Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Andrew at Mission Mission tipped us off to this great innovation:
BART.gov just launched a new revamped trip planner that uses the Google Maps API. Now there’s an address tab in the QuickPlanner that allows you to enter addresses (or cross streets) in addition to mere BART stations in order to plan your Bay Area trips more precisely.
Read more at Mission Mission.
Photo by raider3_anime
Update (2:44 p.m.): SF Appeal has a article up explaining how Clipper is blaming all these sundry errors on a “software glitch.” Windows 98, anyone?
Update (10:27 a.m.): The Clipper website appears to be working again. The cards mentioned in the original post below, well, we’ll get back to you on that.
Update (9:12 a.m.): As of this moment, the Clipper website … wait for it, is down. We’ll update this update as soon as we confirm that it works again. If that happens.
Original post:
Basically, the way WageWorks works: Your company offers you a pre-tax savings on your monthly pass, and hires WageWorks to manage the procurement and delivery of that pass to you. Used to be, they’d mail you your Fast Pass a week or so before the beginning of the next month. All was dandy.
Enter Clipper.
In an attempt to get ahead of the inevitable passing of the paper Fast Pass, WageWorks told its clients that rather than waiting until November (the first month without a paper “A” pass), they would have employees get Clipper cards now, and load their August passes onto them. WageWorks asked employees to get cards and to then, via WageWorks website, to register their Clipper cards and indicate the preference for a monthly pass. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice …
The ever-diligent Akit has an account of, well, the way things went down today. The point: People boarding BART and Muni thinking their passes were loaded on their newish Clipper cards were in for quite a shock.
SO! All you WageWorks workers/Clipper cardholders out there, hang onto any receipts from money you might have to spend on transit. If you had set your pass to load onto your Clipper card and then find yourself getting charged to ride, something is wrong. Very wrong.
Also, the cynic in me will need to wait and see whether those Clipper reimbursements actually happen, not to mention within the company’s promised seven (7) business days.
Photo by Telstar Logistics
Update (August 4, 7:36 a.m.): Chris Roberts has a nice gallery and story up about the Transbay Terminal over at SF Appeal.
Update (August 3, 12:20 p.m.): California Beat has a great article detailing the history of the terminal, along with more awesome photos.
Original post:
The building will soon be demolished to make room for a high rise and high-speed rail station. In the mean time, you’ve got to check out the photos from the last official tour of the Transbay Terminal.
Check out those antique Corn Flakes, all those goddam payphones, the bar set with Martini glasses and a shaker or two, a drunk tank (no comment), all from the set taken by the talented Telstar Logistics, who also took the photograph above.
Photo by James Vonbaron
I was on Muni headed to Church one afternoon. It was packed, but not like sardines (as it is sometimes). There was a girl next to me who seemed so sweet and a short old man comes on with his MJ t-shirt and dark thick sunglasses. He can’t find a seat so he stands next to the girl and begins to sing into her ear, “I’m only going to break,break…your heart”(obnoxiously!).
I felt bad for the girl. A man offered a seat for him to sit in (probably in hopes that he would stop singing), but the old man sat down and stopped singing. I got off my exit and a few steps back I heard the old man shouting out the song again. I picked up the pace and exited the station.
If you’ve been living under a rock or listening to some other over-played song on the radio, here’s Taio Cruz’s Break Your Heart, just for good measure. – Eugenia
I was walking along California on my way to the bank on Friday when I spotted a bunch of tourists getting off of the cable cars. Guess who was waiting for them?
Too bad I had to rush off before the bank closed. The funny thing was that nobody batted an eye. Jack was looking at his phone the whole time…videotaping people’s reaction, perhaps?
Photo by Jack ✌
In Muni news this week:
Enjoy the photo and your weekend, and remember to share your life on Muni with us!
Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch
Photo by SP8254
Photo by RevellRay / Chuck Revell