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 But you'd be hard-pressed to find any evidence of that; tracking Muni's route changes is an exercise in outdated memos and record-keeping that's so spotty you might as well call it "record-losing."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 , and are arbitrarily removed from the site with no rhyme or reason.

After the jump: our anonymous tipster's report!

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