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, 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.

Stay in touch:

Twitter: @munidiaries | @bartdiaries | @caltraindiaries | @actdiaries
RSS (if you use Google’s Chrome browser, you’ll have to add the site in your RSS reader manually)
Facebook
Flickr group pool
Muni Diaries YouTube channel
Or just begin telling your Muni stories today.

Press:

Check out Muni Diaries making the local (and international!) news.

Work with us:

Want to sponsor an event? Have a cool collaboration idea? Email us for a media kit and rates. We’re always looking for partnership ideas!

The Muni Diaries Crew:

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

Contributors

Suzanne

You might know Suzanne as the Muni Diaries Live emcee — a job she’s rocked since our first event in 2009.

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 also designed our snazzy look and created all the illustrations found on Muni Diaries.

Laura, @caltraindiaries

Laura has had the helm of @caltraindiaries since approaching us with a great Caltrain story at a Muni Diaries Live event in 2009.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Laura’s first public transportations experiences were with the VTA (that’s Valley Transit Authority in the Peninsula) and Caltrain. Little did she know she’s end up taking Caltrain from San Francisco to Palo Alto, from Palo Alto to San Francisco, over and over again as a adult. Luckily the latter trips came with a smart phone and the know-how to always tag off.

When she’s not on the train, Laura helps market the Internet (yay tech bubble), runs from one neighborhood to the next and tries to determine which is better: Humphry Slocombe or Bi-Rite. She’s also currently working on perfecting a pizza dough recipe.

Ed, @bartdiaries

Let’s get this out of the way right from the jump: Ed’s not from around here. In a gradually escalating path toward city-ification, he has gone from a small town (population 560, but he suspects they were counting house cats and major kitchen appliances in that census), to a sleepy college town (where he learned to drink), to an East Bay suburb (where he learned to drink and hate the suburbs), and finally into the big scary city (where he learned to love. No… not really).

A survivor of five years of the daily Concord to San Francisco BART run, Ed has witnessed all of the finer points of BARTing up to and including occupying multiple seats with bags of smelly, drippy take-out, nail clipping (fingers and toes), passed-out drunks, terrifyingly conscious and talkative drunks, and overall societal breakdowns that made him question the very existence of human decency. Ed is tired.

When not shouting at the Giants or the birds on his fire escape, Ed puts stuff on the internet at BART Don’t Lie and A Guy With Some Marvel Cards. If you’ve read this far you will probably enjoy following Ed on Twitter. Ed likes comic books, baseball on the radio, Irish whiskey, and people who resist the urge to make “long walks on the beach” jokes when they list things that they like. Ed also likes you. He thinks that you’re just great.

Editors

Eugenia

One of the co-founders of Muni Diaries, Eugenia spends her days and nights exploring the nooks and crannies of blogging for companies big and small. In a previous life, she had been a reporter and editor at New America Media and a some-time commentator for 91.7 KALW. 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.”

Eugenia on I Live Here: SF.

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 the same Tara below to marry him. Oddly, she said yes. They tied the knot in August 2010 in San Francisco. Muni Diaries mentions during wedding toasts were in no way paid for, influenced, nor suggested by the newlyweds.

The 49, that is his line.

Jeff’s Bold Local write-up on The Bold Italic
Jeff as Broke-Ass Stuart’s Broke-Ass of the Week, May 2009

Tara

Tara writes and edits things for fun and profit. When she’s not managing the back end (tee hee) of Muni Diaries or piloting our Facebook Page, she writes and edits online curriculum at a prominent San Francisco art university. Her writing also appears in Pawesome, The Bold Italic, and Weddingbee. In another life, she wrote and reported for print pubs like the San Francisco Examiner and the San Mateo County Times, priming her well for public-transit minutiae and idiosyncrasy. In addition to fiddling with text, she enjoys dinners out, wine, bourbon cocktails, pets, and travels near and far.

Like you, Tara has a tepid relationship with Muni. Find her tapping into her phone or staring out the window on a 49-Van Ness-Mission, 47-Van Ness, 8BX-Bayshore “B” Express, or F-Market/Wharves. If you’re lucky, you’ll see her running toward the bus in a pathetic attempt to get somewhere on time.