Muni Frequent Rider Miles?
Photo by Michael Risenhoover
“Too bad they don’t offer bus miles, you know, like airline miles…”
Too bad, yeah. But it got me thinking: What if SFMTA had some sort of rewards program for loyal riders? All default jokes about “loyalty” aside, I think this is an amusing mental exercise.
My most frequently used route is the 49-Van Ness, which I ride 3.3 miles from the Mission to the end of the line, at North Point and Van Ness. From there, I hop on a 47-Van Ness for 0.75 miles to get to work. 4.15 miles to get there. And I repeat that ride in the afternoons to get home: 8.3 miles per day
Multiplied by five, I rack up 41.5 miles on Muni per week. Multiply that by 50 weeks per year, and we’re looking at a whoppin’ 2,075 miles per year!!! Holy crap!
Sooooo, what should my prize options be? Yeah, a bus that runs on time and all that. But what else?
How many miles have you piled up over the years on Muni?
How did you figure out your mileage?
As near as I can figure, my commute from Bernal Heights to the Inner Sunset racks up a daily total of about 14 miles on a combo of MUNI Trains, busses and BART.
If I just took the Bus, it would only be around 9 miles a day, but take longer.
hi Erik,
don’t remember now which one I used, but there are several distance calculators out there that use Google Maps (my preferred map app).
Ah, I tried to figure it with Google Maps.
Even more telling, how much time a year do you spend on Public Transit?
I spend approximately a minimum of 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week.
I get a lot of reading done.
They actually just started a loyalty program last month here in Minneapolis. It’s called Ride to Rewards and you get points by using your Go-To card (our version of the Clipper). You can trade in points for gift cards or bus fare, but a $20 VISA gift card is actually less than than $20 in bus fare. Why not just get the gift card and spend it on reloading your Go-To. Huh….