Muni Diaries

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?

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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.