Author: Tara

Tara Ramroop has laughed, cried, and commiserated with this amazing community from the start. She's been writing for as long as she can remember and riding Muni for more than a decade.

Bay to Breakers SUNDAY: Keep Us in the Loop

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BayToBreakers144
Photo by prawnpie

Ready your vomit buckets and stake out your stoop (again, stoop; keep it neat, folks): the 100th Bay to Breakers is this Sunday. Two-thirds of your editors will actually be running the damn thing, so you kids have fun with your hula hoops and Zima after the 7 a.m. shift clears out.

SFMTA and the SF Examiner have more on the what and where, particularly if you plan on using transit at some point that day. Muni starts running express buses at 4:45 a.m. and express buses continue doing their thing after the race. But we do not have to remind you how of ugly the transit situation will be. Unless San Francisco surprises us for the 100th anniversary with an eleventy-billion-person, cushioned flying bus *crosses fingers*.

Bay To Breaker 2010
Photo by gregoirevdb

So, if you’re on the verge of tears after the fifth bus passes you by, or if you’re blissfully seated on a Muni chariot speeding back downtown, here are some options. Tweet your transit-themed photos and updates @munidiaries, write sloppily on our Facebook Wall, or, after your nap, visit the site and submit your harrowing, exceedingly positive, or wasn’t-so-bad transit tales. There are always Muni-themed costumes, so keep an eye out for those, make friends, and send those blurry captures our way.

Happy B2B! Hoping the transit gods smile on all of us that day.

Category: News Tags:

I ran into my dad on Muni. He was driving.

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100 Muni StoriesThis is 10 kinds of cute. Or awesome. Perhaps horrifying, depending on how old you are. But Muni rider Andrew ran into his Muni driver father on his morning commute the other day, making it a completely unplanned dad-and-lad ride.

As Andrew says:

It was like Bring Your Son to Work Day, only with a 28-year-old kid. I asked if I could take the wheel, but he slapped my hands. Some things never change.

Also, per Andrew, this fun fact: It requires tons of torque to move the steering wheel on most Muni buses, in case there was any doubt. That’s why lots of drivers wear gloves.

This post was too good NOT to be considered for our 100 Days, 100 Muni Stories feature. We’re asking you to share your best Muni stories, and the four best will appear in ads on every single bus in town later this year. Send us your stories, or tag your best Muni tweets #100MuniStories!

Category: 100 Muni Stories, diaries

PTSD and the tourists on the F-Market

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F Market 1060
Photo by Keoki Seu

For a locals-driven site, Muni Diaries has an arguably unusual amount of F-Market/Wharves posts and tweets. This is partly because I ride it twice almost every workday. Another reason is that the F is just plain-old cute when you’re not in a hurry. I loves me some retro streetcars.

But on this cute streetcar, less-cute things can happen.

My afternoon F was packed to the gills, as usual. It was a back-boarding streetcar. An elderly man in a baseball cap who boarded before me started talking almost immediately, seemingly to himself at some points, seemingly to the operator at others. “Veteran.” “Berets.” “Fought for this country.” “Bullshit.” The operator laughed him off and shook his head. I zoned out for a few, though his growls got through my head-fog a couple times; including when he started fighting with a woman probably in her twenties.

I have no idea what started it. But I snapped out of the fog to hear him threaten to fight her and her threaten to take him up on his offer. He noted that he “didn’t care about that race shit.” (He was white, she was black.) That’s when the operator told the guy to stop, multiple times, even after the woman stopped responding to him. She continued tapping into her phone and said, “OH LORD where is my stop??” which prompted a couple laughs. She got off, but I’m convinced that the guy was angry enough to beat her up right then and there.

He got off in a huff at the Ferry Building, and some nearby tourists still on the streetcar seemed to feel sorry for “that veteran with PTSD threatening that woman.” They then proceeded to remark at how “it’s a shame to see so many young people here sleeping on the sidewalk” as we rolled past a hidden corner of Justin Herman Plaza.

Category: diaries, reflection Tags:

Spotless Spotted on the 49 (not sarcastic)

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My 49-Van Ness/Mission stories aren’t usually gross. The bus is often loud, grungy, full, and kept at varying degrees of warm and musty. But not every evening commute comes with a possible urine river in close proximity.

But, for the first time in nearly three years, I found a spotless 49. Sort of. See the photo I snapped above.

This is the only picture I shot. But every panel within view was just as clean.

A lot of, if not all, of these window-panel thingies was clearly new. Sitting next to one was almost like using a brand-new shopping cart. Or using the new gym shower.

Important note: the rest of the bus was not spotless. There was still some crap on the floor. Poles bestickered, as usual.  The windows themselves were clearly not new. It being an articulated 49, the bus was obviously not new, either.

But the panels, folks. Spotless! One step at a time.

Category: diaries, Funny: Muni LOLs Tags:

Swishy River on the 49

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Not every liquid on Muni is urine, but I always jump straight to that conclusion every time I see something like this on the bus. I’d argue that most of the time, it’s not urine, but I still think it is, anyway.

About the pic, though. I thought it was probably urine, especially given its proximity to the back corner of the bus. Then, I decided it wasn’t because I couldn’t smell it. Then, I smelled it and it was absolutely urine. Couldn’t be anything else.

But, the worst part, by far, was how it kept swishing back and forth (back and forth) as the bus started and stopped. It wasn’t a tidal wave or anything, but it definitely had momentum. So not only was this a urine trail, it was a moving urine trail. Boo.

I hopped off soon after my if/then/therefore thought process came to a close, but not before snapping this glorious photo. My foot’s there for scale.

Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: ,
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