Muni’s Long Shutdown Is Actually Kinda Beautiful
Photo by Patrick T. Power
Muni is busy building a better Muni, though we’re sure some of you see the long shutdown mostly as a big stinkin’ pain in the ass.
Still, there’s a sort of beauty in the work going on at Church and Duboce, evidenced here by Patrick’s photo above. Click here for a larger version.
Aside from looking kinda purty if you’re in the right mood, we wanna know how your N-Judah, J-Church, and 22-Fillmore experiences have been like since Friday evening. Better, worse, same? Sound off in comments here.
Here’s another shot of the action, this one from Jim. Thanks for sending, Jim!
Well I can’t speak for the N-Judah or the J-Church, but the M-Ocean View hasn’t had service this good since the St. Francis Circle rail shutdown and bus shuttles. It’s sad that we only get decent service when one part of the system is fucked; really highlights the LRV/driver shortage that constantly plagues the KLM lines.
The 22 Fillmore detour and route has been awesome so far this week. Sure, I get where I need to go about 10 minutes later than usual, but it has been very relaxing, quiet, faster than expected… Almost meditative. Seriously.
The trick is to make sure your bus is taking the detour and not just dumping you out at McAllister or Mission to catch a shuttle.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they are pulling service from other routes to provide so many N bus shuttles to replace the LRVs. My 16x which is normally uncrowded and calm has been a madhouse this week. One could argue that people are seeking alternatives routes rather than dealing with the shuttles, but I don’t think that’s the case as I see people looking at their watches and anxiously down the street, and it makes me think they’ve been there for a while, waiting.. plus they are all familiar faces, just more of them squished together. I think they pulled the articulated buses from the 16x as I haven’t seen them around. My husband had to wait 25 minutes for a 22 in Potrero Hill yesterday too. And the N shuttles are crowded as all hell too. I guess the extra N shuttle buses have to come from somewhere and I’m still getting from point A to point B in a (relatively) OK amount of time, but I’ll be glad when this mess is over.
The 6/71/71L corridor is definitely more crowded, but could either be because they yanked buses to replace the N or because people are using it as an alternative to the N.
Anecdotally the gaps in the nextbus predictions seem longer than usual, suggesting that buses are missing from the regular schedule.
The L line has been abysmal all week. What has taken me one hour with a cutback on 22nd or sunset on most days has now taken me two and a quarter hours with a dump in West Portal, 22nd and Sunset. Once you pass Church its another hour of stop and go before you reach West portal. I can tell you with all certainty that the L is the most neglected of all the major lines with most riders with little or no patience left. I wish the Government would just come in conduct a hostile take over of Muni and clean house.
It’s kind of exciting! I love that 14th st is closed to all but bikes (at least that’s what the electronic sign on market street says). To Muni’s credit, they seem to have done a huge amount of planning for this.
Here are a few more shots of the work: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanan/tags/munishutdown/
I take the N to get to my job right by 2nd & King. I’ve been walking to Van Ness and taking the 49 bus in the mornings and then, to get home, walking up to Market and catching whatever bus I can get. As Erik said, the 6/71 buses are extra-crowded with displaced N riders, to the point where no one else could squish inside a couple buses that passed by my stop on Tuesday morning. I gave up on that. I can tell the entire baseball season is going to suck working at this location.
Took the N-Judah bus out to the beach today midday. Was smooth sailing. It was actually nice being on a bus going up market, up 15th, down castro the up Haight to Irving and out to the ocean. Nice to see so many neighborhoods I usually miss on the train. Of course, I was on the train at noon. Not sure if it’s pure hell at rush hour.
Does anybody know how exactly these improvements will impact service? Seems to me the majority of delays are not track-related but schedule related (too many trains in the Market Street tunnel at one time, etc).
The improvements under construction are basically just to keep the track/cabling from falling apart any moment now. Service will only be improved in that track/cabling problems should be less likely afterwards.
They will not impact service.