Muni Diaries Live Full Lineup Announced. Get tickets!

muni diaries live crowd and sal castenada
Photo by Kevin Wong

It’s time to pack the Elbo Room and celebrate everything unexpected that can happen on transit from point A to point B! We’ve got the full lineup for the April 5 Muni Diaries Live, and it’s a really, really good one. Have you gotten your tickets yet?

Our storytellers:

Peter Hartlaub, pop culture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, writes entertainment features, movie reviews, and a lot of Bay Area nostalgia. He is also the editor/founder of The Big Event blog on SFGate.com. Hartlaub grew up in Burlingame, where he was a Chronicle paperboy and dedicated SamTrans rider. His favorite bus-themed movie is Speed. His favorite bus in popular culture is The Catbus from “My Neighbor Totoro.” His favorite Muni line is the 77X-Candlestick Express. He commutes from Oakland, where he lives with his wife and two young sons. Follow him on Twitter @PeterHartlaub.
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Ewok on Muni: ‘Nub Nub’

Sheryl sent us a pic of her doggie — or Ewok, maybe? — on the N-Judah.

It’s been a while since we had a Star Wars reference on Muni. Last time, Admiral Ackbar was warning us all that it’s a trap.

And with that, I’ve exhausted my own Star Wars referencing capabilities. Help me fill in the gaps and send us a Muni story, bonus points for references to the galaxy far, far away. (Hey, there’s another one!)

The Best Muni-Themed Wedding Ever?

When Jen F. and her husband Kevin told their friends that they were going to have a Muni-themed wedding, they were ridiculed to no end. I’m sure there were jokes about urine and body odor. But hey, if you’re reading this, you know that Muni is a big part of the life we love in San Francisco. Jen and Kevin really showed off their love for our city with their wedding. Jen tells us how and why they made Muni such a big part of their big day. There was even Muni-shaped chocolate!!!

I met Kevin on his front stoop through some mutual friends. Since we lived a stop away from each other on the 1 line, we bumped into each other all the time on our way to work. What I like to say is that we fake dated on the bus. For nearly six months, we rode the bus to work almost every day, he used the time as a way for me to get to know him, and for him to get to know me.

Muni was a huge aid in our falling in love. It gave us 30-40 minutes a day to talk to each other, which is why I call it fake dating.

On the way home from our engagement weekend we both came up with the idea that our table names could be the name of stops along the 1 route. And from there we decided that we were going to have a Muni-themed wedding.

We took our engagement pictures on Muni. Both of our save the date and wedding invitation stationery were custom-made for us with a Muni theme.

The table names were bus stops on the 1 route between California and Divisadero and Clay and Grant.

We gave our guests bus-shaped chocolate inside a box. On top of the box were Muni Fast Passes.

We even incorporated the Muni logo and graphics on the photobooth photo strips as well as our welcome brochures.

We were really happy how both the stationery and pictures on the bus turned out, and how they worked together. We got a lot of people really excited about our story and really excited about the city.

When I told everyone here in San Francisco that we were having a Muni-themed wedding, I got made fun of, or not taken seriously, and they couldn’t wrap their head around it or even fathom the idea. It was awesome to prove that a dirty, stinky bus (that is often times the bane of our existence) could be really classy and romantic.

Invitation Designer: Jack’s Master Design
Photographer: Quan D. Nguyen

Thanks, Jen! Bask in this couple’s happiness for a while before we return with more Muni stories, hopefully one from you!

Nominate Your Muni Route in GOOD Magazine’s Best Bus Route Contest

Meltdown In Progress
Photo by Troy Holden

The good people at GOOD magazine are having a big Best Bus Route Contest! If a Muni route doesn’t win this contest, then nothing in life makes sense. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. But check it out, a word from GOOD magazine:

Bicycles can be chic, subways artful, but buses? Buses are not exactly the golden child of transportation. They’re more like the red-headed step child: Deep down you know they mean well but they’re just a little harder to love.

Yet public buses are an essential form of transit in cities across the country, and they account for a big chunk of the nearly 10.2 billion trips Americans took on public transportation in 2009. We think it’s time to give a little love to one of the least celebrated modes of transit. To that end, we’ve teamed up with Transportation Alternatives and an impressive group of bus-loving jurors to see and hear why your bus route is the best in America.

What is it about your bus route that you love? Is your bus driver brilliant? Is the view from your window breathtaking? Do your fellow riders characters belong in a Hemingway novel?

Is your Muni bus driver brilliant? We’ve got drivers who threw a party on the bus, decorated the bus with Halloween goodies, saved you from fare-evading hooligans.

Is the view from your window breathtaking? Our Muni Flickr pool doesn’t lie.

Do our fellow riders belong in a Hemingway novel? We’ve got Dali, a chicken, Jack-In-The-Box, and “service animals” riding the bus here in our fair city.

Buses are such a big part of San Francisco that at least two of you even took wedding photos in Muni.

You guys, we Muni riders have this competition in the bag.

If you need inspiration, try the drop-down menu on the right hand side of the page to see stories by line. And meander over to GOOD Magazine to see details to enter.

Hat tip: Streetsblog!

Where in the Muni?

Outlands 1

Last week, I posted a photo by bhautik joshi and asked you guys to weigh on where in San Francisco you thought the photo was taken. True to your form, you guys rocked the photo-locator. Hulka was first, but many of you correctly identified it as the Muni yard over on Presidio at Post.

So, over the weekend, I found myself in a pretty obscure location, by my standards at least. I spotted what to me was a random-ass Muni stop. I snapped a couple of photos, and decided to try this again.

So, where is the photo (above and below)?

Outlands 2

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