Muni Diaries

Photo by shandopics

This diary teeters on the edge between tragic and comic. This driver is Tara’s Newman. The Muni system in the far northeast corner of San Francisco is her white whale. Read on …

I work really near the start of the 47-Van Ness and use it all the time. After a Yelling Lady incident on Tuesday, I wonder if the line is slipping into full-on, always-dysfunctional territory.

Thursday after work, I saw the 47 idling at a red light before turning left at the corner of Beach and Powell. Great: I’m a few steps from the route’s origin, and the light’s still totally red. Surely, if I knock on the door (the bus was technically still touching its stop), I’ll be let on with plenty of time for everyone to be on schedule.

Nope.

The driver acknowledged my knock with a step-back motion, confusing me a bit, then continued to sit there for a few seconds until the light turned green.

And then she left.

I’ve booked it to the second stop before with good results (knowing that the bus has two more lefts to make before it gets there), so I indignantly jogged as best I could with a full gym bag, a yoga mat, and a purse. I was the horse and this bus was my carrot. Surprisingly, I made it to the outside back of the bus at that second stop. A guy stood on the stairs for a second before boarding, then I watched the doors close and the bus roll along.

There is no goddamn way she didn’t see me the second time, which made it even worse. I fumed via voicemail at the stop; yeah, I was that girl screaming obscenities into a phone while toting a peppy pink yoga mat. Welcome, tourists!

It got me thinking of what a driver once said to late arrivals; you can either get on the bus as it leaves a stop, or you can have the bus stay on schedule, but you can’t have both. Is it really one or the other? I’d hope it would be more case-by-case than that, personally.

Tara is saddened, almost to the point of tears on some days, that her only transit options away from Fisherman’s Wharf elude her so regularly.