem on people who work for Muni." Quite right! When a company fails, it's never the fault of the people who work there. If anyone should be scapegoated, it's the riders. Lazy bums.

It's funny because it's true.

When friend-of-a-friend-of-SFist Mike had a particularly nasty Muni experience, he struck back as best a person can: with a satiric t-shirt! He adds, "These ship in a couple of weeks. I’m sure MUNI will still suck by then." Zing!

It may not fix Muni, but at least you'll feel as though your shirt is issuing some comeuppance. Pick one up at the Feed Store -- sizes range from "Medium" all the way up to "Person Who Sits In A Chair All Day."

Remember mid-June, when we posted video of a driver pulling over and wandering into Walgreen's to do some errands? There's new news to report! Well, actually, there isn't -- Muni has just officially admitted that they failed to capture any data relating the to incident.

We submitted a report to Muni about it (it's number 226478, in case you care); meanwhile, Sunshine-champion Kimo Crossman requested that Muni turn over footage from the bus in question.

For a week and a half, nothing happened.

We got a reply from Muni on the 27th. This is the extent of the response Muni will provide to a passenger; to get anything further, you have to do a Sunshine request.

And then finally, last Friday, Muni responded to Kimo: they can't figure out which bus the incident occurred on -- and who can blame them, given the limited details? (11:45am on the Westbound 33 at 18th and Castro driven by a heavyset African American woman.) They were able to narrow it down to three different buses, though: two of them had broken cameras. The third bus had a working camera -- but after they viewed the tape, Muni deleted it! By accident! Totally by accident, they swear!

Muni conveyed most of that info in a form email; and then at the end, the font changes to a teeny tiny little script, as if Emily Litella wrote the closing words: "As a result, the MTA has no records responsive to your request."

Another jorb well done, Muni!

Transformers.... more than meets the eye! Not only robots in disguise, but also the source of today's MUNI irritation. Curse you, Decepticons!

A transformer explosion and subsequent electrical pole damage at San Jose and Ocean has rendered the following lines extremely delayed: the J, the 26 Valencia, the 36 Teresita, and the 49 Van Ness. Plan accordingly, Optimus Prime.

We went with a picture from the 1986 Transformers animated movie rather than the live-action movie opening tomorrow because the graphics on the animated version are better.

Hey did you know that sometimes Muni makes mistakes? It's totally true! For example, you might not know this, but the launch of the T line was not without the occasional snafu. We refer, of course, to the confusion with the 54-Felton: according to a source at Muni, speaking on condition on anonymity, the 54 was re-routed onto Newhall to make room for the Third -- but nobody noticed that the new streets weren't wide enough for buses.

In the end, our source says, the route was quietly returned to Third Street on May 12th. But you'd be hard-pressed to find any evidence of that; tracking Muni's route changes is an exercise in outdated memos and record-keeping that's so spotty you might as well call it "record-losing."

So what's the current situation with the 54-Felton? We're not asking that rhetorically, we really want you, readers, to clue us in. In your experience, is it running on Third street, like our informant says it's supposed to? Or is it bypassing Third for Newhall, like Muni claims? Gee whiz, it sure would be nice if we could trust the routes that Muni has posted on its site ... but we can't.

"Re-routed via Newhall (until further notice)" says Muni's April 7 Major Permanent Service Change about the 54. In fact, Muni's own description of the route still indicates that it runs along Newhall. Meanwhile the nearly-always-incorrect 511.org shows the route running along Third, like it did before; and it has a confusing schedule that seems to describe a different route altogether -- in fact, 511 has no record that the "Major Permanent Change" ever even happened. Muni's service alerts, meanwhile, aren't organized by date or by line -- as far as we can tell, they're not organized by anything, and are arbitrarily removed from the site with no rhyme or reason.

After the jump: our anonymous tipster's report!

This week, we're going to do a Very Special Edition of "Ask a Muni Driver" as our driver is going to give us his list of "Things That Annoy the Crap Out of a Driver." He's also asking submissions from SFist readers to list their "Things That Annoy the Crap Out of Muni Riders." We've probably beaten that into the ground by now, but either post a comment in the comment section or e-mail me at jon@sfist.com and we'll put together a list for next week.

Anyways, back to the show.

This week I’ve decided to go a little bit off the grid and throw some stuff out there that nobody asked for. Here’s my Things That Annoy the Crap Out of a Driver list (least annoying first):

--Money. Please, people, please: If you’re paying cash, get it out of your purse/backpack/pocket/shoe before you climb the stairs. It’s beyond annoying to see someone talking on a cellphone, carrying a purse or backpack that could easily hold the Grand Canyon, spending five minutes leaning on the fare box, blocking everyone else’s efforts to get on the bus, counting out pennies from the nether reaches of their bag.

Didja go to the Muni meeting on Friday? They alloted yet more dough for the paying off of claims. That brings us to $181,418.97 for the month, or $480,248.58 since February. They may not be able to run their own NextMuni system properly, but they sure do know how to pay up!