Would you let your kids ride Muni alone?

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Photo by Jessica Druck

Last week on Twitter someone remarked, “I would probably never let my 10-year-old ride Muni alone.”

Really?

I am not a parent so I don’t feel that I am an expert on matters of child safety, but I am guessing that a lot of parents don’t have the option to drive their children to school or arrange some other transportation option.

There’s been many reports of violence on the bus, and you may recall the 2009 story about a 11-year-old boy who got stabbed on the bus the first time he rode Muni. So the concern is understandable. On the Muni Diaries Facebook page, a reader asked if the question of letting your child ride Muni alone is the same issue as “would you let your child walk to school alone?”

Granted, at least on the bus, there is a driver who can keep the peace. Parents: Would you let your 10-year-old ride Muni alone?

Category: diaries, reflection

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:
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