Category: News

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.

A hundred Muni buses are being turned into mobile galleries for five local artists, voted by the public, in a project called Muni Art. You might remember this project last year, and this year SFMTA, Supervisor London Breed, and nonprofit SF Beautiful brought the project for another year.

This year’s winners:

• “Teens of SF” by Monica Tiulescu (606 votes)
• “Bit by Bit” by Lillian Shanahan (446 votes)
• “Las Historias” by Luis Pinto (443 votes)
• “City Walks” by Counterpoint Studio (Peter Tonningsen and Lisa Levine) (443 votes)
• “Sight Seeing” by Todd Kurnat (443 votes)

Last year there were 50 buses displaying the winning artists’ work, and this year the project has doubled the number of buses. Here are this year’s winning artists:

Bit by Bit by Lillian Shanahan

Here’s a look at last year’s Muni Art winners. Have you seen the new art on your buses yet?

Last night’s rain apocalypse caused a gnarly evening of commute on both BART and Muni. A tree fell on the tracks of the J-Church train in the photo above, blocking both directions. And a power outage shortly after 7 p.m. blocked all trains between Van Ness and Church, reports the San Francisco Examiner.

Earlier that evening, if you were amongst the evening commute crowd on BART, you’ll know that the fallen tree near the Balboa Station between 24th Street and Balboa station caused a BART outage that snowballed into this scene at BART, where riders were scaling the broken escalator:

Chaos erupts in the #MissionStreet #BART station as storm related delays frustrate riders: #SanFrancisco: https://t.co/2YXMVu4GEH. pic.twitter.com/KdtMvT4pMh

— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) January 11, 2017

24th Mission Street Station Chaos. #SFBART #BART #SF .@SFBART pic.twitter.com/b5tlV3lUXz

— Charlie K. Perkins (@PerKerry) January 11, 2017

Sanfransokyo @nbcbayarea #sfbart pic.twitter.com/QAGRa8bs58

— Aleksey Smolenchuk (@lxe) January 11, 2017

As of 9 p.m. last night, service was still shut down between Daly City and 24th Street Station, says SFGate. Rescue trains came to get the stranded passengers to free Muni shuttles, reports SFist. In the East Bay, AC Transit buses were also backed up due to a power line falling near a school, reports SFGate.

Got commute updates for your fellow riders? Tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Our email inbox muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com is always open. Stay safe out there, everybody.

Photo by @ongardie. Featured photo by SFist.