Category: News

Save the Date: Muni Diaries Live, Friday, April 22!

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Photo by Flickr user Chipmonkey

Muni Diaries Live will be back at the Make-Out Room on Friday, April 22! It’s our third birthday (can you believe it) and we want to celebrate it with you. After all, Muni Diaries lives on your stories, photos, and comments about our lives on public transportation. So join us at the Make-Out Room, where we bring the website to the stage twice a year with hilarious tales from terrific storytellers.

Update: This just in — the lineup for Muni Diaries Live 5:

Come on down to hear H.P. Mendoza, screen writer and composer of Colma: the Musical and director of Fruit Fly, Joyce Lee, two-time Oakland Spoken Word Grand Slam Champion, and Kirk Read, writer and mastermind curator of Smack Dab and K’vets.

You’ll also hear stories from MissionMission‘s own Ariel Dovas, author Jan Richman and Muni Diaries Live: Breaking it Down audience favorite Jesse James.

And as always, you will have an opportunity to tell your Muni story on stage, with prizes galore! The photo above is Jesse, one of our audience winners whose story about the 1 had us in stitches. If you have a Muni story you would like to tell on stage, email us soon and let us know.

So what’s it like when a bunch of Muni riders pack the Make-Out Room and share tales from the bus? Come and find out. Meanwhile, check out our recaps of Muni Diaries Live one,two, three, and four. See you there!

Muni Diaries Live — It’s Our Third Birthday!
When: Friday, April 22, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. $8 advance tickets, $10 door.
Where: Make-Out Room — 3225 22nd Street
Routes serving the area: BART 24th St. Station, Muni: 12, 14, 22, 33, 48, 49, 67
Get your advance tickets today at EventBrite

Category: Muni Diaries Live, News Tags: ,

NextBus responds to text message glitch

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Long Wait, Then a Short Wait
Photo by SFist

Last week, many of you (and us) received unsolicited texts from NextBus with weird alerts that seemingly applied to Seattle. No one could make head nor tails of the messages, and instead were left three texts closer to our maximum allotment.

Muni Diaries commenter Kathryn wrote NextBus to complain, and received this response back:

First, thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us at NextBus to let us know about the problems our SMS Texting service caused you. We sincerely apologize to you and we want you to know that we’ve taken a number of steps to not only correct the problem but to insure that it will not happen again.

What happened? On Thursday, February 24th, due to a glitch in our SMS texting system, many who had utilized our NextBus SMS texting system in the past had a series of text messages sent to them. In most cases three texts were sent out. As soon as we became aware of the problem, we immediately shut down our texting system so that our engineers could troubleshoot the issue and fix it. Our primary concern was to insure that those receiving the messages didn’t incur additional texting costs or use up their monthly texting limit. We also fully understand how annoying it is to receive unsolicited texts.

What have we done? The first thing we have done is completely deleted the texting database of all telephone numbers. In other words everyone has been “unsubscribed” from our system. We’ve also re-configured our SMS texting system that provides our real-time transit arrival predictions; the telephone numbers of those who use our SMS texting system in the future will not be saved in any way, shape or form. For those riders who “subscribe” to our system to have transit “alerts” sent to them by SMS Texting, you will receive your alert and one additional text the first time you subscribe. This additional text will inform you that you have subscribed.

Again, we apologize for all of the annoyance and inconvenience we caused you.

The Support Team
NextBus, Inc.

Glad they got it under control.

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Category: News

Muni Increases Minimum Add Value Requirement on Clipper Cards

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The Clipper Card
Photo by Mark Nakamura

Starting March 1, Muni is increasing the minimum add-value requirement on Clipper cards from $2 to $5 to prevent riders from taking advantage of loophole that allows you to board the bus even when your card goes negative. This applies to Clipper adult fare customers. From the SFMTA:

The new minimum add-value requirement is $5 or a fare product, e.g. an adult Muni “A” or “M” Fast Pass®. The new policy does not affect the minimum requirement on the Youth, Senior or RTC Clipper cards, which is currently $.75.

The new minimum requirement generally only applies to customers who are purchasing a new Adult Clipper card and want to add cash value at the time of purchase.

…

At the Muni Metro ticket vending machines (TVM), however, whether purchasing a new Clipper card or reloading an existing Clipper card, Muni adult fare customers are subject to the minimum $5 requirement, regardless of the current value on the existing card. Muni Metro customers who do not wish to pay this $5 minimum may instead purchase a single or round trip regular adult fare Limited Use Muni Ticket out of the TVM.

The minimum requirement doesn’t apply to customers with existing Clipper cards who want to reload cash value at Clipper card retailers, the Clipper website, or the add-Value machines at AC Transit or Golden Gate Ferry locations.

Will this deter fare scammers? Akit at Akit’s Complaint Department thinks SFMTA should do more. “This is not enough to stop the abuse by raising the minimum e-cash to $5 for a new card. Caltrain and BART passengers that ride long distances can still exploit the Clipper card’s negative balance by getting a ton of free cards with the minimum balance of $5 required to obtain a card,” he writes.

Category: News Tags:

Weekend Photos: In Technicolor

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Brotherhood
Photo by Troy Holden

For all you M Fast Pass holder who haven’t done so already, March 1 (next Tuesday) is the date you’ll have to to switch to Clipper if you want to continue to buy the pass. More info about the switchover at SFMTA’s website. One bonus: you can dress up your new Clipper card with our Fast Pass Clipper Card holder.

In Muni news this week:

  • Muni chief Nathaniel Ford eyeing D.C. post (SFGate)
  • Driver salaries fueling deficit (SF Examiner)
  • Frustrated Clipper Card users to receive new customer service location (SF Examiner, SFAppeal)
  • Mayor Lee Must Make SFMTA Act Quickly on TEP Implementation (Streetsblog SF)
  • Another Reason MTA Head Nat Ford Might Want to Flee SF: Tax Troubles (SF Appeal)
  • Mayor Lee Rides Muni Occasionally (The Bay Citizen)
  • New low-floor Muni buses bring some passengers down (SF Examiner)
  • SFMTA to repair Muni rail segment over the weekend (KGO, SF Appeal)
  • Muni faces possible fines over numerous safety violations (see our summary)
  • SFMTA to repair Muni rail segment (ABC7)

Enjoy these photos and your weekend! Will there be snow?


Photo by mtarlock

Versus The Light Rail
Photo by Ariel Dovas

MUNI - L Taraval San Francisco
Photo by librarygroover

4th and King
Photo by carlosgomez

Category: News

Muni faces possible fines over numerous safety violations

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Oopsie @ Church and Duboce
Photo by joemud

On the heels of an 18-month investigation, the California Public Utilities Commission alleges that our very own SFMTA is in violation of federal, state, and local safety regulations. SFMTA, of course, denies the allegations, but the case is headed to administrative law court for a judge to decide whether the agency stands to have fines of $20,000 per day and other penalties levied against it. Muni has 30 days to respond to the state’s allegations.

One of the trouble spots, to no sane person’s surprise, is Church and Duboce. Just yesterday, however, right before we started seeing the reports of the CPUC’s investigation, we received an email from SFMTA noting
planned rail maintenance work for this weekend.

San Francisco Business Journal lists the other major allegations, and the SF Examiner also has a story up.

While we certainly agree with the need for SFMTA to be within regulations, we’d hate to see the already fiscally challenged agency slapped with heavy fines. We’ll do our best to follow up on this case, and report it back here on Muni Diaries.

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Category: News

Win $100 worth of grilled meat at Espetus

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Sign up with our fantastic mobile deal sponsor, Scoutmob, and get a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to Espetus Churrascaria on Market and Gough. The contest window closes next Monday, so don’t forget!

Scoutmob has an easy-to-use interface for its once-a-day half-off deals to local reviewed sites like Clare’s and Samovar. Their mobile app makes it easy to carry those deals with you without having to remember or pay for a thing in advance.

You’ve got until Monday for the Scoutmob offer of a $100 gift certificate to Espetus for one lucky Muni Diaries reader. So sign up for Scoutmob so you can win $100 worth of delicious grilled meat!

Exclusive for Muni Diaries readers: Sign up for Scoutmob and win a $100 Espetus Churrascaria gift certificate!

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