Muni Brings a Little Culture to Its Routes
This week, SFMTA announced the CultureBus (a.k.a, the 74X). The new line shuttles riders - or should i say tourists? - to different museums and cultural points across town, from Yerba Buena to the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. For $7, adults get to hop and ride across town from 8:40 a.m. to 5:50 p.m., at 20-minute intervals. Or, if you tote a Muni Fast Pass, get the full-day ticket for $3.
What’s good about the CultureBus? Money from riders goes back to the City and SFMTA instead of getting harpooned by the other tourist buses operating similar routes.
What’s potentially bad about it? Running a new line which no one uses, thus costing us money.
We’ll see if it works. Keep your eyes peeled for the new 74X buzzing around town, which is yellow, incidentally. I’d test it out just to visit the new Academy of Sciences which opened last weekend. But then again, I live near Golden Gate Park.
If you ride, let us know how it goes.
Sometimes I see it full and sometimes it’s empty. When the Academy of Sciences opened (and about a zillion people drove to check it out) it got stuck in front of my apartment and had to fight traffic to get going.
I think it’s a great idea, but they should include it in the Muni Passport so tourists don’t get confused.
It looked well-used today when I saw folks getting on and off of it in front of the De Young — and this on a weekday afternoon. The name “culture bus” cracks me up though.
It just bothers me that Fast Pass users can’t use Fast Passes on this bus. I will probably never use it, but it seems silly to run a bus with only a limited ridership when you could make it free to Fast Pass users and get more people on it.
But I guess they want me to pony up 3 bucks when my out of town guests pay their 7 bucks.
I feel the same about the cable cars… they used to be free for me, I used to ride them to actually GET PLACES SOMETIMES. Not anymore.
PS - I also agree with Greg, get it involved with the MUNI passport or city pass programs.
The only time I saw it was in Civic Center with one lost tourist on board holding a map. According to Muni, this is a special fare bus just like ball park shuttles so Fast Pass users can’t get on without paying the extra $3. Let’s see how it works out.
Rachel-Adult Fast Pass holders can hop on the Cable Car.
Oddly, after I wrote the story today, I saw two “culture buses” pass me - about half full.
I’m on the fence about the $3 charge for Fast Pass holders. I mean, how many locals will really use the service? On the other hand, if I were hosting out-of-town visitors and knew I’d have to pay $3 to load ‘em on the CultureBus, I might just as well load ‘em on the 71 or other route to save a few bucks.
Personally I wouldn’t shell out the extra money for the Culture Bus - whether I am a tourist or not. Incidentally, I was walking on Larkin the other day and a CultureBus drove so close to me that it nearly pressed me against a parked car! Safety aside, it doesn’t seem like too much effort to figure out how to take the regular Muni bus to get to these cultural destinations…I can kind of imagine guidebooks recommending against it, saying that you can save a few bucks by just hopping on the regular bus “like locals do.”