I was sitting in front of my computer yesterday afternoon thinking: I wish I could be sitting outside in this beautiful weather and drinking a cold one… Then Jeff reminded me that FlipCam was taking Muni Diaries to a Giants game that very evening. How did FlipCam read my mind? How did FlipCam know that the weather was going to be freaking perfect? How did FlipCam know I was willing to pay $9 for a Coors Light?

So we took this opportunity to ask throngs of Giants fans on Muni about their Muni-riding experiences. As much as the metros were packed, most of the folks we talked to were pretty satisfied with riding Muni to and from the games: “No big problems…yeah it’s crowded but that’s how it is, you know?” Perhaps it’s the non-Giants-watching riders who have more of a beef with the packed trains.

And then we ran into rider Phyllis, who told us how you can tell whether your grandchildren are real Giants fans (see above video; 0:32 if you’re impatient and don’t wanna peep Jeff’s mad video-editing skills).

Also, Jeff would like to add: the Giants totally dogged Denver!

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1. Muni Shell Game in the News, Again
2. Learn, Muni, Learn
3. Thanks for texting me through it

Muni rider David shares this charming tale:

She and her Mom had been getting on the 38 at Ft Myley/VA Hospital for three or four days. She had been visiting her grandfather. She was probably 4 or 5 years old. Dressed in her best fairy princess outfit with the wings and the tiara. She carried her wand with the star on top.
She was quiet those first few days when she saw us. Us with our canes, walkers, and wheelchairs. The last day I saw her, she was excited and bright eyed. She told us she had helped cure her grandfather with her wand. She then went around to each of us and gave us a light tap on the head. I don’t know about the others, but I felt very much better for quite awhile.

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1. Surprise Box on the 38-Geary, Saturday Night
2. I Dream of Muni: Geary Rail Line, and Sutro Witches
3. Obit-lette: 38-Geary Ocean Beach

@grahamhancock is stoked:

Muni buses are now sporting some cool Legend of the Guardians ads. Excellent!

The ads on Muni sometimes provide as much fodder as the ride itself. Got any ads you’ve seen on Muni that you’ve grown fond of or some that downright piss you off?

Here are some of the more memorable/interesting ads on Muni via Flickr:

Photo by revger

Photo by flamk

Photo by TheJosephBoys

Photo by davitydave

Photo by dlprager

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This Saturday SFMTA is restoring 61 percent of the May service cuts, which means that you’ll see more frequent late-night runs, Owl service every 30 minutes instead of an hour, and more buses  on some of the busy lines. The lines that were eliminated in May aren’t coming back, but this should still make life easier on a lot of us, judging from the comments we got when the service cuts were first instituted:

Getting on the 22 in the morning feels like diving into a mosh pit. You just have to hope you don’t get tossed back out and that one of your legs isn’t still sticking out the door. I have never seen it so crowded as its been this week and they just keep packing people on. – Katy

I felt really bad this morning. The 21 was packed because the first bus that gets people to work around 8 didn’t show up…We must have passed over 60 people on the street waiting in crowds for the bus. – Alice E

You can see details about time and frequency changes in this pdf document from SFMTA. SFMTA says that they are working with the mayor and the supervisors to restore all the service cuts, the Examiner reports.

Related posts:

1. SFMTA and Newsom Announce 61% Muni Service Restorations by Labor Day Weekend
2. Muni Service Cuts: Illegal?
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@kmcvey56 had an idea that piqued our interest. She tweeted:

I think San Francisco would be a happier place if they just played music on Muni (Norah Jones perhaps?!)

I don’t know about how her choice of tune-age, but I do wonder whether a soundtrack would help ease some of the pain of Muni commutes. One could argue that many routes already come equipped with passenger-selected musics. But I’m thinking something like a built-in, jukebox-like system, embedded in Muni vehicles, deejayed by a rotating group of passengers. We can dream …

What would you play on Muni, if you got the reins for day?

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We don’t know how to characterize Devin’s ride on the 27 except to say that it contains the best of “just another day in San Francisco.” Lend him your eyes.

The 27 arrives so late that I’ve walked backwards along its route half a dozen stops, past the tourist/convention hotels and up where things start getting hilly. It’s the hottest evening in recent memory, at least 85^F and no real breeze. When it arrives, almost empty, the 27′s air conditioner is running full blast, but instead of producing cold air it instead produces a smell of burning plastic with which the rows of open windows aren’t really keeping up.

The stop at Market & 5th is always an adventuresome one. There must be a clinic or city medical service facility nearby, because the folks who get on are often poor or homeless, run down and with bits of fresh gauze and bandages sticking to them. Back-door fare evasion is so common on this route that the driver barks “front door exit only” repeatedly at a couple about to get off. The only would-be evader tonight, though, is an irritable man with bulging plastic bags and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip, who tries to talk the driver into a free ride. When that fails and the driver orders him off, he departs with a modicum of obscenity, gesture and as an afterthought, the statement “I’ve got a transfer here somewhere.” Rhetorically, I think that statement’s meant to be used somewhat earlier in the argument.

Our regular customers include a frail middle-aged woman who has great difficulty climbing the stairs and reaching the first seat; a nondescript man in a suit, one or two teenagers and a slightly elderly man carrying a bucket full of water and small gray fish, into which he peers occasionally with a look of slight concern. He’s also hooked up a battery-operated air pump to it which hums and bubbles away to itself.

One stop later and we acquire a polite man in a wheelchair (the 27 is a busy route for wheelchairs, having only one on this stretch is actually a bit unusual). The man in the suit vacates the wheelchair bench and folds it up for him, for which the polite man in the wheelchair thanks him. Everyone seems cheered by this exchange and an air of happy anonymous conviviality ensues for a few blocks.

Somewhere around Folsom, we pick up a burly man in a jean jacket with the sleeves ripped off and an airbrushed wolf on the back. The airbrushed feathers dangle from the seams on his shoulders just above the wolf’s head. He plonks down on the seat in front of me, and I brace for the wave of B/O that I associate with the wearers of sleeveless garments during heat waves. It doesn’t come — in fact, he smells fairly nice, like he’d been taking refuge from the heat in an air-conditioned shop that mostly sold herbs and had a small line in incense. He even somewhat displaces the smell of burning plastic from the malfunctioning air conditioner, and the sense of relief afforded by this lasts several blocks, or roughly up until the moment when the polite man in the wheelchair abruptly and vigorously shits himself.

At this point everyone physically able to do so hastily relocates to more distant regions of the bus. The frail woman at the front, being unable to escape, adopts a look of horror and turns away. The man with the bucket of fish stays put but looks into his bucket with greater frequency and more concern than before. The polite man in the wheelchair gets an apologetic look on his face and flicks his lighter around himself in a conciliatory fashion. This does nothing to abate the stench, because (a) his lighter doesn’t work, and (b) to abate a smell of this proportion would require something more along the lines of a flamethrower.

The polite man in the wheelchair gets off at the next stop, which was hopefully the one he originally intended. I make my own escape a couple of stops later; the unexpectedly pleasant-smelling man is now working his small magic on the back row of seats; the man with the bucket of fish is still looking worriedly in at them, and the bus once again smells mostly like burning plastic.

Share your Muni stories on Muni Diaries.

Related posts:

1. Why I Will Never Ride the 27 Bryant Again (or at least for a while)
2. A fitting end to a shitty day
3. A plastic bag full of rotten fish guts

Muni Diaries needs your stories and photos and videos and wisecracks. You need your Muni stories and photos and et cetera. Share them here. Tell your neighbors. Tell your fellow passengers.

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No sooner than midday Sunday did we find a delightful tweet and photo from @brummelibrum, who said:

Salvador Dali takes Muni, doubtlessly finds inspiration.

Truer words were never spoken, though I’d say this dapper mustachioed monsieur is more a Chaplin/W.C. Fields/Dali hybrid.

Where, oh where, were you going that fine afternoon, sir?

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Update 11:17 a.m., Sunday: SFGate reports that police have ruled the death a suicide. The Muni operator will not be held responsible.

A man was fatally hit by a Muni bus Saturday evening on Market and Van Ness, according to the San Francisco Examiner and reports on Twitter. A witness told the Examiner Bay City News that he saw the victim lunge in front of the bus:

Joe Kimbro, a witness who was riding the bus at the time of the accident, said he saw the man lunge in front of the bus as it drove toward the bus stop on South Van Ness Avenue.

“He meant to do what he did. He dove,” Kimbro said. He was sitting in a disabled seat in the bus when the accident happened

The gruesome accident left a pool of blood on the pavement. Read more at the San Francisco Examiner and also SF Appeal.

Other witnesses say that the man intentionally stepped in front of the bus, reports California Beat. ActionNewsSF also has photos of the scene as police taped off the area.

On Twitter, @BrianVanderpol said:

Just got a glimpse of a victim of a muni accident at Van Ness and Market. The wind blew the blanket off. I’m not ok.

We’ll keep you updated.

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1. Muni/pedestrian accident at Stanyan and Fulton (w/Update)
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Update 11:50 p.m.: KGO/ABC7 has more:

The driver says the problems started when he went to investigate a malfunctioning wheelchair platform. The bus somehow lost control, rolled about 100 feet down a hill and crashed into a second bus.

And then…

The bus rolled into a collection of street-side newspaper racks and a mailbox before it came to a complete stop on a sidewalk.

That was from California Beat, which also reported that several passengers were treated for minor injuries.

Update 3:26 p.m.: @GarySoup tweets to let us know WTF:

Bizarre Muni bus on bus accident snarled service on Stockton St. Began when 8X driver parked [the] bus to get coffee from Cafe Honolulu. 8X bus rolled backward, sideswiped SB 30 bus. Rear end of bus knocked over traffic signal controller and mailboxes. 2 hrs to untangle.

I <3 the internets.

Original post: @disflylatina sent us this photo today. To state the obv, WTF?

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