Muni accident in Castro leaves pedestrian dead

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Update (Sunday, 10:35 a.m.): The pedestrian hit and killed by a Muni shuttle bus on Friday has been identified. SF Appeal has the story.

Update (4:41 p.m.): Dispelling Twitter rumors that the bus in question had been hijacked, @KristinHanes of KGO tweets: “A Muni bus that hit and killed a woman was not stolen, according to SFPD. It was an F line shuttle. Cc @kgoradio http://t.co/NXAsXXL”

Update (3:06 p.m.): @LaronZampf of NBC News has some photos of the scene. The bus in question appears to be a shuttle, not a 33-Stanyan as some have reported.

Update (3:02 p.m.): Per @KCBSNews: “UPDATE on Muni accident: KCBS’ Tim Ryan reports that female pedestrian struck by bus has been killed, 18th and Hartford in the Castro.”

Original post: We’re seeing tweets about a pedestrian-involved Muni accidents in the Castro at 18th and Hartford streets. We’ll do our best to update this post as details emerge.

@KCBSTraffic: “18th St. at Hartford. A Muni Bus has been involved in a crash with a pedestrian and other vehicles. Expect major delays.”

Category: News

Weekend Photos: BART Edition

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Space Station 5
Photo by Jef Poskanzer

Remember what BART looks like when it’s not packed with protesters and riot police? Yeah, me neither. Local coverage of the protests has been comprehensive — check out SF Appeal’s round up. What are people outside of San Francisco saying about it? Here’s a good dose of BART news making national headlines.

  • Talk of the Nation episode all about new technology and free speech (NPR)
  • Anonymous to BART: We Hack, We Organize, Too (The New York Times)
  • Three Security Lessons From BART Anonymous Breach (Information Week)
  • FCC Reviews SF Subway Cell Shutdown (CNET)
  • Phone Cutoff Stirs Worry About Limit on Speech (Wall Street Journal)
  • San Francisco BART leak highlights hackers ethics split (Washington Post)
  • An oldie but still ok: Time Magazine’s Most Memorable Hacking Moments (Time)

The events of the last week and a half certainly provide an interesting and important discussion on technology, the law, and our expectations and rights. But the conversation seems to have gotten pretty far away from the shootings, the catalyst of it all.

I’m going to the mountains for a few days, but I’ll be back with three fun things to do next Friday!

And if you’ve enjoyed Muni Diaries this week, please vote for us in the San Francisco Weekly Web Awards! We’re going for 4. Best Public Transit Blog and 35. Wild Card (@munidiaries for best local Twitter feed). It’ll make us so happy.

Don’t forget to follow Muni Diaries on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Enjoy these photos and your weekend!

MUNI BART - Market & 4th - San Francisco
Photo by Zac Bowling

Bart
Photo by Ingmar Zahorsky

BART blur
Photo by Joshua Gatts

Powell Bart station
Photo by neutralSurface

BART pilot
Photo by Joshua Gatts

Category: BART, diaries, News, Photos

Broken Clipper Machine on a Crowded Bus: Should you be cited? (update)

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New Clipper Card and Carrying Case
Photo by Agent Akit

Update (12:39 p.m.): SFMTA got back to us on this. Turns out Kazuko was wrongly cited.

The actions described in this account are not consistent with our policy. If the reader is out of service, the patron is not cited if they have a valid Clipper card. The supervisors will remind all TFI’s of this policy.

Sadly, Kazuko will have to protest the citation. Not an easy chore.

Original post: A few days ago we checked in with SFMTA to see whether the fare policy concerning broken Clipper readers had changed. The SFMTA assured us that the policy has not changed: when a Clipper reader on a Muni vehicle is broken, the vehicle’s operator is instructed to allow passengers with Clipper cards to board.

But rider Kazuko said that the policy is still not being enforced systemwide, particularly on crowded buses:

I got on 38L at Geary and Divisadero around 5:10 pm on August 17, 2011. As you can imagine at the height of a rush hour, the bus was completely packed. I entered the bus from the middle entrance. I swiped my Clipper card which had more than $20 left on it, but the machine was not responding. I tired a few times to swipe it to no avail.

When the bus stopped at Van Ness, a few officers got on the bus to check everyone’s ticket. As I presented my clipper card, the officer told me to get off the bus, even though he had scanned my card and knewI had more than enough fare left on my card. Confused, I asked him why. He said I needed to get off the bus. I had no choice but to obey. Outside, the officer told me he had to issue me a ticket.

I told him repeatedly that I have swiped the card but the machine was broken. He said, “There are three machines on the bus. You should have walked up to ALL of them to see if they are working. As it stands now, you got on the bus without paying so it is my job to issue you a ticket.” As I had stated earlier, the bus was extremely packed. After he finished writing me the ticket, he then proceeded to tell me that, “With this ticket, you have one COMPLEMENTARY bus ride. You don’t have to pay for your next ride.”

If this some kind of joke?

We’ll get in touch with SFMTA about readers in the back of vehicles, and the policy for when buses are jam-packed. It doesn’t seem fair to me if  fare inspectors are instructed to ticket under any circumstance and let riders fend for themselves protesting their citations.

Category: diaries Tags: ,

Pillow Talk on the 49-Van Ness

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On the F Market with a pillow..
Photo by juicyrai

Sometimes Muni seems like San Francisco’s living room.

One night last week I walked up to the 49 bus shelter on Van Ness and saw that there was a young couple waiting for the bus, each carrying a huge cardboard box that said, Tempurpedic Pillow (with pictures of a high-tech-looking foam pillow). The bus arrived and we got on. It was crowded so the couple stood near the front.

I settled into a seat and the man next to me, a large scruffy older guy carrying a box of Chinese leftovers, pointed to the couple and said, “Hey, what are those?” “Pillows,” the girl said. “How much are they?” the big guy asked. The girl, a little uncomfortable already, said, “Oh we got them on sale.”

Where? The big guy wanted to know. The boyfriend tried to fend off all the questions about these shiny new pillows, but the big guy really wanted to know everything about them. “Well I hope they are comfortable. You guys look like newlyweds and you’ll probably be testing them out a lot! It’s like buying a new car, you gotta test the ride, you know what I mean?!” The people around him laughed and the big guy launched into a different conversation with another guy about cars as we passed by the car dealerships on Van Ness.

The young couple seemed relieved that the attention was off of them. By this time a new crop of passengers got onto the bus and I heard one of them say, “Hey, what’s in those boxes? Pillows? Where’d you buy those?”

A whole new thread of conversation about foam pillows was being started among the new strangers in the front of the bus. The big guy was still deep in his car conversation and I thought, Hey, this is San Francisco’s living room.

Category: diaries, reflection Tags:
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