Hey Super Bowl 50 committee, Muni wires are actually beautiful

muni_wires_nonny1982

The Super Bowl 50 Committee plans to ask SFMTA to take down the overhead wires on Market Street during the sportsball fiesta, but honestly, we think the overhead wires are kind of nice in a photo op.

Next year’s Super Bowl will be held in Santa Clara, but the eight-day fan village will be in Justin Herman Plaza, where the mayor told KCBS that there won’t be room for the homeless or anyone. The Examiner reports that Supervisor Jane Kim confirmed the Super Bowl 50 Committee‘s desire to pull down Muni wires.

No decisions have been made about the potential request, but the Examiner says that pulling down the overhead wires could cost a “seven-figure number” requiring “lots of overtime” to remove correctly. The F, 6, 21, and 31 lines run on overhead wires in the area.

I actually think Muni overhead wires make for really beautiful photos, as evidenced by several of the photographers we’ve featured on Instagram. Maybe the Super Bowl 50 Committee can take a look at a few of these beauties?

muni_wires_nyxnax
Photo by @nyxnax

muni_wires_geoffreyupton
Photo by @geoffreyupton

muni_wires_itzjustinsane
Photo by @itsjustinsane

muni-wires_djsoul6
Photo by @djsoul6

Top photo by @nonny1982

Baby Witnesses a Series of Blunders on the 21-Hayes

did you know it's legal to drink on muni?
Photo by arlen

Ever tried explaining what happens on Muni to a kid? Muni rider and mom June has this story to share:

On Tuesday at about 5 p.m. my 19-month old daughter and I boarded the 21-Hayes inbound for our trip home from daycare. We took seats up front in the handicapped section; the bus was fairly empty so I let my daughter have her own seat rather than keeping her on my lap. Sitting directly across from us was a surly, obviously drunk man. He was issuing a stream of salacious comments in the direction of woman who had taken a nearby seat, to the tune of, “You’re a fuckin’ skinny bitch but you have a big BUTT!” After a few minutes of that she replied, “Asshole!” and moved to the back of the bus.

Now my daughter and I were the closest targets. He looked straight at my daughter and said, “Well you’re a pretty little baby! You look just like my…GRANDDAUGHTER! Want to see a picture?!” He pulled out a cell phone, poked some buttons, then leaned across the aisle to show us a photo of a baby girl (cute, actually).

At that moment the bus was headed up the steep bit of Hayes near Alamo Square. The drunk man lost his balance and rolled about 6 feet down the aisle toward the back of the bus. He landed pretty hard on a row of seats and shouted, “OWWW! I broke a rib!”

The bus came to a halt in the middle of the street, passengers started screaming, some people got up to help the guy – pandemonium. The doors were open so I decided it would be a good time to exit. My daughter, who is just learning to talk, told me, “Ride bus. Man fall down. He owwie.”

Indeed.

Be like June, and share your Muni stories here on Muni Diaries.

Got Stories From the Driver’s Seat?

27: hi-five a muni driver
Photo by Kate RW

Jason had a really great experience with a Muni driver named Jackie, and it involves butterscotch:

I rode a 21 Hayes from downtown up to Fillmore late on Sunday, asked the driver how she was doing, she said “wonderful” or words to that effect, i said i was “fantastic” and we laughed about how things should always be this way.

After we got going I went back up to the front to ask her name. “Jackie” she said, and instinctively i replied “With such a great attitude, there has to be a Muni Diaries story about you.” (and there is!) She was unaware of the Diaries so I enlightened her, which gave her a tickle.

Then we swapped origins (she’s a native, I’m from Manchester in the UK) and got talking about earthquakes. It was then she busted out the candy! Butterscotch, even. And it turns out she has lemon sours with a sweet centre for people not having good Muni experiences. I tried to get subsequent boarders in on the party, but all i received were cold stares, as usual…

What a great Muni experience. I’m not walking home from downtown ever again.

Sure, Muni made us late, some people on the bus smell, Clipper cards don’t work the way they should, and the new turnstiles are dumb (see: Gategate). Then there are drivers like Jackie who can make our days go smoother. We’ve gotten stories about drivers here on Muni Diaries like the great post about Tammy, who decorated her bus to surprise her passengers, Vivienne, whose sweet demeanor really impressed her passengers, and this 38-Geary driver who stood up for his fare-paying passengers.

Do you have a story to share about a Muni driver? Or better, are you a Muni operator who would like to share some stories with us from the driver’s seat? We’re all ears.

Glazed and Confused


Photo by Lady in the radiator

100 Muni StoriesRider Ben sent over this diamond of a tale involving alleged porn stars, beer, and someone who thought he was Jet Li. Read on.

I’ve been riding MUNI for about 10 years now. My morning commute involves a three-way with the bus, the underground, and the F train. I used to wear headphones when on transit- it kind of lets you get out of the ugliness of being squashed with 1200 other people in a small, dirty, hot vehicle that starts and stops ease of a jackhammer. Headphones put you in your own world. But while I’ve had many, many terrible experiences on the bus, there’ve been some diamonds in there, too. This story is sort of a mixture of both, depending on which seat you were in.

I was waiting at a stop for the 21 last Saturday, wondering why I was even going out when I didn’t feel like it, and listening to a drunken conversation between two guys with huge fake mustaches. They had decided to explain their fake mustaches by telling people they had just come from a porn shoot, and were making up titles (their running favorite was Cumming to America). After the predict-a-bus said “Arriving” for about 15 minutes, and they’d come up with nearly every porn title ever imagined, the bus finally came.

Even when the bus is nearly empty like it was that night, I still like to sit in the back seats that face each other. The two mustaches followed to the seats across from me, and on the other side of the aisle an older couple sat across from a rather large, round, drunk hipster who somehow had a full plastic cup of beer. I hurried to sit down because I’ve been on the bus before, unlike the mustaches, and I knew that the bus driver likes to go from idle to 25 mph in half a second. Sure enough, the mustaches were scooped into the seats with a thump.

On the other side, the hipster’s beer had apparently sloshed forward (he was facing backwards), and he tried to “save” it by diving. In his drunkenness, he must’ve mistaken himself for Jet Li, when in reality he more closely resembled a garbage bag of oatmeal, and he sprawled onto the floor/old couple and completely covered them in beer. The lady gave a loud shriek and cringed, drenched, but the man stared forward without so much as a blink. The fat hipster was now on his knees, laying in the man’s lap, and everyone was very quiet for several seconds- I counted 3 drips of beer from the lady’s nose before anyone on the bus moved. Then the hipster looked up from the old man’s lap, saw how beer-soaked they were, and began giggling furiously. He didn’t even attempt to apologize as he peeled himself up off the floor and sat back down.

The couple waited until everyone finally looked away and then moved to another seat, embarrassed. The hipster was still giggling when he leaned over and told me “You know what the funny part is? The funny part (burp), the funny part is, I think they’re going to the same party as me.” I don’t know how he figured that, but when the old couple got off the bus two stops later, damned if he didn’t follow them. And he even looked up at me in the window and mock-splashed them again with the plastic cup, to a wave of laughter from the bus.

And then one mustache pointed to the poor couple walking away and said “Dude. Glazed and Confused.”

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