Muni Diaries

Photo by Alfredo Mendez

Sex crimes on public transportation might be “vastly underreported,” according to a report from the Bay Citizen Saturday.

BART, the San Francisco Municipal Railway and Alameda-Contra Costa Transit together had 370 million riders last year on buses, trains and trolleys that cover San Francisco, the East Bay and beyond. The police documented 95 sex crimes on those three public transit systems, including 35 cases of indecent exposure, often masturbation; 25 cases of sexual battery, which includes groping; one rape; and other unwanted lewd behavior. Forty arrests were made.

Those numbers are surprisingly low given the ridership, said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, associate dean at the University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs, who has studied sex crimes on public transit. The actual number of sex crimes on public transit is most likely much higher, she said.

Twice now I have been on the 49-Van Ness when a male passenger boards the bus, sits very close to me, and “falls asleep” with his arm on my hip bone. At first you want to think it’s just an accident, then it becomes totally infuriating and frustrating.

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Photo by fchrist2 (this is not the bus in question)

A piece of the overhead equipment on a Muni bus flew off and smashed right into the third floor window of a Financial District building last night, reports SF Appeal and Bay City News.

Whoa. What.

A bus was traveling nearby when a “shoe,” the piece of equipment that connects the vehicle to overhead wires, got caught in a guide wire, creating a spring action that sent the equipment flying into the building, [SFMTA spokesperson Paul] Rose said.

The projectile just missed the employees, according to the SF Appeal report, but no one was hurt.

Has this happened before? Rarely, Rose says. Head over to the SF Appeal for details.