Category: diaries

O txtmuni, why hast thou forsaken me?

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That’s what I’ve been wondering the past couple of weeks. Txtmuni, a wonderful little service that you can use with your cell phone to check when the next bus is coming to your stop, suddenly stopped working a couple of weeks ago. Instead of useful displays of how many minutes I’d have to wait for the next death-trap-on-wheels, it would say “no times avail.”

So I dug up a contact for the guy who runs txtmuni, and finally heard from him today. It turns out that Muni changed all the “stop codes” on the Web site — all the data txtmuni was using to get ITS information. And the guy who runs the site just moved away for grad school and won’t have time to fix things on his end for a while. I get that.

However, he says there’s an alternative; NextBus has its own SMS system, with a slightly different syntax than txtmuni’s, but the same basic functionality. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m definitely going to. I’ve come to rely on the ability to use my cell phone to find out how long I have to wait.

So, for those of you who wonder, like I did, what happened to txtmuni, that’s the story. For those of you who didn’t know about these handy services, now you do.

— Beth W.

Beth W. is still wondering why txtmuni never had time information for the 38 line, but it’s a moot point now.

Category: diaries

the good, the bad and the even worse

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I use the bus because driving and parking sucks in a city. I complain about using the bus because it’s not as good as it should be in these parts, given the aforementioned facts about driving and parking. Sometimes, I have more complex interactions and thoughts about the bus, where I want to strangle everyone on it, but still come away glad I wasn’t too lazy to stand eye-to-eye with my fellow SF residents.

I had one of those mixed experiences on a 38-Geary recently, and am simultaneously glad, horrified and stupefied about the whole thing.

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Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: ,

Learn, Muni, Learn

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You can tell a lot about a system by how it adapts to failure.

I live in SF, I use both BART and Muni regularly. When they work, they’re decent. When things go wrong, it’s an N Judah-flavored apocalypse. If you’ve got an alternate, you take it. If not, you get a cab or walk. It’s a decent bus town, there’s usually a bus a few blocks away. It’ll probably show up within half an hour, and it’ll get you within half a mile, and it’s probably a nice walk anyway. Unless you’re trying to get back to the Sunset, in which case it’s more like a mile and the walk might be foggy. But anyway, there’s half a dozen good noodle places on the way, and you can bitch on your blog later if you swing thataway.

The last week, though, I’ve been staying in Zurich, and using the SVV tram system a lot. Let’s set aside incidentals like perfect adherence to schedule and good coverage and accurate ETA signs. The other day something melted down on the 11 Auzelg/Rehalp line, which runs roughly north/south along the eastern edge of central Zurich. Residential stuff out on the far-northern Auzelg end, shopping and S-Bahn connections a bit closer in, restaurants and bars towards the middle, and gradually more suburban and residential down South towards Rehalp. The nearest analog in SF would probably be the N-Judah or K-Ingleside.

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JN-Chudah

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Let’s start with a logic puzzle of sorts.

Q: Where are you if you see four J-Church metro trains, all headed downtown?

A: Gee, probably on Church? Maybe in Glen Park. One thing’s for sure, you can’t possibly be at Carl and Cole, smack-dab in N-Judah territory.

Oh, wait.

I was going out to Cole Valley yesterday, meaning the N-Judah would, theoretically, be the best way there. I didn’t run into huge problems on the way there, but coming back was another story altogether.

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Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: , , ,

Sometimes, dreams do come true

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I had a surprisingly pleasant Muni experience on the way to work yesterday, only because it went beyond my expectations. As I believe I’ve said before, I have a good Muni location, I walk down from the Lower Haight to Church and Duboce, give a quick glance for any incoming N-Judahs or J-Churches, and if I don’t see one, I continue down to Church Street Station and try my luck at an L, M or the dreaded K/T whatever the hell it is. I say dreaded because it is usually only one car, and even though it technically begins just one station away at Castro Street, it is usually packed to the gills. I guess that’s because it’s also a K, and has come all the way from Balboa Street Station. Anyway, when I got down to Church Street Station on Monday I was immediately disheartened because on the incoming train monitor I saw a one-car K was the only train coming. I said to myself, “I guess I’ll be standing all nice and intimate all the way to Powell Street today.” But, I was wrong, for the first time ever on my way to work and since the T was introduced, the train was sparsely populated, well air-conditioned and hauled ass downtown. Just want to give Muni props, that although it seems like you can and should only expect the worst, sometimes Muni doesn’t screw you. You have to enjoy it when it happens.

— Rob

Rob Nagle works at a free San Francisco daily newspaper that has been sprucing up its Web presence.

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Thank you, stranger photographer, for complimenting me on my shoes

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While waiting for the 38-Geary at the end of a beautiful sunny day, a young man with a professional-looking (read: big lens! Nikon neck strap! Looks professional to me!) camera complimented me on my sandals. Little did he know that I overspent on these snappy little gold shoes and am constantly justifying to myself about their existence in my closet.

Thank you, photographer guy! You made my day, and when I got home and logged onto my computer, I found that the same pair of sandals is now on sale in a different color. Guess what I bought?

– Eugenia, helping the American economy, one pair of shoes at a time.

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