about us

Our mission

Together, we’re writing our collective love letter to the city we call home.

In 2008, a ragtag group of Muni riders started a blog about the funny, sweet, but often weird and gross stuff happening on the bus. More than 4,000 people submitted stories to Muni Diaries about bizarre yet wonderful encounters between strangers. One thing was clear: San Franciscans are deeply committed to living here, and you make the city what it is today.

Muni Diaries is a community, podcast, and live event!

What started out as a blog has turned into a community of thousands of riders adding their own stories to this collective journal. In 2009, we turned the blog into a live event, Muni Diaries Live, and you can find us at Rickshaw Stop twice a year.

Missed a show or want some original stories to listen to on your commute? Our stories are now also on the airwaves as the Muni Diaries Podcast! Subscribe and share it with your podcast-listening friends.

What if I have a story that happened off the bus?

After nearly a decade of documenting stories that happen on Muni and the cultural cross-section of San Francisco that rides it, we opened our inbox to stories that happen on and off the rails. We’ve added a new venture to the Muni Diaries family: San Francisco Diaries! In this sister project, you can hear stories about city living on our podcast as well as on our site.

So let’s blow up the party talk and sound off with our different perspectives on city living. Diverse people and communities built this ever-evolving Victorian boomtown, and we can learn a lot from each other: whether we’re standing shoulder to shoulder on Muni, in the protest line, or at a bar.

There’s no better time for all of us to explore what it means to be a San Franciscan—and what we can give back to the city that has given us so much.

Who is Muni Diaries?

You! You are the contributor, the diarist, and the documenter of city living for this new project we’re working on alongside our beloved first child, Muni Diaries. Help us document San Francisco life by emailing us your stories or tag us @munidiaries to submit a story on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Stay in touch:

Press

Check it out: Muni Diaries is making the local (and international!) news.

Work with us

Want to sponsor an event? Have a cool collaboration idea? Email us for a media kit and rates. We’re always looking for more ways to connect with our community.

Your humble crew

Kat Siegal, Editor

Kat is a long-time Muni Diaries admirer, a daily Muni rider, and someone who deeply loves both public transit and San Francisco. She is a member of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Citizen Advisory Committee, volunteers with the San Francisco Transit Riders, and is also on the board of the Market Street Railway nonprofit group. She has worked on transit-related projects ranging from the whimsical, like streetcar.live, to the advocacy-minded, like transitrecovery.com. When she is not on the bus or train you can find her biking around the city, strolling Slow Page Street and Car-Free JFK Drive, and repairing bikes at Scenic Routes Community Bicycle Center.

Sarah Katz-Hyman, Editor

Sarah moved to San Francisco in 2016 and has been running for the bus ever since. She came to appreciate public transportation by way of bicycle advocacy, and really the whimsical boat tram. Day to day she helps communities improve their parks and public spaces and many nights you can see her perform various comedic stylings around San Francisco. She enjoys a long city meander, a visit to Ocean Beach with her perfect dog (Whoofi) Goldberg via the N Judah, and espousing the superiority of Sister Act I & II as THE San Francisco films of record. She has a background in community-based activism, adult and youth education, non-profit development, public space research, and communications.

Tara Ramroop, Editor-in-chief & co-founder

Tara is a writer, editor, and marketing type who breathed her first in San Francisco.

Back when you could live here on a journalism salary, she wrote and reported for The San Francisco Examiner and San Mateo County Times, priming her well for community storytelling and the quirks of local government and politics.

Tara has appeared on the 31, 14, 49, and the streetcar, among other illustrious lines. She still gets on transit vehicles worldwide with eyes and ears peeled for stories.

Eugenia Chien, co-founder

One of the co-founders of Muni Diaries, Eugenia spends her days and nights exploring the nooks and crannies of the internet for companies big and small. In a previous life, she had been a reporter and editor at New America Media and a some-time commentator for 91.7 KALW.

Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, and San Francisco Magazine.

Peter Clarke, producer

Originally from eastern Oregon, Peter Clarke moved to San Francisco in 2010. His love for online content drew him to the Bay Area, with dreams of someday working for the now defunct network Revision3. Six years later he crossed paths with the Muni Diaries team, helping them produce their podcast.

He enjoys throwing parties around the City on a weekly basis. Ranging from minimal techno, to funky soulful house music. MNML FUN features both established and upcoming performers. In his free time, Peter captures quirky moments on the streets of San Francisco with his trustworthy Canon AE-1.

Craig Fowler, designer

Craig joined Muni Diaries in the summer of 2012 to redesign the Muni Diaries website, as well as other promotional materials. Craig lives in the Mission and relies entirely on Muni. Within three days of moving to San Francisco in 2007, he received a Muni ticket and found himself in court disputing it a week later. He received another ticket on his birthday, but it was thrown out by a very nice police officer. Now, his day job pays for his transportation and Craig rides Muni entirely legally. When he’s not busy designing, he can be seen playing rock and roll music, cooking nearly edible food at home, and never dancing.

To see more of his work, and to inquire about projects, check out craigfowlerdesign.com.

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Logo and bus illustration in our masthead by Suzanne LaGasa and Jay Sacher.

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