Photo by eviloars

Too much going on to spill too many 1s and 0s here. Also, Happy Hour at Secession Art and Design, tonight.

Muni news of the week:

• Muni Driver Clothing Theft No Longer A Novelty, Now A Pattern (SF Appeal)
• Can Scott Wiener Ride ‘Fix Muni Now’ Bus to Victory? (SF Weekly)
• Surprise Vote by Pro-Transit Supes Against Vehicle License Fee Measure (Streetsblog SF)
• New Clipper Cards Not Without Problems (CBS 5)
• ‘N-Word,’ Assault on Muni Platform Lead to Felony Hate-Crime Charges (SF Weekly)
• Arrest Made of Muni Mechanic in Late-Night Transfer Racket (Streetsblog SF)

Weekend service updates from SFMTA:

On Sunday the annual San Francisco Marathon will begin from The Embarcadero and Mission at 5:30 a.m., with staggered starts until 6:30 a.m. The race route will loop along The Embarcadero, through the Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge, south on Lincoln Boulevard, through Golden Gate Park and east to 3^rd Street and The Embarcadero, behind the ballpark.

From midnight to 2:30 p.m. northbound Embarcadero between 3^rd Street and Broadway and southbound Embarcadero between Broadway and Harrison Street will be closed.

In additions to the Metro lines F Market, K Ingleside, T Third, L Taraval, M Ocean View, and N Judah, the following Muni bus routes will be affected:

1 California
2 Clement
5 Fulton
6 Parnassus
9 San Bruno
10 Townsend
12 Folsom/Pacific
14 Mission
18 46^th Avenue
19 Polk
22 Fillmore
24 Divisadero
27 Bryant
28 19th Avenue
31 Balboa
33 Stanyan
37 Corbett
38 Geary
43 Masonic
44 O’Shaughnessy
48 Quintara
49 Van Ness
71 Haight/Noriega

Finally … photos! Enjoy.

Photo by moxpox

Photo by StevenBrisson

Photo by Mr Ush

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I’m in charge again, but just for today. I think even if Eugenia were around, though, she’d recognize the beauty and value of Eric Fischer’s info-graphic here. Take it away, Eric:

The colors are the same as in the Month of Muni map but the effect is very different. Except on the cable lines, which are genuinely slow, you can see here that the Muni vehicles move quickly when moving but have their average speed slowed by spending a lot of time stopped.

The difference is that instead of drawing a line from each sampled location to the next in a color corresponding to the average speed across the whole distance, this one plots only the sampled points themselves, with the instantaneous speed the vehicle was moving at the moment it crossed that point. The unfortunate part is that you can hardly see the subway because the reporting there doesn’t interpolate nearly as many points as you get for vehicles on the surface. But on the surface you can see the slowdown at every corner. The plotting gets fuzzy in the Financial District because of noise in the GPS signal from the tall buildings.

Black is stopped (less than 3 mph). Red is slow (3-5 mph). Blue is overall average operating speed (5-9 mph). Yellow is fast service (9-19 mph). Green is rapid movement (faster than 19 mph). Data from NextBus, April 13-June 6, 2010.

See a larger version of the graphic here. Information is beautiful, what?

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Photo by messtiza

On Monday, Beth posted a reasonable question: Why are Muni buses equipped with Clipper readers at the back door when Muni’s policy for bus boarding says, explicitly, that they only allow front-door boarding at this time? We had read that Clipper readers were installed back there because the agency wanted to have them in place in case they eventually did enact a back-door boarding policy. That was substantiated by a comment on Beth’s post from Jake, who says he’s a Clipper employee (yay for Clipper employees reading Muni Diaries!).

But SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose got back to us on the question of why they’re there, and his answer might surprise you.

“There are readers in the back for busy bus lines, at busy times of day. When we can have a representative back there, we try to use the back door for boarding to speed things up.”

Sounds logical enough, but I wanted to make sure I understood correctly. “So, this is basically a) driver’s discretion, and b) only when SFMTA can get another employee back there to check for Fast Passes (until they’re phased out) and to make sure their Clipper cards are being tagged?” Yep.

Asked about SFMTA rolling out an official back-door boarding policy, Rose couldn’t commit to any specific date, or whether it’s even under serious consideration now.

So there you have it. If you’re lucky enough to legitimately back-door board a Muni bus, let us know.

Posted in muni news | 4 Comments »

Photo by Flickr user Steve Rhodes

Just today we posted about a phone theft on Muni, San Francisco Examiner reports that a group of thieves let a victim keep her Muni pass:

A woman who was robbed by three males at a bus stop at Geary Boulevard and Spruce streets at 5:20 a.m. on July 11 asked her aggressors, who had snatched her purse, if they could let her keep her bus pass and identification card, according to Richmond Station police.
…

In the end, however, the suspects appeared to have heeded her request. They ran off with a cell phone and credit cards, but then gave her back her purse before fleeing on Geary Boulevard, police said.

Read the rest of the story at the San Francisco Examiner.

Wow, I guess the Fast Pass price hike gave the thieves a tiny dose of sympathy?

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Photo by Brandon Doran

This amazing photo by Brandon Doran reminded me: The Transbay Terminal, long a bastion of transit and bodily fluids, will be closing next month. As Doran says, “The old terminal is smelly, dirty, and outdated, but it definitely has grit and character.”

Services will be moved to a temporary terminal located nearby, on Folsom Street (bounded by Main, Howard, and Beale streets). The new Transbay Transit Center is scheduled to open in 2017.

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Photo by tweetsweet

I swear, you guys, though I miss Eugenia, I’m kinda getting the hang of and loving running the show by myself. My fingers aren’t as tired from the frantic-pace IMing Ms. E and I do all day, every day. She gets back next week, briefly, before traipsing off yet again and leaving daddy in charge. Hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.

In Muni news this week:

• Muni boasts record on-time performance for third quarter (SF Examiner)
• Newsom names Brinkman to SFMTA board (Streetsblog SF; City Insider/SFGate)
• Unexplained absences for Muni operators on the rise again (SF Examiner)
• Wrapping up Muni in ads hits roadblock (SF Examiner)
• Progressives’ Muni Charter Amendment Finalized (SF Weekly; previously … )

Yes, there will be two Muni ballot measures for us this November. More on that later.

For now, kick back, relax, and enjoy the decidedly un-July-like weather this weekend. See you next week!

Photo by sxl

Photo by telmo32

Photo by davitydave

Posted in muni news | 4 Comments »

Photo by chainsmokingbluemonkey

So it’s July now. Like, really July. Like, the daily fog and wind and cold prove that it’s July. Not like last week and weekend’s 75-degree aberrant July.

It was a light week in terms of Muni news (wish we could say the same for BART: Mehserle verdict story here):

• Woman could receive $750K from Muni accident claim (Examiner)
• SFMTA Board Votes to Partially Restore Muni Service That Was Cut in May (Streetsblog SF)
• Crime stalling on Muni routes (Examiner)
• Phelan Bus Loop Project, First in Balboa Area Plan, Gets Federal Funding (Streetsblog SF)
• See SFAppeal for weekend traffic details

Here’s wishing you all a great, safe weekend. Enjoy the photos!

Photo by Brandon Doran

Photo by DavidTakesPics

Photo by jeff_munidiaries

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Image by Market Street Railway Blog

There’s another anniversary happening today. One that we transit nerds at Muni Diaries HQ feel deserves as much pomp and circumstance as Independence Day.

SFGate’s Carl Nolte has a story up that details the background of why putting a streetcar on Market Street was so revolutionary in 1860:

Surveyor Jasper O’Farrell had laid out Market as a grand boulevard in the 1850s, but the infant San Francisco grew up around Portsmouth Square not far from Telegraph Hill. If San Francisco had a main street it was Montgomery, where all the best businesses were located. [...]

The route of the pioneering Market Street rail line went through “wild country, the middle of nowhere,” [Emiliano] Echeverria said.

The rail line changed all that. “It set the wheels in motion, if you’ll pardon the expression,” Echeverria said.

And Market Street Railway Blog celebrates this glorious day in transit history thusly:

Eighty-four years after the Declaration of Independence was, er, declared on July 4, 1776, the first street railway on the Pacific Coast opened. It was an odd-looking railroad-type coach, powered by steam, running from Third and Market (pictured below) to 16th and Valencia. By 1867, the noisy steam engine aroused enough neighbors’ ire to be replaced by horsecars. (Guess they preferred the manure.) Cable cars took over as the predominant Market Street transit in 1883, succeeded by electric streetcars in 1906, which endure today as the F-line.

Both stories are worth a read.

Happy SF Transit Independence Day!

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