Passenger Quota on Muni?

This came from Muni rider Joey:

Tuesday evening on the 45 headed from Cal Train station. Apparently the bus driver thought the 45 was some sort of shuttle bus. I was a bit late for the 5:37 p.m. bus but at 5:43 p.m. it was still there and  pretty full. I grabbed one of the handful of seats left and figured we would be moving momentarily. But we sat there for another 10 minutes, while the bus got fuller and fuller.

By the time we left people were already yelling to those in the back to “MOVE to the back of the bus.” Maybe the bus driver thought if she crammed as many people on the bus as she could that she wouldn’t have to make many stops for the rest of the route. I too hate the bus constantly stopping, but it’s public transportation not the Google shuttle, it can leave the terminal with seats available.

Anybody else encountered this? Seems like another big reason the buses aren’t on time — and as Jeff commented yesterday about the Muni Wish List, there are some definite improvements that won’t really cost us any of that stimulus money.

Twittering the Meltdown

Some choice tweets  from this morning’s seemingly ongoing debacle:

meganallison Cole&Carl ib N: no

Plug1 12 train N/T backup heading into the Metro Tunnel. Muni meltdown is in full effect!

AgentNano Ok looking through Twitter chatter, looks like there are still Muni Metro delays due to a control issue with the underground.

rowenoftc RT @nbcbayareacom: Muni RIDERS! Slow subway traffic on ALL LINES because of a problem with the train control system. (Mike Inouye, Trx Guy)

AgentNano Muni problems started at 7. Muni alerted the media am hour later.

AgentNano Muni problems for all Metro trains underground due to a problem with the train control system.

Send us your Muni Meltdown™ stories … once you reach peace of mind. Or not.

Good morning, here’s my crotch

hangingon

As Muni Diaries has documented before, sometimes people pull out their penises and stick them in your face on the bus. OK, that just happened once (as far as we know), in one of our most popular penis-in-public posts yet.

Perhaps more often, there are more tame crotchal offenses, including crotch-on-the-shoulder guy.

As the Muni Ladies have noted before, you (well, all of us, really) must use proper crotch etiquette when you’re standing on the bus. So I don’t know who told this guy he could do the  “Sugalumps” song from Flight of the Conchords during my morning commute, but it’s just across-the-board unacceptable.

It’s pretty self-explanatory. I was sitting on an aisle seat for about 40 minutes, and was occasionally treated to a shoulder bump with this guy’s crotch. It just happened a few times, and ultimately wasn’t a huge deal, but it’s a pretty huge offense of the aforementioned etiquette rule. I don’t care how tired you are (which he demonstrated by leaning both elbows and head on the top horizontal rail, letting the rest of his body flap around like a marionette); keep track of your body or you might get woken up very, very quickly with my elbow next time.

Photo by WHAT I’M SEEING from the Muni Photos Flickr pool

What’s On Your Muni Wish List?

MUNI
Photo by Troy Holden

If you had a few million dollars to spend on Muni, what would be on your wish list?

I can name a couple of things that we often talk about on Muni Diaries: on-time buses, safer drivers, and an improved Nextbus system. But that only scratches the surface of issues for Muni riders.

I know there is a significant segment of the transit-riding community that this blog will probably never reach because these riders have no computer access at home. They don’t have the luxury of sitting down to browse around the internet.

I was prompted this morning by the KALW radio program Your Call. Today’s show asks what should be done with the $495 million federal stimulus funding allocated for Bay Area transit agencies and road projects.

Read more

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