Weekend Photos: Shades of Black

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Car 1061 Los Angeles
Photo by Nick Fisher

It’s been an eventful week here at Muni Diaries, with our Happy Hours with I Live Here:SF, our first offer of Mobile Spinach Muni deals, and our new addition, Muni Time Capsule. It’s a busy week for Muni news too.

  • O’Shaughnessy’s Map Now Available at Market Street Railway Museum (Market Street Railway)
  • Buses, bikes and businesses battle to be king of the road (SF Examiner)
  • Busted vehicles dragging Muni down (SF Examiner)
  • George Luong, Accused of Knifing Cable Car Operator, To Be Arraigned (SF Weekly)
  • Muni board discussing contract to rehabilitate escalators (SF Examiner)
  • Cause of Wednesday Night Derailment near Balboa Park Under Investigation (SF Examiner)
  • “Sunday FunDay” — $2 All-Day Muni Pass on Sundays in December (FunCheap SF)
  • Buses loaded: Giants’ playoff run costs Muni (SF Examiner)

Also, SF Public Press unveiled a set of Muni stories this week:

We’ve received a couple of great pictures of fashionable Muni riders, but in case you didn’t know about Fashion Friday and the great prize sponsored by Secession Art and Design, we’re extending the deadline for Fashion Friday until the first Friday of December. So keep the submissions coming!

Enjoy these black and white photographs and your weekend.

Z Excursion
Photo by Brandon Doran

no place to sit
Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch

Muni
Photo by Mason Keeling

Category: diaries

Photo Diary: Cool cloud day over Muni

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With the cold weather came a banner of HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT, spreading across the sky.

Jeff and I work across the street from this Muni lot by Pier 39, and it’s never looked quite so good. As he said before I took this pic, “This is God congratulating San Francisco on winning the World Series.”

Thanks, God?

Category: diaries, Photos

Muni Mobile Spinach Deals

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Editor’s Note: Thank you for supporting Muni Spinach, a new deal program managed by Mobile Spinach. The Mobile Spinach Muni deals have ended for the year. If you have trouble using Mobile Spinach, email John Vitti at john@mblspn.com. Meanwhile check out our current deals by Scoutmob. If you have other deals you’d like to see on Muni Diaries, please email us!

A Muni commute can be a long ordeal, unless there’s an oyster shot waiting for me at the end of it — such was the case when I took the 22 to Elite Cafe a few Tuesdays ago. Or maybe the ride on the 1-California would seem shorter if I’m looking forward to the tea leaf salad waiting for me at Burma Superstar.

And all of that would seem a lot sweeter if these restaurants would give me half off the price…

My day dreaming about food aside, this is really to tell you that we’ve teamed up with Mobile Spinach to bring you a huge set of deals on a couple of Muni lines! We all already take the bus from point A to B to C and beyond, which is all the more reason to check out the businesses on your Muni line to see if there’s a coupon you can use.

The participating merchants are pretty awesome: the long list includes Chow and Chez Maman ($20 for $40 of food and drinks), and discount for drinks at  Blue Bottle Coffee, Elixir, and Blackbird.

Mobile Spinach is a social mobile coupon company, offering mobile cash that you can store on your phone and deals on local merchants. Their offers are loaded onto your mobile device and redeemable at select locations around the city. The mobile cash never expires – say if you buy the $20 for $40 of food and drinks at Burma Superstar, Mobile Spinach loads your coupon onto your phone, and you can redeem it at the restaurant after you polish off the roti prata.

Mobile Spinach is calling this new campaign is called Muni Spinach. To kick things off, the deals are located at various restaurants, cafes, and shops along the 1-California, 22-Fillmore, 38-Geary, and N-Judah lines. We’ve listed all of the offers, organized by line and stop. Click the merchant you’re interested in and you’ll be directed to the appropriate page so you can buy the deal. All vouchers can be purchased directly from your iPhone, iPad, Android, or BlackBerry Torch. Each voucher is only available to purchase for a limited time, but can be redeemed at any time.

Note: The deals are programmed especially for Android devices, iPhones, iPads, and BlackBerry Touches.

Category: News Tags: , , , ,

Seeing the forest for the trees on Muni

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I have been losing my shit lately. Maybe it’s an existential crisis…

Or, maybe that’s a cliché and I shouldn’t call it that. Let’s go with dear-diary moment, instead.

Like everyone who works on this site, I gravitate willfully toward wacky-on-Muni like some kind of masochist. But my perspective is skewed after one too many missed runs, NextBus fiascoes, or just plain ol’ bad timing. I’ve been catching a 47-Van Ness in the evenings, on and off for nearly three years, and it’s all pretty standard fare. But it’s been particularly bad in the evenings, as my phone now habitually returns NextBus results like “19, 29, 39 minutes” after saying 4 minutes when I first started waiting. Say what you will about who and what sucks in this scenario, but, until recently, that was unusual for me, that time, and that 47 stop at the start of the line.

I tried to self-help by first acknowledging some basic truths. I fucking hate the bus sometimes; there, I said it. But I’m not driving to work, and I’m realistically not going to walk from downtown or ride my bike every day. Cab, shmab.

Therefore: I am taking Muni to work for at least one leg, and I have to deal with it. Dealing with it doesn’t include screaming into a phone about “goddamn shitty drivers standing around doing nothing while we wait in the rain for this fucking bus to leave.” (Who was that woman?)

Yesterday, after receiving still more crappy results from NextBus, I just grabbed an F-Market/Wharves a few minutes later. And I got a seat. And…did you know streetcars are actually really pretty after dark? They’re always pretty, you say? Not at 8:50 a.m. as a commuter.

But, at night; the interior lighting is warm, unlike the unforgiving fluorescence of our standard buses. People aren’t in a hurry. Tourists take pictures as the also-lit-up Embarcadero buildings and Transamerica Pyramid come into view. You can’t see people outside that clearly, so you’re wrapped up in an almost-intimate, cozy transit cocoon, barreling along to Market Street.

How did this turn into a foufy post about the F?

Whether it happens again today, tomorrow, or next week, Muni actually managed to make me hate it and love it in less than 30 minutes. Even if/when the scale tips again toward hatred, I will still use the bus and I will still have to find these moments to keep me sane.

Category: diaries, reflection Tags: ,

Introducing Muni Time Capsule

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Today we’re unveiling a new addition to the Muni Diaries community: say hello to Muni Time Capsule, a digital archive of transit ephemera from days gone by. We know that public transportation is an essential experience in our urban life in San Francisco, so what was Muni like before the present time?

The idea for Muni Time Capsule started when one day, Jeff’s former co-worker walked into the office with a box of Muni memorabilia. Inside were old schedules, service change pamphlets (sometimes for service increases, if you can believe it), maps, photos, and various ephemera that we couldn’t believe we were lucky enough to see.

You’ll see some of the great items from the box on the site, but that’s not all. As with Muni Diaries, Muni Time Capsule is a collaborative process. This is a place where you can help build a digital time capsule of life on public transit in San Francisco, and a place for you to share your favorite images and stories of Muni from back in the day.

We’re celebrating Muni Time Capsule and our collective love for the city today at the Muni Diaries and I Live Here:SF Happy Hour at SOMArts, 5-8 p.m.. There will be food carts, drinks, amazing photography and art, and you can even write your own Muni story and caption your own Muni cartoons. So, please, meander over to Muni Time Capsule, take a look around, and we will see you this evening!

Category: News Tags: ,
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