After two days of terrible delays and packed vehicles, the Muni driver sick-out appears to be abating slightly. However, the SFMTA is still warning riders to expect delays and to "monitor news media" (hi!) to figure out just how miserable their commute might be.

On Tuesday evening, SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose told SFist that the transit agency "was hopeful" that more drivers would return to work on Wednesday. That seems to be borne out by early reports that "only" 160 drivers have called in sick today (twice as many failed to show up for work on Monday) and that 440 of their usual 600 vehicles would be on the road for Wednesday's commute.

In fact, Muni is feeling good enough about things to say that "light rail lines and bus routes will return to their regular routes for the morning commute," and that "all Limited and Express routes will be in service" for the first time this week.

Cable cars still won't be operating today, though shuttle buses will be running their route. The F Market will only be running between Fisherman's Wharf and the Ferry Building, so you're stuck with Muni Metro to get down Market Street.

If Muni gets too hairy this morning, BART is still accepting customers with a valid Muni proof of payment between Daly City and Embarcadero stations. Just remember to go to the BART Station Agent gate, don't tag your Clipper card.

As a side note, it's been a difficult couple of days, and with it has come some nasty rumors. In one case, it was reported that the 83x, aka the "Twitter bus," "was found running apace" this week. Rose vehemently denied this allegation (but if you know otherwise, we'd love to hear more about it).

"None of the Express routes were in service on Monday or Tuesday," Rose said, specifying that "none of the express-only routes had any buses on them."

When asked why a screencap of NextBus results appeared to support allegations that "a line built explicitly to serve the Mid-Market tech corridor where Twitter's headquarters are located was up and running all morning," Rose said "we've been telling people all along that NextBus results will be inaccurate these least two days, with such a widespread disruption." And indeed, they have.

Rose also denied some tweeted reports that fare inspectors have been "out in force" this week, cramming into packed buses to ticket passengers who appear to lack proof of payment. Fare inspectors "have not been instructed to check for POP" this week, Rose told SFist. "The are out purely in a customer-service basis." The SFMTA twitter account repeated that message shortly thereafter.

In any case, here's hoping for a better commute today. How was yours?