Muni Diaries

I’m guessing you care. About San Francisco, about transit, about the future we’ll share together. You do? Good!

Tonight at Mission High School, some notable people will be holding a town hall on some serious issues facing San Francisco. Since you care, you should go!

From Supe. Jane Kim’s Facebook page:

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, CSU Trustee and District 7 BART Board Candidate Lateefah Simon and best-selling author David Talbot will join me in this important discussion about real solutions for our region and our state.

As a San Francisco Supervisor, I have shown that I’m willing to stand up to anyone to fund more transit options and create more affordable housing. And I’ve worked hard to improve existing parks and create new ones, while improving street safety for everyone.

Details
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016 from 6:30 to 8:30
Mission High School, 3750 18th St. (take the 33-Stanyan, 22-Fillmore, 14-Mission, 49-Van Ness, 24-Divisadero, or BART to 16th Street Station)

See you there!

Photo by torbakhopper

Pic by Flickr user Paul Sullivan
Muni rider Sloane sent us a harrowing story about a driver vs. passenger assault on Muni, which took place on her 47-Van Ness on Tuesday afternoon. From her public (shareable) Facebook post linked above:

…all of a sudden, the skater hits the driver in the head with his board, hard. People are crowding around and he yells some shit I can’t hear and then skates away. The man sitting behind me took a video, sent it to the police and was on the phone reporting it. We all exit the bus and the driver is sitting up front, gushing blood and in shock, trying to reach someone over the radio.

SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose confirmed the incident, which took place at 4pm Tuesday at Van Ness and Bush on an inbound 47. The Muni operator suffered lacerations to his forehead and was taken to Kaiser.

Rose tells us SFMTA is pulling video from the bus to help aid SFPD in its investigation.

This isn’t the first time in recent past a Muni driver suffered fight-related injuries on the job. And it won’t be the first or last time we remind everyone to stay safe — and to remember that a being a Muni operator can be a rough job. We’ll end with some too-true words from Sloane’s post: “I have no idea what instigated this but assaulting a public servant is really damn shitty.”

Starting next year, you might see a few of the new light-rail trains on your commute, and SFMTA has just released photos of what these trains look like! Squee. It’s so the future.

SFMTA is set to replace all the trains by 2028, which seems a long ways away. But the first of four initial trains are in production now, scheduled to arrive by the end of this year for testing in real life in 2017.

Why are these trains better? According to the SFMTA:

Compared to our current fleet, which started service in 1996, the new Siemens trains should be much more reliable. The new trains have systems that are proven to go significantly longer in between breakdowns and, therefore, require less maintenance. The new Siemens design is projected to run an average of 59,000 miles without breakdowns, which is more than double the minimum of 25,000 miles originally specified.

Officials also said that the new trains would have a lot fewer problems raising the steps up and down. So, yay!

Take another look:

H/t: SFist
Photo via SFMTA

Were you lucky enough to learn the ins and outs of driving a Muni bus when Driver Doug graced the stage at Muni Diaries Live not once, but twice? No? Well, lemme just tell you, you missed out. Dude has the best insights on how to drive and ride the bus in San Francisco. He’s also written books on the topic.

Now, he’s showing the photos that the art in those books is based on. Here are the details:

Nowhere in Particular: Art by Driver Doug will be showing August 18th through September 19th at the Castro Country Club, 4058 18th Street.

A word from the artist:

“It’s been three years since “The Dao of Doug: The Art of Driving a Bus” has been published and I have learned so much about editing, marketing, podcast and audio recording. So I thought, what is the next best thing I can do to put myself out there and show my creative self to you? The answer came back through my friends in recovery. Post an art show of wall art from photos used as illustrations in my book mixed with natural scenes of beauty from places visited when I’m off the bus and away from traffic. 

On the wall are canvas wrap and semi-gloss photo prints of various sizes jam packed on a wall like cars on a freeway. I hope you like the images I have selected and let’s talk. I hope to create an opportunity to hang wall art at a reasonable price. 8″ x 10″ prints start at $50, with larger print collage semi-gloss photo frames of 20″ x 30″ available for $200.”

Photo by Kevin Wong