Category: News

Photo by Flickr user Steve Garfield

Oracle OpenWorld is here this weekend and starting tomorrow, you’ll see some street closures and Muni reroutes, followed by an onslaught of folks wearing name badges walking too slowly. In any case:

Affected Muni routes:

• 8X (AX/BX) Bayshore Express
• 12 Folsom
• 16X Noriega
• 27 Bryant
• 30 Stockton
• 38/38L Geary
• 41 Union
• 45 Union-Stockton
• 76 Marin Headlands
• 81X Caltrain Express

Street closure details:

• 8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 16 through 3 p.m., Friday, Sept. 24
  Howard Street between 3rd and 4th streets
• 2 a.m. Saturday, September 18 until 10 a.m. Friday, September 24
  Mason Street between Ellis and O’Farrell
• 4 a.m., Sunday, September 19 until 6 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 23
  Easterly traffic lane on Taylor between O’Farrell and Eddy and several parking lanes in the area
• For those traveling westbound on Howard Street, the detour will direct traffic south on 2nd Street to Harrison Street.
• For those traveling from north of Market on Montgomery, the detour will direct southbound traffic from New Montgomery, westbound on Howard, and south on Hawthorne to either Folsom or Harrison.
• Mason Street traffic will detour west on Geary to south on Jones to east on Eddy and back to Mason.

Photo by David Lytle

By the time you return from your weekend of fun, a little more than half of the Muni service cuts you saw in May will be restored. In other Muni news:

• ‘Ambassadors’ place extra eyes on Muni (SF Examiner)
• Time for Muni drivers to pay to park (Matier and Ross on SFGate)
• Pier 70 Development: Streetcars Included? (Market Street Railway blog)
• SFMTA restores service Sept. 4 (tomorrow!) (SFMTA)
• Muni Accepts Gun Group’s Poster Promoting Use of Firearms (SF Weekly)
• Central Subway Public Art Program Announces Winners (Central Subway Blog)
• Dean Clark, District 6 Supervisor Candidate, Responds to Muni Questionnaire (Muni Rider Voter Guide)
• Muni overhead pole spears sightseeing bus (SF Examiner)
• 43 Masonic Catches Fire (Bay City News via SF Appeal)
• West Portal Muni Construction Project Almost Done (Bay City News via SF Appeal)
• Muni operators’ legal strategy could stall service reductions (City Insider on SFGate)

Oh, and ready or not, you’re in for a few weeks of Muni Diaries without Jeff, who is going on his honeymoon with the lovely Tara!

See how cute and transit-obsessed they are?

So, if you see something noteworthy on Muni, remember to share it with your fellow riders here. Don’t leave me hanging, y’all.

Enjoy the photos and your weekend!

Photo by Stephen Rees

Photo by Thomas Hawk

Photo by Lorena

Photo by Josh Lee

Photo by Troy Holden

Photo by Flickr user Anita Hart

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.