about us

Our mission:

Muni Diaries is a place to share and read rider tales and news about the sometimes crappy, sometimes efficient but essential public-transit system of San Francisco.

Saw something hilarious on a ride? Grossed out by bad Muni etiquette? Checked out the same hot thang on the bus every day this week and didn’t get up the nerve to smile? The idea is: If you have something to say about a ride, about a route, or even about politics surrounding public transit in the city, Muni Diaries is your forum to let the world know.

We are a ragtag group of San Franciscans who love the ups and the downs, the good and the bad stories in and around the buses and light-rail cars in our city. But we can’t emphasize enough that we want Muni Diaries to be a user-generated exercise in storytelling.

Bookmark us, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our RSS feed, or even better, begin telling your Muni stories today.

And here are some examples of Muni Diaries making the local news.

Muni Diaries crew at the 2009 Best of the Bay Awards party

Contributors

Suzanne

Suzanne has been riding Muni since 1999, and though it hasn’t exactly been a party, she tries to make the relationship work without being consumed by hate and despair. She has a problem staring at all things gross and a knack for finding them in the smallest details.

These days, she rides Muni from Church and Market (usually after three trains go by) all the way to Mission Bay. She thanks god every day that there aren’t schizophrenics yelling, can-collectors on board, loud, swaggering teens, drunks, or abusive parents feeding Capri Suns and candy to snotty-nosed children. She relishes being on a packed train when everyone remains in complete silence, and she loves seeing the immensity of the Bay Bridge emerge on the T-line. There is beauty to be had if you can only look out the window.

Suzanne is a graphic designer at a publishing house, where she is pushing for a book on bicycles.

Jenny

Jenny Parma is currently under contract with George Lucas Educational Foundation. She’s worked as a writer/editor for a number of websites and magazines ranging from the wildly successful (like Google) to the despondently pulseless (like VidBook). On the side, Jenny is attaining her pre-requisites in a major career change to pursue medicine. School makes her a frequent rider of the 43, but as an Upper Haight resident, she’s also found on the 71, 6, and 33 lines.

Jenny finds it ironic that as much as she loves nature, running, the arts, competitive card playing, and imbibing regular elixirs in the City, she’s just as often contemplating society in the back of a diesel-powered transit vehicle. However, she believes in the journey, which is why you’ll forever find her gravitating toward the weird and gross and smiling or cussing at the most ridiculous of events.

Tara

Tara writes and edits the online curriculum for an ever-expanding San Francisco art university. Then she goes home to her (rented) Victorian flat in the Mission and writes things for fun and freelance jobs. Her work has appeared in Planet magazine, Busted Halo, The San Francisco Examiner, the San Mateo County Times, and The California Aggie, among others. She wrote daily local and regional news in California on just about everything from 2001 to 2007, and currently functions as Muni Diaries’ crack reporter.

Aside from avid wordsmithery, Tara enjoys reading, walking, politics, pets, and an unfettered affinity for icanhascheezburger.com. She loves going out of town, whether it’s one or 100 hours from home, and finding delicious, cheap bottles of Tuesday-night wine at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.

Tara has a tepid relationship with Muni. You’ll often see her tapping into her BlackBerry or staring out the window on the 49-Van Ness , F-Market/Wharves and 10-Townsend. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll find her frantically running toward a 9x or 47 in a pathetic attempt to get to work or dinner on time when her regular lines failed her.

Editors

Eugenia

By day, Eugenia’s an editor at a little beleaguered company called Yahoo! where she is constantly amused by naughty search terms. By night, she is a freelance writer and some-time commentator for 91.7 KALW. Before going corporate, she had been a reporter and editor at New America Media. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED, and San Francisco Magazine. When she’s not in front of a computer, you can find her busily wiping her hands with Purell and eavesdropping on the 47, 49, or 1.

On these Muni lines, she has been delighted by: grandparents taking their kids to day care in Chinatown, hipsters with awesome shoes, a cute little kid who played peek-a-boo, a man carrying a bearded dragon and a 40 in a paperbag, and a sign that said, “Please Love Back.”

Jeff

One of Muni Diaries’ co-founders (along with Eugenia), Jeff spends most of his days writing and editing online courses for a local art school. (See Tara — yes, same job. No, they didn’t meet on the job. Not this job, anyway.) He used to write and copy edit for a newspaper and a handful of magazines and other printed, dead-tree publications. But, feeling buoyed by his move to the internet, hopes never again to lend himself to such wanton destruction of nature and causes of litter on city streets.

In all seriousness, though, Jeff enjoys reading and editing just about anything. He likes dogs. He likes getting out of town. He likes tasting copious amounts of wine, and eating good food. He recently decided that pizza wins over nachos. Close call.

In May of 2009, Jeff asked Tara up above to marry him. Oddly, she said yes. They’ll be tieing the knot in August 2010 in San Francisco.