Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Photo by Flickr user Brian_Brooks
This photo, submitted to the Muni Photos Flickr pool by Brian Brooks, just suspended my evening appetite at least a few hours. How about you? Still hungry for lunch?
Seen any delectable delights on your commute? Send photos and stories to Muni Diaries.
Photo by Thomas Hawk
Well, well. The weather went and turned November-like on us, didn’t it?
Here’s some happy thoughts to carry into this weekend:
But on to happier (if wetter times) we go. Here’s a photo that came to us after our Halloween 2009 Muni photo roundup.
About this photo, Lucia has this to say:
Apparently no one who snapped photos of this Muni rolling around Mission, Valencia, and Guerrero between 24th &17th sent them in. We parked it on the plaza in Dolores for a miniMuni dance party. And then I broke my ankle, which is pretty much unrelated, but hence the delay in sending this.
And here are some remarkable photos that showed up in our Muni Photos Flickr group recently.
Photo by Troy Holden
Photo by Flickr user bingolio
Photo by tangobaby
BART started our week off with 24 hours of service. Not too shabby a way to start a week on BARTDiaries, I say. This week in BART news:
– S.F. transportation costs lower than other suburbs (via SFGate)
– BART driver accused of lewd act (via NBC and StreetsBlog)
– BART staves off loss of state funds for now (via SFWeekly)
– BART wants to know what you think! Agency surveying riders in effort to retain them (via SFAppeal)
Warm nights this week led to many great dress-up opportunities like the Dia de los Muertos parade, which, by the way, is going to be my favorite event of the year every year now. Enjoy these photos and your weekend. And send more BART stories our way!
Photo by Flickr user Jared Zimmerman
Photo by Flickr user mg7101
Photo by Flickr user John 3000
Photo by Flickr user Rubin 110
The righteous folk over at People Who Deserve It have unearthed their screed against what they dub Aggressively Anal Bus Driver. A choice cut of meat:
How about cutting the peeps a little slack Aggressively Anal Bus Driver? Stop yelling at people for paying in quarters, or coming near the yellow line, or for not being able to move any further into the armpit of the diabetic Hare Krishna. How about you just suffer in silence like the rest of us? Sound good?
Muni Diaries loves a diligent Muni driver as much as the next person. But we all know that some people in all walks of life end up taking their jobs a little too literally, and wind up coming across as just this type of jackass.
That said, isn’t it about time we all restore honor and dignity into the system with a “Thank you” when we deboard? Just sayin’.
Photo by Flickr user numlok™
We’ve gotten more than a few posts and pieces of mail complaining about fare inspectors. There was the so-called shaved-head fare inspector from hell. There was another story of a rider dumping her purse in an attempt to locate her proof of payment to the same shaved-head fare inspector from hell.
And today, a post from Muni rider Diq, who really stuck it to the man seems to think he had a clever idea for how to piss off fare inspectors:
As I approached the crowd of officers and the teenager, a clever idea came to my mind. I still had to get rid of October Fast Pass, and I already had my November pass. So I took out my October pass and just flicked it at the officer as I walked by without stopping. It didn’t hit him. It just flipped up in the air and zipped toward the ground.
Genius, that.
What we’re wondering is this: Why do fare-paying, Fast Pass-holding riders have such disdain for fare inspectors? You’re legit, eh? In our experience, it takes a total of about 2-point-something seconds to show your proof of payment. If many of us have Fast Passes and aren’t boarding at the back door, why do people hate fare inspectors so much? Are they the new DPT? Why the fuss?
Just off the top of our head, here are some relevant news stories:
Muni finds almost 10 percent cheat fares (SFGate)
Fare evaders cost Muni $19 million a year (Examiner)
Muni’s mid-year $45 million deficit (Streetsblog SF)
Now, we’re not necessarily here to argue how to fix Muni’s budget deficit. We’re simply pointing out that there is one, and that perhaps it’s only fitting that the agency would want to crack down on scofflaws when said scofflaws cost the system (and by extension, us) at least $19 million in missed fares.
Help us out here: Why do you hate fare inspectors?
This just in from Muni rider Christopher:
I was riding an M-car inbound today just around 2:30 PM. There was a strange K-KLAK sound of metal-on-metal between Church and Van Ness — like the streetcar had run over something on the tracks.
This being Muni, I thought nothing of it.
But as we arrived at Van Ness, the same noise repeated as the the streetcar entered the station. The M-car came to an ordinary halt, and the driver calmly asked everyone to disembark. That was when I noticed the front streetcar’s left main door was jammed open.
School-kids playing hooky flashed V-for-victory signs for their friends’ digital cameras in front of the huge side panel of the streetcar that was now folded unnaturally above the lip of the station’s boarding platform.
However it had come undone enough to impact whatever flipped it over the platform’s edge, the lock on the side of the streetcar had been torn through right through the panel.
To his credit, the Muni driver kept the situation mellow and casual.
I exited to the street and legged it to the 14 so as to avoid the crowd on the F-car.
All images by Christopher Rogers