What Does It Take to Ride All the Muni Lines? 05.06.09
That’s the question that Adrian at adrian is rad asked himself one day and decided to actually start doing just that. He has been documenting his “SF Muni Project” on his blog with some cool photos to boot.
Several other Muni enthusiasts have also set out the same goal: Kathleen at No Line Left Behind has faithfully recorded her rides, complete with timestamp. A few years back, a group of young people managed to ride every Muni line in three days.
I’ve probably only taken about one-third of the lines in the 10+ years I have lived here! It’s so easy to just get stuck in taking the familiar lines and never actually leave my ZIP code. Has anyone else attempted this feat of riding all the lines or almost?
Poll time: Worst Muni line 05.06.09
At Muni Diaries, we don’t particularly like to quote-unquote go negative. But perhaps it’s just the nature of the beast — a site meant to reflect the goings on of a public-transit system in a major metropolitan city will, at least from time to time, contain nuggets of negativity like this one.
Last night around 11 p.m., an Examiner story caught my eye. The headline “J-Church line called worst performer in City” is kind of hard to ignore, no matter how much wine you’ve had throughout the evening. (Our friend Greg Dewar of N-Judah Chronicles gets a quote in the article.) So I threw it up on Twitter. Of course, I was looking for reaction from the community, as I am with this post. People definitely have their opinions of which line performs worse than the others, and are quick to defend some lines from the verbal spears of other riders.
In your opinion, what’s the slowest, least-on-time line in the city? Let everyone know in the comments. And let’s try to be constructive here and offer the agency some solutions as well.
Below the fold are the responses we’ve received so far on Twitter, in the order they were received (we’ll update the post if we get more).
Cable Car Confessions: The Proposal 05.05.09
Here’s the first installment of Cable Car Confessions, first published in the blog, Under the Sheets by Laura. Her readers have been enjoying these episodes, and we hope you do, too.
Ding ding all aboard. “Next stop Powell Street Chinatown. Tickets please show me your tickets please.” I have been getting a lot of requests for a new Cable Car Confessions. If you haven’t caught up on the past chapters read them here. This chapter is about the most perfect, romantic cable car proposal I was lucky enough to witness.
I must be honest with you: I have never gotten into the ABC show The Bachelor. Maybe I am too practical to think that after knowing someone for only six weeks you should get engaged on TV and then break up months later out of the public eye. Do I believe in love at first sight? Absolutely, but love at first sight with a camera crew around you, not so much.
So let me share with you what happened to me last week while riding the Powell/Mason cable car line. I got onto the cable car with my arms carrying heavy groceries and a kind man gave up his seat for me to sit down. I was very thankful. The man, who was dressed in a suit and seemed to be a little nervous, stood and put his arm around a woman who was now also standing up on the cable car.
Post of the Month – Justice on the M 05.04.09
Animals have taken over the month of April here at Muni Diaries – a wayward pigeon was saved by a goth man, a box full of rats was almost unleashed by a mystery woman, and a gorilla rode the 49. Our most popular post this month, though, involves a flock of teenagers who reminded Muni rider Denise Cho of a different animal altogether. Here’s a snippet from Denise’s post, Justice on the M:
The drunk pubescent boy sways in the seat next to me: “blah, you and everyone has an iphone!” I turn my eyes into slits and ignore. Then the girl with the tiara starts screaming like a banshee, but several pitches lower – I dunno, like a manshee? banhe? She runs up and down the train, drunk and muffin toppy.
Read the rest of Denise’s post to see if the rowdy kids got their comeuppance.
Check out other popular posts this month: Tiffany’s hilarious clairvoyance into the mind of Guy Who Takes Up Two Seats and Tara’s interview with SFMTA spokesperson Judson True.
Got your own Muni story to tell? Submit it to us so your story can be in the running for the post of the month for May!
Don’t Do My Beloved 49 That Way 05.04.09
Everything was going more or less as we had planned. We had a short wait at 20th and Mission, nothing out of the ordinary. Our inbound 49 arrived, and with ample seating. We plopped down on the back row, Tara and I, sitting on and surrounded by so much tagging, I remarked that it was so hideous, it almost came back to beautiful (the so-called Saturn effect). Sadly, I didn’t take a photo.
All the windows were closed, which didn’t sit well with my needs as an oxygen-consuming being. I cracked the one nearest me a subtle 1.5 inches. All was well.
(An odd interlude, if I may — and because I don’t feel like writing it out, I point you to this Muni Diaries Twitter update.)
It was the ride back to the Mission, again on the 49, that has me writing this diary on an otherwise lovely, dreary Sunday morning.
Weekend Photo Diary 05.01.09
Stay dry out there. Or, if getting wet is your thing, rock it! Have a good weekend … xoxo MD
Photo by sflovestory from the Muni Photos Flickr group. If you’ve got Muni or BART photos and a Flickr account, please tag them for us. And if you’ve got stories, send them our way.
“No more bunnies!” 05.01.09
Coming home Wednesday on the 6, it was a typical evening rush-hour crowd. By about 6th St, everyone was squished together in the aisles. Luckily, having gotten on at 2nd, I had a precious seat near the back door.
At about 9th St, the bus driver yells, “Wheelchair coming on, clear the wheelchair seats!” and I’m proud to report that those people dutifully cleared the way as the man in the wheelchair carefully rolled his way down the aisle. Things were looking good; the wheelchair guy was joking around with some other passengers about the difficulty of parallel parking his chair into the space on the bus and no one seemed miffed to have been forced to stand on an already crowded bus.
First time for everything 05.01.09
I ride the 47 to work almost every day, and today at about 4pm, for the first time ever, I spotted not one, but two fare inspectors! While I was on the bus, they just sat there, and then they got off around Jackson. I wish I got paid to ride the bus with a uniform on.
If you come across unusual phenomena on Muni or BART, let us know.
Muni Mind Reader: The Tweaker 05.01.09
The latest installment in Tiffany Maleshefski’s Muni Mind Reader series peers inside the mental machinations of the so-called tweaker. This is someone we’ve all seen on the bus or on the street and probably tried to ignore. But hey, they’re people too.
Hellloooo fellow bus passengers! Hello! Hi. Hi there. Is that a baby? Is this your baby? HI BABY!!! You like coffee, huh? I HATE YOU. Why is everyone looking at me? HEY DRIVER! IS THIS MY STOP? What is Gavin Newsom doing anyway? DRIVER! Give me my transfer. Yes, I paid you. OKAY FINE! I don’t know why everyone picks on me. Sigh.
Yes! I am the tweaker!
I go from low to high
And I’ll be tweakin’ till the day I die
I was just singing The Who. You know, The Who? Never mind.
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