Photo by Akit

After the earlier posting of “Obit-lettes,” we received this one from Muni rider Akit:

It’s sad to say goodbye to San Francisco’s old friend, the 38-Geary Ocean Beach Branch. The little segment from 33rd Avenue to LaPlaya helps to serve the community businesses on Balboa, and provides frequent service for anyone who needs to connect with the 1-California for service to Chinatown and the Sutter Health hospitals in Laurel Village.

But with a loss comes another hero, the 18-46th Avenue to cover the route of the 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch. The realization is that anyone on Balboa who needs to get to Geary must depend on this bus line that only gives 20 minute frequencies, and a missing bus can make it up to 40 minutes. At least the 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch was a little more frequent.

But the sacrifice the 18-46th Avenue has to make will cost riders their access to great views along the route that serves the Cliff House, Pt. Lobos Avenue, and Geary Blvd. But it’s not just the regular riders, this route was popular with the people with large amounts of groceries from Safeway “at the Beach” and lives on Geary/Pt. Lobos between 48th and 33rd Avenues.

These huge changes could have been simply resolved by removing the Fort Miley route of the 38-Geary and having a shuttle van supplied by VA Hospital or a paratransit van cover the one block segment to Pt. Lobos/Geary for an easy transfer to a 38L or 18 bus.

Thanks Muni, you’ve just added an extra 20 minutes on my 30 minute commute.

See? It’s never too late to memorialize a dying Muni route or portion thereof. Share your memories today.

Related posts:

1. Obit-lette: 38-Geary Ocean Beach
2. Obit-lettes: 21-Hayes, 10-Townsend
3. 38 Geary Drops Lots of Motor Oil on Geary This P.M. (w/update)