Muni Diaries

There’s a right way and a wrong way to run the social media account of a public entity. During this week’s BART disruptions, the agency’s Twitter account engaged in so much “the right way of doing things.” Gizmodo has the story:

“Last night, the person in charge of the official San Francisco BART Twitter account lost it. In 57 tweets, the account espoused truth and honesty, and pretty much admitted what everyone in the Bay Area already knows: the crumbling institution kinda sucks.”

We can sympathize! Here at @munidiaries and @bartdiaries, we probably see almost as many hateful public transit tweets as the poor soul who ran BART’s Twitter feed this week. Fortunately our only job here, as four riders blogging away in our living rooms, is to pick out the funniest rants and present them to you! The media found the guy who was running BART’s Twitter feed that night: Taylor Huckaby of @iwriterealgood.

More from Wire.com:

Thankfully for Huckaby, BART’s higher-ups approved of the rogue policy change. His boss commended him for “single-handedly” turning the tide of “pretty much abuse” into an actual conversation. “It was exciting to be able to start a conversation about infrastructure,” Huckaby says, “because infrastructure is just not sexy—unless something is broken or brand new.”

Even The New York Times is on it. They talked to Huckaby about his approach to social media for  BART:

His philosophical approach to social media runs counter to that of most government agencies, which he said use Twitter as a bullhorn.

“With the political climate, there’s a lot of focus right now on America’s crumbling infrastructure — why are our tax dollars not getting us anything; where’s our return on investment?” he said, explaining why he thought it was important for government to be responsive online.

Here are a few of the tweets from that evening:

@lisabari To illustrate this point – the number of people who exit at 19th street in Oakland has doubled in less than a decade.

— SFBART (@SFBART) March 17, 2016

Like @iamjohnoliver has said on @lastweektonight, infrastructure isn't sexy – but without it, no one moves. #ThisIsOurReality

— SFBART (@SFBART) March 17, 2016

@shakatron BART was built to transport far fewer people, and much of our system has reached the end of its useful life. This is our reality.

— SFBART (@SFBART) March 17, 2016

@tquad64 Planners in 1996 had no way of predicting the tech boom – track redundancy, new tunnels & transbay tubes are decades-long projects.

— SFBART (@SFBART) March 17, 2016

People in other parts of the U.S. took notice and applauded BART’s openness and honesty through the crisis:

I actually wish more government agencies were this honest about their problems and the tradeoffs of solutions: https://t.co/qtcAGkzBGI

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 17, 2016

This one, from the Metro LA account, was especially awesome in its GIF-y solidarity:

@SFBART pic.twitter.com/9xSwytfty4

— Metro (@metrolosangeles) March 17, 2016

Yes, we indeed need more openness and candid communication from public transit agencies. Hear that, @SFMTA_Muni?