Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Love it when the whole family rides the bus. Tiny dog looks a little scared but the parrots are giving zero fucks. Thanks @peepholier on Instagram for this pick-me-upper.
We have more cute animal photos on Muni to help you get over hump day.
Got other important news for your fellow riders? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open!
Remember the driver who accidentally drove into the Duboce tunnel and caused hours of delay? Muni says that it will cost at least $55,000 to repair the tracks and other damages, and the agency is bringing a claim against the driver’s auto insurance company to pay for it, reports the San Francisco Examiner.
The photo above is from a Muni Diaries reader on the night when a car full of N-Judah riders saw some very unexpected headlights in the tunnel.
More from the Examiner:
SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose said the $55,000 claim “covers the cost of additional shuttles used on three different days, repairs to the switch and its surrounding infrastructure, the cost of overtime, the cost of ambassadors, and the cost to adjust service.”
The City netted $50,000 for a car entering and damaging the Duboce Muni tunnel in 2012, but that was after the insurance company disputed the claim and it was fought in litigation, said John Cote, a spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office.
This driver was by far not the first person to drive into the tunnel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of these incidents happen at night to drivers who had a few too many, says the Examiner. Although we’d never put it past anyone to do dumb things even in broad daylight, like this driver racing into the tunnel here.
Even two years ago, Streets Blog wrote a story on how Muni can prevent drivers from going into the tunnel meant for Muni trains. The signage already looks obvious enough to me, so some online commenters suggested spikes or a gate. Any other ideas?
Got other important news for your fellow riders? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open!
Muni’s fare cops issue way more citations near the SFMTA headquarters on South Van Ness than anywhere else in the city, according to Hoodline. The data nerds (and I mean that in the most complimentary way) at Hoodline overlayed the distance between the SFMTA office and the location where a fare citation was issued.
When Hoodline asked SFMTA’s chief security officer, Christopher Grabarkiewctz, why this might be, he didn’t have a super clear explanation:
We certainly have a performance standard that supervisors are supposed to maintain, but a lot of these people have been doing it for a very long time,” said Grabarkiewctz. “I’m not making excuses, it’s certainly something that we try to exercise and there’s constant reminders about this kind of thing.”
Anecdotally, I’ve seen fare inspectors on the 38 as far out as Masonic, but the method of distributing fare inspectors as described in the Hoodline story seemed imprecise at best.
For now, a reminder that everyone must pay fare on Muni (yes, even you), and preferably in the right denomination.
Twice a year we bring the best public transit stories to the stage, and for our ninth trip around the sun (where did the time go?), we’ll be back at the Elbo Room on April 15 with a fresh batch of only-in-SF stories just for you!
The photo above is Alexa von Kickinface, who brought down the house with her Muni-themed burlesque number last year. What else do we have in store for you this time? For this show, we are bringing back our Muni Haiku champion for a new battle! Tickets are on sale now, so grab one while they’re available.
Our storytellers:
Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a writer, performer, host, storyteller, and regular KQED community events host based in San Francisco. He has performed in L.A., Washington D.C., NYC, Canada, and all over California. His writing has been published in numerous anthologies and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry and Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting. He regularly organizes poetry shows in the Bay Area, is currently the curator and head organizer for The San Francisco Queer Open Mic, and is program director for Donde Esta Mi Gente. He was born in Toluca, Mexico, and grew up in Albany, California. Read more
Bart (Simpson, that is) has taken over this Muni shelter. Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it — someone else way more awesome did. And who will ever get tired of a little Bart-BART mashup, like the time when the Simpsons clones took over the BART train, or the time when this funny crafter worked “eat my shorts” into this needle point?
Thanks to @commutelife on Instagram for this photo submission! Got your own Muni or BART moment? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open!
Courtney Riddle is the zine ambassador of Market Street, selling small handmade books out of a formerly abandoned newspaper kiosk, The Grand Newsstand. She’s been spreading zines to unwitting tourists for more than a year now. But secretly she harbors another aspiration: driving Muni. There’s just one small problem she had to overcome, as she tells the audience in this week’s Muni Diaries podcast episode.
Courtney’s best friends aren’t deterred by anything that stands in the way of her dreams! Naturally, they wrote a song about it and dressed up in coordinating Muni-themed outfits to sing it to the crowd at Muni Diaries Live.
Listen to the episode here:
Episode Extra: Watch Courtney and her friends at Muni Diaries Live. “Courtney for president!”
The Muni Diaries Podcast features stories from Muni Diaries Live, plus new stories from our archive. To subscribe, find us on iTunes, Google Play, or use this RSS link. New episodes will be released every Tuesday, so subscribe to the podcast for great new stories from the bus!
Photo by Justina Wu