Tag: Van Ness Station

M-car Grinds the Lip at Van Ness Station

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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.

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All images by Christopher Rogers

Category: News Tags: ,

Massive downpour forces underground Muni closure

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Update: And … no sooner do we post than we hear that service is restored, although trains are apparently bypassing Van Ness Station. Update from ActionNewsSF.

Original post: According to several Twitter sources and SFist, Muni has suspended all subway service after extensive flooding at several stations.

The agency (SFMTA) plans to have more buses on the streets to try to alleviate what’s expected to be a huge commute-ache. Good luck out there!

How are you getting around the problem?

Category: News Tags: ,

The Day of the Muni Fails

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Today seems to be the day of the Muni Fails. We have a taxi running into 2 cable cars, a Muni driver talking on the cell phone, an old guy driving on the J-Church tracks, and the streetcar stall at Van Ness Inbound that delayed for 15 minutes. Oh yeah, how can anyone forget about the Muni Humper and the racist douchebag?

I’ll comment on one of them since there wasn’t much media coverage on this one. I was riding the L to Van Ness Station when all of a sudden we slowed down. At first, I thought it was a regular stop and go, because that’s what usually happens during rush hour. Then, the operator made an announcement, saying, “There appears to be some delay, we should be moving in a couple of minutes.”

…a couple of minutes later, she said, “There appears to be a stuck train, so they’re working on it, we should hopefully be moving very soon…”

But, eventually, the passengers were told to disembark the broken train as they were “trying to get the train out of there. We hopefully should be moving in a minute or two, maybe three or four.”

As we finally approached Van Ness Station, she thanked everyone for being patient, and, as I got off, there was this guy who thanked the operator for making regular announcements.

Personally, I think this problem could have been avoided if trains were single-tracked around the station, but hey, it’s Muni, powered by shoddy OS/2 run ATC and sometimes patient, frequent-announcer operators, and fare inspectors.

Category: News, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: ,
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