Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Photo by Stuart of Caliber SF
I spotted this photo in my RSS feed Tuesday morning. It was taken by Stuart of Caliber SF. Aside from simple beauty, it reminds me of a droid from Star Wars. That’s always a good thing.
Share your BART photos in our Flickr group.
Photo by Flickr user Whole Wheat Toast
The following was originally left by Amy as a comment on “My own personal N-Judah.”
I used to always end up barely making it onto the last 17 leaving from West Portal — it stops at 11:30 on weekdays or something ridiculous. I could’ve always taken the M, but when it’s foggy and cold and nearly midnight, not to mention dark, if I saw that 17 as the M was pulling into West Portal station, I would take it. I would always be the last person left on the bus when I got off at my stop. I always figured it was because the SFSU kids were usually the only other people on the bus and they all got off near the dorms. One day though, the 17 had a new driver and about 10 minutes before the bus was to approach my stop, he stopped and said it was the end of the line.
I asked him why he was letting everyone off early, and he looked surprised. He then explained that the actual end of the line was at the Lake Merced entrance to ParkMerced because the bus had to go home eventually, and then asked if it was my first time taking the 17. And that was when I found out that the former driver had been going out of his way to drop me off at the stop right across the street from my apartment. I wish I had gotten the name or at least the number of the bus before I left the city — that kind man always, without fail, made sure I got to my stop, and I never realised he was going out of his way in time to thank him.
Oh, how we love an uplifting Muni story. Got one? Send it here.
That’s the scene this morning at West Portal. 511/MTA report a derailment of the L-Taraval somewhere between West Portal and Castro stations. We’ll report more as we learn it. If you were there, share stories and photos please. Form or email.
Photos by @wirelesschunk
Photo by Flickr user Steve Rhodes
We got this email today from Alan (bold ours):
Hi there,
My name is Alan and I seriously considering of playing [sic] music at BART STATIONS, is it legal? Can I do it? I play acoustic guitar and sing and since I lost my job as a Web Designer, I can’t find another one. I need to do something before I die. Please let me know, I need to act quickly.
If I can play music there, what’s the best time to arrive?
Now, first of all. It’s hard to say whether or not to take his desperate words seriously. This rough economy is, well, rough, on a lot of people.
That said, we’re assuming that Alan is just failing to channel his energy into a funemployment activity. And his question is an odd one: Is playing music at BART stations legal?
We don’t see how it could be otherwise, so we poked around BART’s website to try to find some sort of policy. Nothing.
Let’s assume, based on its proliferation, that playing music at BART, at least outside of gated, ticketed areas, is legit. Reminds us of how, last month, we posted a story from BART’s Seen and Heard series about one such rocker, the Punk Rock Johnny Cash. It also reminds us of countless musicians we see just about every time we ride BART.
So I got to wondering: What are some of your favorite BART musicians? Let us know in comments, please.
Photo by Flickr user mikedthorn
Noteworthy BART-related news chunk of the week:
Former Your Black Muslim Bakery associate loses BART contract (Oakland Tribune)
And hipsters! Check this old-timey bicycle (called a penny-farthing in its day), as seen on BART.
Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you back here Monday.
Photo by Flickr user bellasboots
Photo by Flickr user mikedthorn
Photo by Flickr user moppet65535
Photo by Flickr user hereandthereblog
By now, you might’ve seen a video floating around the intertubes called, to varying discrepancies, “A trip down Market Street.” If not, go watch it. If our guess is correct, and you have this soft spot for San Francisco in the middle of all your frustrations and angst, you’ll love this footage of our city in its simpler, yet equally fascinating days. It shows the view from a streetcar traveling east toward the Ferry Building, on a Market Street free of cars (easier to do in those days), with pedestrians and horses and buggies crossing the tracks ever so lawlessly.
Owing to the popularity of that video, we came across the above program, sponsored by The Long Now Foundation. The very long program is broken up into easy-to-digest chapters. The un-embeddable chapters we want to call your attention to are: Fillmore Hill Cable Car (lots of great footage of Fillmore and other old cable car lines) and South of Market (which includes archival footage of the Transbay Terminal around 1941). There might be other transit-related bits, but frankly, we haven’t had enough time to watch it all. Here’s a link to the entire program, but you can watch it by the chapter.
The man responsible for the footage, Rick Prelinger, will be presenting more archival video of San Francisco on December 4 at the Herbst Theater.