Send Us Your Muni Obituaries

Bus Graveyard

The 4-Sutter, a long-time friend, died this October after a lengthy battle with ridership and budgets. The 4-Sutter developed a tiny but loyal following during his lifetime. He is survived by his family of Muni lines.

Okay, there’s my obit for the 4 (sniff, sniff). Where’s yours?

We are collecting obituaries for the poor Muni lines that are getting the axe this fall. Send us your best tales from these lines, or honor the lines with your own death notice. Mark them “Muni Obituary” and send it to muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com by September 30 and we’ll publish them here during October, when the lines go quiet.

We’ve so far received odes to the 20-Columbus and 26-Valencia, but where’s the love for the other dying routes according to the SFMTA website:

* 4-Sutter
* 7-Haight
* 16AX-Noriega “A” Express
* 53-Southern Heights
* 89-Laguna Honda

We’ve also received at least one suggested obituary for one of the route segments that’s getting the guillotine: the 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch. Here’s a list of the other line portions that are going the way of the dodo:

* N-Judah on The Embarcadero and King Street (weekends only)
* 1-California south of Sacramento (weekdays only)
* 2-Clement west of 14th Avenue
* 10-Townsend north of Broadway and to Transbay Terminal
* 12-Folsom/Pacific along The Embarcadero
* 18-46th Avenue along Geary and Point Lobos
* 21-Hayes west of Stanyan
* 29-Sunset in the Presidio north of Baker Beach
* 36-Teresita from Monterey/Foerster to Balboa Park BART
* 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch
* 41-Union between Lyon and Steiner
* 67-Bernal Heights on portions of Crescent and Mission
* 88-BART Shuttle west of I-280
* 108-Treasure Island between Transbay Terminal and Caltrain

Remember, you have until September 30 to pen your draft and get it in to Muni Diaries. We look forward to reading them!

Wear Your Muni Love: Muni-Inspired Shirts and Other Goodies (updates)

punkpunk

Update: (Sept. 1, 2009. 10:30 a.m.) Since we first published this post, we’ve received a few more juicy bits of Muni merchandise.

First, as seen at SF Zine Fest, PunkPunk is selling FastPass buttons and pins (above).

At $5 a pop, get ’em while they’re available. I’ll have a set of 12, please.

Then, niffx on Zazzle informed of these totally rad Muni curvy-logo shirts (perhaps the source of many people’s misguided belief that Muni is an all-cap acronym?):

munishirt

These shirts are $22.75, so save your pennies and help these artists out. You’ll look good doing it, if we do say so ourselves 😉

Original post:
walter konig muni shirts
Muni Shirts by Walter Konig

The phrase “economic stimulus package” always makes me feel a little inappropriate. But say you have some extra cash to, er, help the economy — we’ve found some great Muni stuff for you to spend it on.

Muni Shirts by Walter Konig (of Walnotes) are based on a design that was sold in New York a few years ago. “When I saw them I wondered why they didn’t have them for San Francisco. So I sat in Cafe Abir and designed them. I used a Muni Map to figure out locations along the way,” Walter told us.

The shirts come in a variety of colors, many of them printed on American Apparel tees.

Buy Muni Shirts by Walnotes here:

Brand Fury (780 Sutter St)
Artist X-Change (3169 16th near Guerrero)
SoMe (Haight, east of Masonic)
440 Brannan

Walter said that Lower Hater (597 Haight Street) will have them soon, too.

More shirts and other goodies after the jump, including a really awesome hoodie with an old-school Muni bus print and buttons made from old transfers.

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Some sort of FAIL going on underground

Outbound Downtown
Photo by Flickr user satanslaundromat

Twitter is literally going bonkers right now with a reported Muni Metro FAIL taking place as we type. Here are some choice tweets:

To reiterate a question from Whole Wheat Toast, “Has SFMTA released a TroubleAlert yet?” Doesn’t look like it. If you know something about WTF is going on, let us know. If you have pictures or anecdotes, same thing goes: muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.

Cable Car routes, explained

Pardon the slightly pamphlety approach here, but CBS 5 ran this story about the three cable car routes over the weekend, and it’s just too feel-good for us to pass up on a Monday morning. Call this Getting the Week Started Right.

The story also links to a cool map of the extensive network of cable car lines that existed in the late 1800s, when South Van Ness was called (properly) Howard Street. That map is hosted on the Cable Car Museum’s website, by the way, which you should while away the hours on. You should also visit the museum. If you’re into that sort of thing.

co-map1890s

NYC Shuts Down Muni T-Shirt Maker in a Major WTF

San Francisco MUNI Satire
Photo by Flickr user joe.moore

You might’ve noticed a nice little Muni merchandise post Eugenia did for us the other day. I liked it. I like seeing creative people do their creative stuff and possibly make a little bit of moolah off it. I also like poking fun at things like struggling public transportation agencies. Sometimes, the two go well together.

Like in the case of the 40withegg blogger. This guy made a set of shirts with the letter logos of Muni’s Metro trains, substituting words like “Judah” or “Church” with words that match the route’s letter, like “T-ardy,” and mocked Muni. (see image, above.) Good, clean fun, right?

Not according to CafePress, where 40withegg meant to sell some shirts. Before he closed a single deal, CafePress took his wares down, citing a cease-and-desist letter it received from … New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency.

New York City? WTF, indeed! Is this a case of transcontinental, inter-agency FAIL?

In case you were curious, here is what the New York subway route bullets look like:

NYC: Subway Station

Our Muni route bullets look like this:
New Outbound Sign, Embarcadero Station

Again, WTF?

Thx: Plug1 for story tip

L-Taraval Crash This Afternoon

L crash 1
Photo by Earthnik

Update (8:36 p.m.): Earthnik sent us this photo (“one more showing minimal damage to the robust Muni train”)
@munidiaries - one more showing minimal damage to the robust ... on Twitpic

Original post: Our Twitter feed is all abuzz about the L-Taraval crash this afternoon. Reader Kath also sent us an alert from her building guard, who saw the aftermath. According to SFGate:

The inbound L Taraval train was on Taraval Street when it collided with the car heading south on 34th Avenue at 12:09 p.m., Muni said. The male driver of the car was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with unknown injuries.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. There are stop signs at the intersection for traffic on 34th Avenue but not for traffic on Taraval.

Another pic from Earthnik after the jump:

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