Seeing the forest for the trees on Muni 11.18.10
Or, maybe that’s a cliché and I shouldn’t call it that. Let’s go with dear-diary moment, instead.
Like everyone who works on this site, I gravitate willfully toward wacky-on-Muni like some kind of masochist. But my perspective is skewed after one too many missed runs, NextBus fiascoes, or just plain ol’ bad timing. I’ve been catching a 47-Van Ness in the evenings, on and off for nearly three years, and it’s all pretty standard fare. But it’s been particularly bad in the evenings, as my phone now habitually returns NextBus results like “19, 29, 39 minutes” after saying 4 minutes when I first started waiting. Say what you will about who and what sucks in this scenario, but, until recently, that was unusual for me, that time, and that 47 stop at the start of the line.
I tried to self-help by first acknowledging some basic truths. I fucking hate the bus sometimes; there, I said it. But I’m not driving to work, and I’m realistically not going to walk from downtown or ride my bike every day. Cab, shmab.
Therefore: I am taking Muni to work for at least one leg, and I have to deal with it. Dealing with it doesn’t include screaming into a phone about “goddamn shitty drivers standing around doing nothing while we wait in the rain for this fucking bus to leave.” (Who was that woman?)
Yesterday, after receiving still more crappy results from NextBus, I just grabbed an F-Market/Wharves a few minutes later. And I got a seat. And…did you know streetcars are actually really pretty after dark? They’re always pretty, you say? Not at 8:50 a.m. as a commuter.
But, at night; the interior lighting is warm, unlike the unforgiving fluorescence of our standard buses. People aren’t in a hurry. Tourists take pictures as the also-lit-up Embarcadero buildings and Transamerica Pyramid come into view. You can’t see people outside that clearly, so you’re wrapped up in an almost-intimate, cozy transit cocoon, barreling along to Market Street.
How did this turn into a foufy post about the F?
Whether it happens again today, tomorrow, or next week, Muni actually managed to make me hate it and love it in less than 30 minutes. Even if/when the scale tips again toward hatred, I will still use the bus and I will still have to find these moments to keep me sane.
Introducing Muni Time Capsule 11.17.10
The idea for Muni Time Capsule started when one day, Jeff’s former co-worker walked into the office with a box of Muni memorabilia. Inside were old schedules, service change pamphlets (sometimes for service increases, if you can believe it), maps, photos, and various ephemera that we couldn’t believe we were lucky enough to see.
You’ll see some of the great items from the box on the site, but that’s not all. As with Muni Diaries, Muni Time Capsule is a collaborative process. This is a place where you can help build a digital time capsule of life on public transit in San Francisco, and a place for you to share your favorite images and stories of Muni from back in the day.
We’re celebrating Muni Time Capsule and our collective love for the city today at the Muni Diaries and I Live Here:SF Happy Hour at SOMArts, 5-8 p.m.. There will be food carts, drinks, amazing photography and art, and you can even write your own Muni story and caption your own Muni cartoons. So, please, meander over to Muni Time Capsule, take a look around, and we will see you this evening!
Photo Diary: Dilated Peoples 11.17.10
Photo by Troy Holden.
We’re taking things easy this morning because we’ve got something up our sleeves in a few hours. See you tonight at Muni Time Capsule Happy Hours!
Just added: Food Carts at Wednesday Happy Hour with Muni Diaries 11.16.10
Photo by Gary Soup
Look, it’s happiness on a bamboo skewer! And we get to chow down on this tomorrow!
That’s because we’ve secured three great San Francisco food carts that will bless us with their delicious wares tomorrow. Sataysfied, Casey’s Pizza, and Nosh This will be on hand to help sop up the booze you drink as you loosen up to tell Muni stories. Or, you know, just to feed you dinner.
Details:
Happy Hours with Muni Diaries and I Live Here:SF
Wednesday, Nov. 17, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
SOMArts: 934 Brannan Street (cross street is 8th Street)
Take Muni there: 12, 19, 27, 47.
Bring your neighbors! Bring your friends! Bring that old guy you see around the hood who told you about riding Muni back in th 1960s!
N-Judah *doesn’t* hit a Bentley (but it did!) 11.16.10
An accident happened on Muni rider Greg’s commute this morning. Here’s his account — details and colors from Greg. Please feel free to sound off in the comments section about how you would tell the story. Greg’s morning started like this:
So there I am, rocking out to some music trying to avoid eye contact with the one homeless person on Muni who always manages to sit across from me and talk loudly to himself, when I realized that the train has stopped in the middle of an intersection with a left-hand turn (not unusual) and the doors are open and people are pouring out (unusual). Immediately my spidey-sense is activated. I whip out my trusty camera phone to catalog the action that is sure to come. Outside, it appears that our train and a Bentley had an unfortunate meeting of metal.
A quick investigation revealed the source of the problem: The Bentley driver (from all appearances, a rich housewife possibly borrowing her husband’s car) had stopped at the red light and had gone much too far over the line, blocking the entire crosswalk. This of course put her car in the path of the train as it made its left-hand turn, and consequently the train had slightly impacted her car. Of course, more investigation and possible eavesdropping was the only course of action! UCSF police was on the scene almost instantly, and the blond woman driver (No, I’m NOT making social commentary, just saying how it was!) was trying to tell the cop that the train had turned to hit her car. I’m not joking. This woman was trying to say that the train had turned deliberately into her car. Never mind the giant rails in the ground that clearly determine the path of the train in advance, she was insistently trying to scream accusations at the Muni driver. The UCSF PD officer didn’t even know what to say!
A fantastic comute to work ensued on a different line (6-Parnassus, dirtiest bus I have ridden in a while!) and I was in a wonderful mood by the time I got downtown.
Photos by Greg
Riding Six Blocks on the 38-Geary 11.16.10
Photo by christine.ricks
Pam recounts a series of events on the 38-Geary that she calls, “a sort of fiction.”
“I’m saving this seat! Michael! I’m saving this seat! I’ve got the good one!”
“Where’s your pass?” The driver attempted eye contact through the rearview.
“My husband’s got it. He’s coming! Michael! Michael!” She spat and spun, twisting her flat butt in the orange seat. I didn’t believe in Michael, Jesus, or her bus pass, and tried not to make eye contact. Eyes blazed vacant to the back of the bus, the home tattoo above her right eyebrow read, “Michael.” He did exist, and paid their fare with nickels and lint from ripped shorts. As he bounced pole to pole with the moving bus, I wished the driver would have thrown them off, but then I felt like an asshole. If crackheads have fare, they deserve to ride the bus too, don’t they?
They got me thinking about love. These two made some kind of wacky commitment to each other and were working it out. They had clothes and vacant stares and stringy hair and a bag with two fortys, and they snuggled together on the bus. They spooned in the god-damned seats. Her sunken empty eyes held something for his dirty face and too-large Cancun T-shirt from 1992 with tequila bottle and giant lime. He saw past the black finger tips and bitten nail stubs and stretch pants. The tattoo about his left eye read “Irene.”
Look Who’s Got Hero Complex on the 14 11.15.10
You may know Isaac Fitzgerald as the managing editor of The Rumpus, but what you may not know is that he’s got a little hero complex, which got him into a … situation on the 14-Mission. He told the story at Muni Diaries Live a few weeks ago at the Make-Out Room, and we invite you to enjoy his tale in this video.
Cable Car Operator Stabbed in Chinatown (update) 11.14.10
Photo by wilhelmja
Update (9:19 a.m. Monday): SF Weekly reports that the cable car operator is “fighting for his life.”
Original post: A cable car operator was stabbed this afternoon. Police have arrested a total of four suspects.
SF Appeal has details, via Bay City News.
A Note About Our Sponsored Posts 11.14.10
Starting next week, you’ll see certain posts on Muni Diaries, such as our Fashion Friday posts, that are marked with this little “Sponsored Post” red icon: 
These posts are supported by our local sponsors, such as Secession Art and Design and Mobile Spinach. In the 2.5 years that we have been running Muni Diaries, you haven’t seen any advertisements, but we’re starting to experiment with sponsored posts and possibly some advertisements on the sidebar of our site in the near future.
Having ads and sponsored posts might be standard fare for most of the sites that you read. But because Muni Diaries is built on your stories and our common love for our city, we thought it is only appropriate that we invite your opinion:
What do you think of advertisements on Muni Diaries, and what is your threshold on seeing ads on the site?
Earlier this year, I talked to some journalism students at San Francisco State University about how we started Muni Diaries. One of the first questions from the students was this: “Who is your staff, and where does the money come from?” This was funny to us because the short answer was that there was no money that came from anywhere…yet.
Muni Diaries is run by two humble people from our living rooms when we get home from our 9-5. Our website is generously hosted by Laughing Squid, and graphic and site design donated thus far by Suzanne Lagasa and Yen Pai. But we would like to pay our designers, hire a part time web administrator, and invest in other site features that make Muni Diaries a welcome place to share your transit stories. And we’d like to enlist local sponsors to help us with expenses as small as printing event programs and as large as hiring a website designer and beyond.
With sponsored posts and advertisements, we intend to bring you the same level of fun, entertaining content that you’ve seen on Muni Diaries so far, keeping all our content relevant to you and life on Muni. So if you’ve got something to say — whether it’s about sponsored posts, the business of online media, or our favorite: that hilarious thing that happened to you on the bus today — tell us in the comments or email us any time.
Weekend Photos: So Unreal 11.12.10
Photo by Ethan O’Brien
In Muni news this week:
- SFMTA Considers Service Restoration, Counts on Labor Savings (Streetsblog SF)
- Plan Would Improve Sidewalk Conditions for N-Judah Riders in Cole Valley (Streetsblog SF)
- Clipper Card has some worried about privacy issues (SF Examiner)
- Giants celebration gave Muni 240,000 extra riders (BCN via Examiner)
- SF Prop. G backers call it mandate to reform Muni (SFGate)
- Muni addressing recent spate of hangups (SF Examiner)
- Clipper Card’s Dirty Little Secret (Hint: It Can “Go Negative”) (Streetsblog SF)
San Francisco Public Press has a new print edition out, available for $2. There is an ” extensive report on Muni’s elusive quest for on-time service,” which we haven’t read because we are chained to our laptops. But if you are so lucky as to see the outside world today and breathe some non-cubicle air, you can buy the print issue.
These photos on Flickr show a very surreal side of Muni. Enjoy the photos, pen us in for the happy hours next Wednesday, and have a great weekend!
Photo by Dan McKinley at the I Live Here:SF SOMArts exhibit
Photo by jasontakesphotos
Photo by Anthony Brown
Photo by Jonathan Fleming
Ride Muni like a boss. Our Fast Pass Clipper card holders and Muni Diaries T-shirts are all on sale 
