Muni Diaries

The horror of the Orlando mass shooting reminded us of the many men and women who have told their love stories at Muni Diaries Live, unafraid of being judged. I am hopeful that this means we live in a place where a love story doesn’t need to be qualified as a straight or gay. Here’s one of our favorite stories from Elyse Bova, who met her love Mahsa, the one-woman band, on Muni.

Originally posted in 2012, this story was told live at Muni Diaries Live that year.

From Elyse:

As a recent transplant to San Francisco, I was naturally intrigued when the SF Weekly’s “Best Of” issue hit the stands. While flipping through it one Friday morning, the picture alongside an article about the city’s Best One Man Band caught my attention, because she was a ridiculously good looking and hot lady, who also looked like a mime. She caught my eye for a few moments before I moved on in my reading.

Late that night, while on my way out to the Mission on the 33 bus line from Twin Peaks, with my housemate and a friend from out of town, the one-woman band of my dreams from SF Weekly boards the bus, Beat-Feet and all. Joking, my friends and I discuss which one of us was going to write the Missed Connection on
Craigslist later that night.

I make eyes her way and depart the bus shortly thereafter to go to the bar. Upon arriving at the bar I find that I have lost my wallet, and cannot even go into the bar with my friends. Going back to the bus route I check all the buses coming back and spend the rest of the night worrying about my lost belongings.

Three weeks later, all cards cancelled and renewed, I am spending a quiet evening going through Facebook random requests and see one from a name I do not know, but who does reside in San Francisco. It says she was in a clown college but the profile picture didn’t let me see her face. I decided to friend this person and just check it out, and upon realizing who the girl was I simultaneously realized that she must have found my wallet to have known my name and find me. I then found a message sent roughly three weeks prior with the friend request with her number. Quickly I called and left a voicemail, but didn’t hear back from her for the rest of the day.

Later that night, another housemate of mine, who obviously knew the entire story of just who found my wallet, runs into the cutely dressed mime, busking on a street corner, and she gets on a bus with him and decides to come to my house to explain what has since happened to my wallet.

I at the time am getting ready to go out in the Mission, and have been drinking for roughly two hours, with a friend from college. My roommate texts me and tells me not to leave until he gets home, thinking he is sick or something I obviously stay.

When he gets to the house with my surprise, my friends realize it is the Mime musician from the bus and from the magazine. She had come to my front door to explain that she had taken the twenty dollars and BART card in my wallet, and given the wallet itself to a friend, and also had cut up my cards. My addresses on all my cards were, at that time, San Diego and she hadn’t thought I really lived in San Francisco. She offered to play me a song with her Beat-Feet, and as I graciously accept she plays “Kiss” by Prince and my heart melts. And slowly but surely after months of easing into this magical experience we are deeply in love and laugh and play every day on the streets of San Francisco together.

Photo by April Malvino

Remember those front-facing seats that SFMTA folded and locked for safety reasons? You won’t have to eye those seats woefully for much longer. Muni has been adding poles next to those seats so that they can be open again for use.

Muni locked these seats about two years ago, with safety stickers plastered over the seats, due to the manufacturer’s warning that there had been incidents where “passengers were ejected from these forward-facing seats and sustained quadriplegic injuries.”

SFist reported that SFMTA initially considered installing a barrier in front of these seats, but that “the area in front of these seats needs to be left clear, so that a person in a wheelchair or other mobility device can get into and out of the securement area.”

So instead, SFMTA installed metal hand rails — actually called rotational stanchions (who knew?) — so that you can hold onto it if the bus lurches. We saw one yesterday morning on the 2-Clement:

We asked SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose more about these:

Yes, we are currently installing rotational stanchions for our existing fleet. One of these stanchions will be added to each fold up seat which will allow passengers to have something to hold onto during an abrupt stop. Previously, there was nothing to hold on to., which is why the manufacturer asked us to fold the seats. With each new stanchion, we can now open the seats. We are in the process of implementing the installation onto the following types of buses: ETI, Neoplan and Orion. It is not necessary to install these stanchions onto the new buses arriving now.

There you have it. Two more seats for every ride.

Top photo credit: SFGate