Author: eugenia

Eugenia Chien has been eavesdropping on the 47, 49, or 1 lines since the mid-90's. She lives by the adage, "Anything can happen on Muni" (and also, "That's not water.")

Weekend Photo: The Masses

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Powell Street Station
Photo by David Lytle

Tweetmaster and editor Jeff will be back next week from his honeymoon so that Muni Diaries will be running on all cylinders again. Thank you for all your submissions and tweets in the past few weeks while I run the show solo! Today’s edition of Weekend Photo is a little early…but here we go.

In Muni news this week:

  • Do You Have to Tag Your Clipper Card If You Have a Monthly Pass? (SFAppeal)
  • Wear and Tear of Muni Buses – a word with John Haley (Spot.us)
  • Muni approval rate drops. (Bay Citizen/Bay City News Service)
  • Nat Ford on D.C. Metro’s list of potential leaders is no surprise to Muni insiders. (SFWeekly). Nat Ford said D.C. approached him, not the other way around. (SFAppeal)
  • Muni working to stop free rides from Clipper card gate glitch. (KTVU and KGO)
  • The latest on the Central Subway project – it could open in 2018 (SFAppeal)
  • Bad Clocks Leave Clipper Cards Double Dipping, Registering Transfers As New Fares (SFAppeal)
  • Muni Passenger Battles With Robber Over Stolen $10 (SFWeekly)

Lots of travel advisories this weekend due to various events, including Critical Mass tonight. Other events with transit impact:

  • Transbay Terminal Construction, from 10 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday, construction at the Transbay Terminal will require the closure of Beale Street between Mission and Howard streets. Affected Muni routes: 5 Fulton, 14L Mission, and 71 Haight-Noriega
  • On Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. the Polk Street Blues Festival will be held on Polk Street between Union and Pacific streets. The 19 Polk Muni route will be affected.

    • Sunday:

  • Folsom Street Fair, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Affected Muni routes:9 San Bruno, 12 Folsom-Pacific, 19 Polk, and 47 Van Ness
  • Cole Valley Fair, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Affected Muni routes: 6 Parnassus, 37 Corbett, 43 Masonic, and N Judah
  • Portola Festival on San Bruno Avenue between Felton and Bacon streets from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Affected Muni routes: 9 San Bruno, 8x Bayshore Express, 54 Felton.

Have you marked your calendars for the next Muni Diaries Live! on Friday, Oct. 29, at the Make-Out Room? If you haven’t, permanent marker this in your calendars now because we’ve got a lot of fun surprises in the bag for you!

Enjoy your weekend and these photos.

9 San Bruno
Photo by juicyrai

Annoyed passenger.
Photo by Kevin

Puzzled bus riders
Photo by niallkennedy

Muni Yard by night
Photo by the jof
Billy's Bounce
Photo by Troy Holden

Category: diaries

BART to Muni Discount Only Available on Clipper Starting Oct. 4

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Bay Area Rapid Transit
Photo by John K

The ever diligent Akit at Akit’s Complaint Department reminds us today that the BART to Muni discount transfer will be available on Clipper only starting Oct. 4.

Currently you can get a 25 cent discount on a paper coupon when you transfer from BART to Muni. Starting Oct. 4, to receive this discount, you’ll have to use a Clipper card to pay the fare, and the 25 cent discount will be automatically calculated on your card, according to SFMTA’s official announcement.  This only applies to stations between Embarcardero and Balboa Park and does not include Daly City station where you can still receive a paper coupon for the discount.

Why is this happening? According to Akit, the new faregates and ticketing machines have no way to accept the paper coupon, and this also eliminates paper waste. See Akit’s post for more on why the BART to Muni discount will be on Clipper only.

Clipper cards are free until June.

Category: News Tags:

Got Stories From the Driver’s Seat?

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27: hi-five a muni driver
Photo by Kate RW

Jason had a really great experience with a Muni driver named Jackie, and it involves butterscotch:

I rode a 21 Hayes from downtown up to Fillmore late on Sunday, asked the driver how she was doing, she said “wonderful” or words to that effect, i said i was “fantastic” and we laughed about how things should always be this way.

After we got going I went back up to the front to ask her name. “Jackie” she said, and instinctively i replied “With such a great attitude, there has to be a Muni Diaries story about you.” (and there is!) She was unaware of the Diaries so I enlightened her, which gave her a tickle.

Then we swapped origins (she’s a native, I’m from Manchester in the UK) and got talking about earthquakes. It was then she busted out the candy! Butterscotch, even. And it turns out she has lemon sours with a sweet centre for people not having good Muni experiences. I tried to get subsequent boarders in on the party, but all i received were cold stares, as usual…

What a great Muni experience. I’m not walking home from downtown ever again.

Sure, Muni made us late, some people on the bus smell, Clipper cards don’t work the way they should, and the new turnstiles are dumb (see: Gategate). Then there are drivers like Jackie who can make our days go smoother. We’ve gotten stories about drivers here on Muni Diaries like the great post about Tammy, who decorated her bus to surprise her passengers, Vivienne, whose sweet demeanor really impressed her passengers, and this 38-Geary driver who stood up for his fare-paying passengers.

Do you have a story to share about a Muni driver? Or better, are you a Muni operator who would like to share some stories with us from the driver’s seat? We’re all ears.

Category: diaries Tags:

So I lost my Clipper card…and my Fast Pass

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Muni Clipper Ticketing Machine - Civic Center Secondary Gates
Photo by Agent Akit
When Geoff (he of the other spelling) tried to replace a cracked Translink card, he found that he would be without his Fast Pass until the new Clipper card is mailed to him. Since the Fast Pass is already a $60-$70, would this be a problem for you? Here’s an excerpt of what Geoff experienced when he called Clipper about the card:

The Situation: I give my wife a TransLink card (pre clipper design) loaded with a Muni M Fast Past (Metro Only, $60 value) to use for her daily commute.

The Problem: On her third day of using it, a small crack occurs on the TransLink card, near (but not including) the chip. The card is now broken, and completely useless (doesn’t even fail when you tag it, nothing at all happens).

My Solution (hopefully): Go down to the Embarcadero Station and trade it in for a new card, and get the Fast Pass transferred. Seems like a logic and easy thing to do, given that this is the information age. Take the Fast Pass off of one card, add it to another, voila!

Reality: I head down to the station, and the agent at the desk tells me to go get a new Clipper card from the newsstand across the way, and contact Clipper Customer Support about transferring the Fast Pass. I am a bit frustrated that I have to call but I figure it should still be a cut and dry situation. When I called Clipper Customer Support, at first I am told that the balance on my card cannot be transferred to my new card until the old card has been “blocked” (or deactivated) for 24 hours. They then can move it to the new card.

Then the customer service agent realizes I am trying to transfer a Fast Pass, and not a cash balance. She informs me that she needs to block the original card, and then she can mail me a new card with my Fast Pass on it. This seems illogical given that I am holding a brand new card ready to go. Can’t use it at all.

Geoff said he talked to a very “calm and collected” supervisor at Clipper who said that their system cannot transfer Fast Passes from one card to another the way Geoff had expected this to work. It would take about three days to get a new card mailed to him. I’ve only transferred cash from one Clipper card to another and was also told that I had to wait for the new card in the mail. It took about a week to receive my new card. Since it was cash (and the service agents I talked to were pretty nice), it was a small inconvenience for me, but for riders with a Fast Pass on Clipper, should Clipper come up with a better way to replace your lost/damaged card?

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