Muni Diaries

Images: Tara Ramroop. Vive le Metro!

We’ve seen scores of cool transit-related things from other countries, be it cool stuff or just cool behavior. The platform punching bags in Shanghai. The freakin’ slide at Overvecht Station in Holland. Those dreamlike Croatian funiculars and, per SF visitor Melita, the ability to buy tickets via cell phone. Transit in Taipei, on which people will stand before even thinking about sitting in the reserved seats. My personal favorite is this Victorian Art Nouveau Metro entrance in Montmartre, Paris:

Most recently, we found this from our spotless, polite neighbors to the north: transit-rider etiquette in Vancouver. We have to wonder: does this work up there? Because it’s suspiciously akin to our own unspoken rules, broken day in and day out.

What are your international transit favorites? Wouldn’t it be nice to make it on the transit radar for something undeniably cool, like, oh, free puppies at all odd-numbered line stops?

Update (2:34 p.m.): A reader noted on le Facebook Wall that SF cable cars perhaps count toward our international fame, because those are obviously on plenty of people’s transit radars. Indeedily they are, and we love the Victorian relics of old San Francisco. For this post, I suppose we’re looking for something more today, such as, OH, puppies at every stop or ticket-purchasing via cell phone. (I’m selling it too hard now, right? Now we will never get puppies.)

Photo by Jessie Johnson

Mike’s story was originally published on his website, MikeLee.org. Here’s an excerpt:

Girl #1 looked at Girl #2. She smiled. The other girl looked away. Then back. Then away. Then back.

Girl #1 said, “Hi.”

Girl #2 looked at her for a moment. Then, “Hi.”

Girl #1 said a few more things. I didn’t catch them, but it looked like quite an animated message. Her little hands flailed about excitedly.

Girl #2 smiled. Her arms stayed at her sides while she answered. She gripped her mother as the bus rocked and lurched.

…

Then came Girl #2′s stop. Her mother got up and took her arm. The little girl frowned. “I don’t want to go,” she told her mother.

“But this is our stop.”

“I don’t want to go,” Girl #2 repeated as she dutifully stood up.

The two girls exchanged sad glances. The mothers smiled. “How cute,” said Mother #1. “In just thirty minutes, they’ve become the best of friends.”

Read the whole story on Mike’s website.