Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
New York-based (boo!) artist Tomie Arai was chosen to design the future Muni Metro station in Chinatown. The designs are spiffy enough. And you have a chance to meet Arai tomorrow afternoon.
Details
Thursday, August 7, 4:00-5:00 PM
Chinese Culture Center
750 Kearny Street, Third Floor
Take Muni: 1-California, 8AX, 8BX, 8X, 30X-Marina Express, and 41-Union
See more at the SF Arts Commission site.
Photo via Jett S
In what is unfortunately not just an action-movie scene, a Muni light rail vehicle collided with a semi in the Bayview this afternoon, derailing the LRV by “several feet.” Rider Jett S. sent us the photo above.
According to the SFPD, the semi made an illegal u-turn; Jett notes that this intersection has a no-left-turn sign, visible in the pic. Some 20 people were injured in the collision and 11 were sent to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza.
From the SFPD:
Preliminary investigation revealed a Muni LRV traveling north bound 3rd street towards downtown SF (inbound). A semi truck also traveling north bound 3rd in the lane of traffic made an illegal left hand turn onto Innes from 3rd street in front of the LRV. The Muni LRV and the truck made impact and the train was derailed off the tracks by several feet.
The area is closed from Jerrold to Hudson along 3rd street at least for the next hour.
People are advised to take alternate routes and modes of transport as this will impact the evening Friday commute.
The driver was not yet cited at this time until the conclusion of the investigation.
KCBS has more photos and videos here. We hope everyone will be just fine.
Update
Aaaand it looks like a not-so-good day for Muni collisions today. Another collision earlier today on Geary and Webster between a Muni bus and a dumpster truck sent another 20 people to the hospital around 1:30 p.m. The SFPD says none of the injuries appear to be life threatening.
Photo by Patrick
Map by Reuben Fischer-Baum via FiveThirtyEight
The data wizards at FiveThirtyEight.com combed through lots of transit data across cities in the United States to see how cities stack up in transit use. At first glance, San Francisco was No. 2 (uh…appropriately?) in transit trips per resident, ranking our public transit system the second most used in the United States, right behind New York City.
FiveThirtyEight’s Reuben Fischer-Baum asks, “Do certain regions tend to support better public transit, or is this just a product of city size and density?” When he separated the maps of large cities against smaller cities, the answer might surprise you. Go to FiveThirtyEight’s story to see which small city actually ranked first in transit quality.
Related: Earlier this year, Walk Score rated SF’s public transit poop number two as well. A trend emerges!
Photo by Vasile Cotovanu
Looks like humans aren’t the only species that like to get a little shut eye on the bus. Last week, a fox snuck onto a city bus in Ottawa, Canada, and fell asleep in a seat in the back, before an employee noticed and snapped a picture (seen above). According to news reports, the bus had been parked in a garage for maintenance at the time and the fox got in through an open door. It ran off when officers boarded the bus to take a look at it.
The photo, which quickly became a hit on social media, shows the fox sleeping peacefully, all curled up and cute. If you could only say the same for the guy passed out on Muni next to you.