Category: diaries

‘This isn’t a taxi’

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We were riding the 49-Van Ness toward the 1000 Van Ness theater tonight. As we joined the clusterfuck around City Hall post-Pride, with its closed-off, trash-strewn, dyed-hair-filled streets. Halfway between Grove and McAllister, a horde of teenagers from (I’m guessing) Fairfield came screaming up to the bus outside. We inched forward, but they made it to the front door and proceeded to bang the glass, indignantly saying, “C’mon! Let us on!”

The driver, who was out of sight for us, said to them plainly, “This is not a taxi.” – Jeff

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Is the F the Least-Reliable Line in Town?

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Lately, it sure seems so.

Tara reports that trains let passengers out on Market near New Montgomery this morning around 9 because of a supposed power outage along the Embarcadero.

To top things off, as things go, passengers headed toward the northeast corner are pretty much screwed. No apparent extra buses sent in to help, extra passengers, cabs difficult to get.

It’s not a big city. We have a public transportation system. Why is it so hard to get around San Francisco?

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The Occasional Random Niceness of … People

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(Reposted, with permission, from Tony Long’s North Beach Examiner)

Legendary Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to run what he called “Sight ’ems” — interesting little oddities he (or one of his legmen) spotted wandering around the old town. Back in Caen’s day this wouldn’t have rated a mention, it being a more civilized burg, but in 2008 I found the scene jarring:

Three tourists, all women, riding a northbound 9x-Bayshore Express, and clearly lost. They didn’t speak any English (I think that was Portuguese I was hearing, but maybe it was … well, who cares?) and the bus driver spoke nothing but English. As they chattered away at the driver, laughing and waving a map under her nose while she crossed Market and headed up Kearny, I expected to hear some very colorful English indeed.

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F the F

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Some of this post is F-centric, and some of it is just rants and raves about what should be basic common sense on public transit. It’s going to be pretty clear which is which.

Muni Diaries often complains about the F. I guess Muni Diaries complains about a good handful of things, but there are special problems inherent in the F that require extra-special complaints.

I don’t know how much it cost by its unveiling in 2000 to expand the F-Market line to the wharves, but I’m sure it was expensive. It appears to have been part of a continuing effort to revamp the rails and give tourists something cute to ride on. Nonetheless, I think the city underestimates how many people, regular SF residents, use it to get to work. We use it because there is NOTHING QUICKER. It’s so freakin’ cute. It emphazies local history and I love that to bits. But it is so inefficient and slow, it makes me and the other commuters want to rip our hair out as we all fight to get on the tiny, infrequent cars.

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A streetcar named …

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It’s very popular (and, admittedly, very easy) to bag on Muni’s faults — there are so many of them. However, I am often a huge fan of the trolley/streetcar lines, especially the underground tunnels and the restored fleet of streetcars that run along the F-Market line.

Even though they are technically only used on that line, I’ve seen them toodling down the J-Church line. Since they’re always empty, I assumed they always dumped the passengers off at some point and then just went down to Balboa Park to turn around.

Yesterday, after paying a visit to the San Francisco Railway Museum, where they encourage you to go out and see the streetcars and view them as “museums in motion,” we hopped on an F train and intended to ride it to Church St. and transfer to the J. We sat in the comfy leather seats and I read the information placard on the train that explained it was the 1055, a restored car from Philadelphia, originally painted green/cream/red.

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