diaries – Page 234 – Muni Diaries

I Dream of Muni: Geary Rail Line, and Sutro Witches

June 24, 2009 eugenia 5 comments

Beth W. sent this to us via email, all about a rad dream she had the other night. Ah, we can still dream, can’t we?

I dreamed Friday night that there was another LRV Muni line. Its tracks ran along Geary all the way to the cliffs above Ocean Beach, and stopped at the very edge of the cliffs. Instead of having a letter for its line name it had a number (4, which currently belongs to Sutter). I found out about it because I was down on the beach talking to some women who claimed to be witches who did magic in the caves underneath the cliffs. They said some huge disaster had happened years ago, making the line inoperable. I was really excited to learn about it — somehow I had never noticed the tracks on the roadway before.

After talking to these women, I climbed up to the clifftop and, sure enough, saw the tracks. But then a train came along, even though apparently the line hadn’t operated in years. Of course I climbed on board! But the train cars weren’t the normal ones — they were rounded and dark red on the exterior, and had the tops cut off, kind of like those open-air tour buses. I rode all the way downtown. It was full of passengers, all of whom seemed excited to ride the new line.

I love it when I dream about things in SF that don’t exist. Has anyone else had a crazy Muni dream?

Send us your dreams, fantasies, and real-life experiences on Muni!

Photo by Flickr user 2composers

Category: diaries, reflection

The Chicken on the Bus Goes…

June 24, 2009 eugenia Leave a comment

Photo by Flickr user chudo.sveta

From the Muni Diaries submission inbox:

So this isn’t strictly a Muni related incident but it’s tangentially related to the fuss about the alleged story about Asian woman killing a live chicken before boarding a bus in Chinatown.

A few weeks ago I was visiting my friend who is working for the Peace Corps in Honduras. We were in the capital, Tegucigalpa, trying to catch a bus out to a town near her village. When the bus finally rolled by, it was nearly full but we got the last two seats waaaaay in the back of the bus. There was a family of three sitting in the two seats next to ours– a mom, a dad, and a young girl on his lap.

After settling in for the three-hour ride, I started watching the family. I don’t understand much Spanish, but I could get enough that they were worried about something. They had a small brown bag, maybe the size that you would put a sandwich and an apple in. The girl was really excited about something in the bag– I decided it must be a new toy her parents had bought her in the big city and now they were going home. The mom looked in the bag and said, “Where did the other one go?” and I thought, “Oh, there were two toys and one must have fallen out onto the floor.”

They started looking in their other bags and under all the seats around them. Then the dad picked up the paper bag, opened it up and a tiny chick poked its head out and said, “CHEEP!” The girl laughed delightedly and everyone around them suddenly had a newfound interest in finding “the other one.”

Category: diaries, Funny: Muni LOLs

Driver Smoke Breaks

June 23, 2009 jeff 36 comments

The following came to us from Matt Baume, the man behind the Muni Alerts Twitter account, among other things he’s spearheaded.

I took this photo at the end of the 41 and 45 lines, where drivers take breaks after a run. One driver is smoking. She doesn’t have a driver number on her uniform.

This raises a tough question. Smoking at transit stops is illegal in SF — Muni maps spell out the exact code that prohibits it — but what are drivers supposed to do if they’re addicted to nicotine? Where are they supposed to go to smoke on their break?

This lady seemed like a nice person but her smoke was stinking up the whole bus stop. I don’t know what the solution is, aside from firing smokers. I guess you could argue that smokers are unfit to drive buses, since they’ve chosen a habit that adversely affects their ability to do their job legally. But that also seems pretty harsh.

— Matt Baume

What do you think? Sound off in the comments section.

Category: diaries, Photos, reflection Tags: 41-Union, 45-Union/Stockton

Ringtone Riot

June 22, 2009 eugenia Leave a comment

In Japan, the Kanto Railway enforces that cell phones be on silent mode. Photo by Flickr user Nemo’s Great Uncle

I was riding the F line several months ago during the morning rush hour toward downtown. A teenage girl boarded somewhere around 8th or 10th Street, and her cell phone began playing some sort of ring tone at a very high volume. The driver told her that she needed to silence the phone, to which she explained, “I’m getting a text message.” When the phone continued to play, the driver stopped the car at the next stop and told her that she needed to either silence the phone or get off and that he was not moving the car until she did one or the other.

She again explained, “I’m getting a text message.” The explanation, of course, made no sense to anyone on the car. Silencing the ringer doesn’t prevent a text message from being received, and by this point, the phone had been playing the same ringtone for nearly five minutes. So the car didn’t move, she didn’t get off, and the other passengers, now becoming late for work, grew restless. Shouts began to erupt from the back of the train to “Turn the phone off!” Soon, the whole car had joined in the shouting, and the girl, instead of turning the phone off, kept shouting back that they should shut up because she was getting a text message. A riot felt imminent.

Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: F-Market/Wharves

Weekend Photo Diary: Lonely Rider

June 19, 2009 jeff Leave a comment

Photo by sflovestory from the Muni Photos Flickr group

There’s something really brilliant about this photo. I dunno. I just really, really like it. It speaks to the softer side of Muni. Muni, you know — that system of buses and LRVs that, ultimately, gets us where we’re going sometimes. It’s also where a lot of us bump into one another. Where a representative sample of San Franciscans meet, to board, de-board, ride quietly or loudly, legally or illegally.

Okay, who slipped estrogen into my lunch?

In all seriousness, back to Weekend Photo Diary tradition with a comment on this weekend’s SF weather. ~~In a word: Shitty with a chance of suck-ass.~~ Wow, forecasters got that one really, really wrong. Should we even bother with the weather anymore? I mean, srsly yall!

Have fun, stay dry (or wet, if that’s your thing), and send us your photos and stories!

xoxo

Muni Diaries

Category: diaries, Photos

Hot Operator Voice

June 16, 2009 jeff Leave a comment

Photo by Flickr user drain

This charming story is by Suzanne

I always cringe if I end up on the N-Judah headed toward Caltrain with the conductor who likes to announce the 2nd and King stop as: “home to the house that Barry built.” I curse him for making me think about Barry Bonds, drugs, and the corporate sports machine so early in the morning.

There are many Muni voices we love and hate to recognize. Who hasn’t heard the announcer who draws out the broken elevator messages into three-minute pronouncements more fitting for a get-you-in-the-mood Motown record? Then there’s that BART conductor who takes on the role of airport commissary when en route to SFO, and city ambassador when at Powell. He has a zingy, upbeat, professional voice that is not wholly unpleasant.

Category: BART, reflection

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