From MD Editors – Muni Diaries

Thank you, Driver

March 18, 2026 Kat Siegal 17 comments

Muni operator Mike Delia (aka Mr. Boston) at Muni Diaries Live in 2022. Mike lost his battle with leukemia in 2023.
Photo by Emily Huston

March 18th is Transit Employee Appreciation Day and we’re feeling especially grateful this year as we celebrate 18 years of sharing your transit stories—so many of them involving a special bus driver, train operator, or other transit employee. To all our Muni operators, station agents, cleaners, mechanics, maintenance workers, and many more: thank you for keeping us moving every day.

We also know this is a tough time for many Muni operators. If you’ve been on the bus during commuting hours recently, you’ve probably noticed more packed vehicles and pass-ups as more folks head back to the office—and last year’s service cuts didn’t help. These are forces outside our Muni drivers’ control, but they’re on the front lines bearing the brunt of rider frustration. A smile and a “Hello” as you get on the bus and a “Thank you, Driver!” as you get off can make a huge difference.

Even better, show your appreciation for a Muni operator by submitting a commendation! As our friend and operator Mc Allen wrote last year, commendations are incredibly meaningful to operators and are recorded in their personnel file, but they are relatively rare because most people don’t know they can submit one. So the next time a Muni operator gets you where you need to go safely, show them some love by heading to the Muni Feedback form and selecting “Praise” as the type of feedback.

For our part, here’s a roundup of some of our favorite Muni Diaries stories by and about operators over the years. We hope you love them as much as we do. And remember: always thank your operator.

Muni operator Tammy on her 33 Stanyan party bus in 2011.
Photo by Greg Goodman

Muni Diaries Live returns to the Rickshaw Stop on April 22nd, 2026! Tickets are going fast, so get yours today.

Category: From MD Editors

Cheers to our 15th year, and a look ahead to 2024

December 29, 2023 Kat Siegal 14 comments

Happy New Year, Muni Diaries fam! 2023 was an exciting year for us as we celebrated 15 years of sharing your Muni stories. We hosted a special anniversary live show in November and designed a limited edition Muni Diary for you to document your transit stories. Our second annual Muni Diaries Art Market in December was another huge hit. The stories we shared this year ranged from hilarious to poignant, from chilling to inspiring: a bus operator’s ghost story; spoken word poetry on race and displacement through the lens of a Muni window; the ongoing search for a special Muni operator; an ode to a transit system that is at times barely navigable yet somehow manages to bring us together. We were also thrilled to share a two part series featuring San Francisco high school students performing their own original Muni poetry.

A heartfelt thanks from all of us at Muni Diaries to everyone who shared your Muni stories with us in 2023, sent us your bus photos, tuned in to the podcast, attended our live shows and art market, and helped us celebrate 15 years of Muni Diaries. What started as a college project has grown into an online journal of our shared experiences as transit riders and San Franciscans, and it’s still going strong 15 years later thanks to our irreplaceable community. We couldn’t do it without you.

We’ve got stories from our November live show, exciting in-person podcasting events, and more already queued up for you in 2024. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s on deck:

Have a Muni story you’d like us to feature in 2024? Email us your pitch at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.

Category: From MD Editors, News

Get to know new additions to the Muni Diaries crew

October 25, 2022 Tara One comment

You might have seen these two awesome people who joined the Muni Diaries crew earlier this year, and in today’s episode, you’ll get to know more about our new editors, Kat Siegal and Sarah Katz-Hyman. If you are a part of the local Transit Twitter community, you are probably already familiar with their names (and witty tweets), and today they’ll share what makes them so passionate about San Francisco.

We’ve always admired Kat and Sarah’s deep knowledge of public transit, their local activism, and their love for this city. You’ll meet Kat and Sarah live at our next Muni Diaries Live show on Nov. 3, 2022! Use the code PODCAST to get a listeners-only discount. See you there!

Listen to their story:

Category: From MD Editors, News Tags: muni diaries live

Meet the newest editors in the Muni Diaries crew

April 20, 2022 eugenia 10 comments

We are excited to introduce two awesome people who are joining the Muni Diaries crew to make this quirky diary of city living even more fun. If you are a part of the local Transit Twitter community, you are probably already familiar with their names: Kat Siegal and Sarah Katz-Hyman are joining the Muni Diaries Crew as our new editors!

We’ve always admired Kat and Sarah’s deep knowledge of public transit, their local activism, and their love for this city. I feel so fortunate that as Muni Diaries grows into its teenage years, we are keeping the storytelling strong by adding two incredibly thoughtful (and witty) San Franciscans to the crew.

Here’s more about Kat and Sarah, in their own words:

Category: From MD Editors, News Tags: announcement

Support these SF AAPI orgs and stop telling the Muni ‘chicken story’

March 18, 2021 eugenia Leave a comment

San Francisco is approximately 37% AAPI*, and here at Muni Diaries, we are 2/3 Asian women, the first-generation American children of immigrants, and proud of our heritage. We’ve spent more than a decade documenting life in San Francisco because we love our city. But that love letter can be harder to write in the shadow of violent crimes against Asians in San Francisco and a mass shooting targeting Asian women in Atlanta.

Like all people of color, we were hardly surprised—this is the reality of being non-white in the United States. But we were horrified for the victims, current and future. As Asian women, public transit enthusiasts, and longtime urban adventurers, we wonder how easily it could have been one of us.

Even in our tiny universe of collecting your stories on Muni, race has been a constant. We started the conversation about race on Muni Diaries in 2009 after an audience member made fun of a Chinese stereotype at our live show (henceforth named the Muni Chicken Story Incident). And we continue having these conversations with one another and within our community today.

Early in the pandemic, our Asian-American readers asked, “Do you feel that people are glaring at you on Muni?” We were almost relieved because we were experiencing the same.

The issue of race remains one of our most frequent editorial judgements in story submissions; ethnicity is often included as a descriptor when relaying a tale, even if it doesn’t add anything to the story. It usually seems unintentional, but from our perspective behind the scenes, it highlights how descriptors of “others” are noteworthy, whereas descriptors of the perceived default—white—are not.

Every incident reminds us that we can’t only be philosophically against AAPI hate, we actually have to do something about it every single day. We will continue to make Muni Diaries a fair and inclusive place to talk about our city, and we encourage you to support these San Francisco-based Asian-American organizations who are on the front lines of advocacy.

If you have other organizations to add, and other actions to share, our comments section and inbox are always open to your point of view.

Photo by Right Angle Images.

Category: From MD Editors, News, Story Archive Tags: muni diaries live, news, san francisco diaries

Muni Diaries is turning 12!

April 6, 2020 Tara Leave a comment

Today is Muni Diaries’ 12th birthday! It seems like only yesterday it was born as a scrappy little blog. Today, it’s almost a teenager and has certainly developed that snarky veneer we all so appreciate in tweens. Watch out, world!

Even in these times of sheltering-in-place and newly reduced Muni service, your stories remind us that, just like on the bus, we’re all in it together.

By the numbers, we’ve held 23 live shows, tweeted more than 27K times about your hilarious commute, and counted more than 4,000 of you who told us your commute stories.

These are a few of our favorite tales over the years:

Kindness of strangers on BART when you need help with your tie: a woman helps a young man on BART who had trouble with his tie.
Artist tips his cap to Muni drivers: Muni was the refuge for this artist during a tough time in his life while he was living on the street.
Applause-worthy way to combat prejuice during pride week. We love the way people stand up for one another, especially on Muni.
Skip school and use Muni as your escape vehicle: Not so easy when your dad is the driver. (not very visual?)
Strange cargo: What is this styrofoam, tho. Or is it styrofoam? I still think about this sometimes (clearly).
Muni’s laughing at us.
Feminine mystique stuck on the walls of a bus.
Pregame ain’t waiting for nobody.
Private Muni ride. Way pre-rideshare apps. In retrospect, I wouldn’t compare this experience to finding the white whale of Moby Dick but that’s perhaps more about my growth as a writer than this particular story.
Muni humper; parts 1-3, only because it shows how strong our community is and adamant about calling out this gross bullshit.
Punk rock Johnny Cash; we continued to get hits on this post years after we first posted it, showing how much one person can make a difference in others’ lives.
The behind-the-scenes story, from artist Jeremy Fish himself, of the Silly Pink Bunny heist!

We couldn’t have done this without you, the story-submitters, the Muni riders, the San Franciscans who, for no other reason than to share experiences, contributes to this collective storybook. To the next 12—we really, truly, can’t wait to be riding Muni again once this is all over.

As always, we are here for your tales which you can submit by finding us as @munidiaries on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or email us at muni.dairies.sf@gmail.com.

Photo of Alexandria Love at one of our many Muni Haiku Battles, taken by Right Angle Images.

Category: From MD Editors

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