Photo by Flickr user skew-t

On Saturday morning, we received a couple more obituaries for the lines and line segments that were eliminated that day. We’ll be posting those sporadically, as they come in. We start with a fond remembrance of the 4-Sutter as told by Jamie:

I was really sad Saturday morning to check nextbus for the 6 and see the 4-Sutter off of the list. I had to write something about my favorite route.

The reason I love the 4 so much is that it would come out of nowhere when you needed it most, and at the most random and convenient times.

The day I got my knee relocated (mega ouch), I was limping with my little gold cane back up to Sutter, basically hating life. The ticker said the 2 wasn’t coming for 35 minutes, and it was 1pm so the 4 shouldn’t have been running. But wait!! Out of nowhere, the 4 appears. It was like the Muni gods knew I was in need of a bus.

There was this other time I was on Van Ness at like 10pm at night, in the cold, being sexually harassed by a homeless guy, and the ticker was telling me the 3 wasn’t coming for 40 minutes. I lived at Divisadero and Sutter at the time, so taking the 3 also meant I had to walk those extra four blocks from Fillmore (and on a bad knee that is angered by cold, see above). When I had just started to consider walking, all of a sudden I see a bus coming down the hill. I assumed it was the 3 because it was attached to the wires. But as it got closer, I could see it was the 4!! At 10pm? YES!! It’s like it knew!!

Besides its random/convenient appearances, the other reason I loved the 4 was because I always got a seat, and nothing even remotely bad had ever happened on it. I have many, many war stories from the 22 and the 47, and I can’t even begin on the 38. I honestly have nothing to note about any hardships on the 4.

I assume the reasons I love the 4-Sutter is also the reasons it no longer exists–running off schedule and not being full…but gosh, I am sad to see it gone.

Read the obituary for the 4-Sutter that we ran last week. Or find all of last week’s obituaries here.

It’s never too late to remember an old bus route you used to take. Or to tell any Muni story, for that matter. Share here.

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All art from Muni brochure dated Aug. 29, 1979

Ed note: The brochures above came to us via longtime San Francisco resident and transit enthusiast Randy Alfred, who has kept an amazing record of transit documents dating from the early 1970s. He says he kept them around because “ephemera are always interesting to historians and collectors. They illuminate the fine detail of daily life years ago.” Look for more Muni documents from days gone past from Randy’s collection in the coming weeks on Muni Diaries.

All this week we are running eulogies written by you, dear riders, to honor the Muni lines that are being eliminated this Saturday. Here’s my own eulogy for poor 4-Sutter, which runs very close to my apartment. — Eugenia

Bus number 4, remember the smile I’d give you when you’d sidle up to me at the bus stop? You liked to say, “Almost always late, but definitely worth the wait!” I didn’t know how good you were to me until now, when you’re gone from my life. I always think about the times when we’d skip down Sutter street, hand-in-hand, on our way to another shopping spree in Union Square (who else accompanies a girl so willingly to the mall?)

And you’d give me a ride back home after another night out with my girl friends, no matter how many cocktails I’ve had. You never seemed to care that, at that point in the night, I was always too drunk to make conversation with you. Sometimes I’d even put my face right up to the open window to get some air, and you never even said I was weird or anything.

On bus number 4, I never knew how good I had it until you decided to leave. You know what they say? You’re the one who got away.

@Margosita sent us this photo today via Twitter:

12/1 photo: My last ride on the 4

We’re not the only ones with soon-to-be-defunct Muni lines on our minds. California Beat ran an excellent obituary of their own for the 4-Sutter earlier this week. Stay tuned tomorrow for more obituaries from riders who took this opportunity to commemorate these lines.

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