Muni SF Marathon FAIL
Jessie sent us this justifiably confused email:
Um….wasn’t the 53 discontinued a few months ago? Way to go, Muni!
Maybe SFMTA is recycling from past years? No, the date is right. Unless this sign is from … ah, screw it.
Weekend Photos: The Things We Hold
Photo by eviloars
Muni news of the week:
- Muni Driver Clothing Theft No Longer A Novelty, Now A Pattern (SF Appeal)
- Can Scott Wiener Ride ‘Fix Muni Now’ Bus to Victory? (SF Weekly)
- Surprise Vote by Pro-Transit Supes Against Vehicle License Fee Measure (Streetsblog SF)
- New Clipper Cards Not Without Problems (CBS 5)
- ‘N-Word,’ Assault on Muni Platform Lead to Felony Hate-Crime Charges (SF Weekly)
- Arrest Made of Muni Mechanic in Late-Night Transfer Racket (Streetsblog SF)
Weekend service updates from SFMTA:
On Sunday the annual San Francisco Marathon will begin from The Embarcadero and Mission at 5:30 a.m., with staggered starts until 6:30 a.m. The race route will loop along The Embarcadero, through the Marina to the Golden Gate Bridge, south on Lincoln Boulevard, through Golden Gate Park and east to 3rd Street and The Embarcadero, behind the ballpark.
From midnight to 2:30 p.m. northbound Embarcadero between 3rd Street and Broadway and southbound Embarcadero between Broadway and Harrison Street will be closed.
In additions to the Metro lines F Market, K Ingleside, T Third, L Taraval, M Ocean View, and N Judah, the following Muni bus routes will be affected:
1 California
2 Clement
5 Fulton
6 Parnassus
9 San Bruno
10 Townsend
12 Folsom/Pacific
14 Mission
18 46th Avenue
19 Polk
22 Fillmore
24 Divisadero
27 Bryant
28 19th Avenue
31 Balboa
33 Stanyan
37 Corbett
38 Geary
43 Masonic
44 O’Shaughnessy
48 Quintara
49 Van Ness
71 Haight/Noriega
Finally … photos! Enjoy.
Photo by moxpox
Photo by StevenBrisson
Photo by Mr Ush
Muni’s 8.1 mph average, visualized
I’m in charge again, but just for today. I think even if Eugenia were around, though, she’d recognize the beauty and value of Eric Fischer’s info-graphic here. Take it away, Eric:
The colors are the same as in the Month of Muni map but the effect is very different. Except on the cable lines, which are genuinely slow, you can see here that the Muni vehicles move quickly when moving but have their average speed slowed by spending a lot of time stopped.
The difference is that instead of drawing a line from each sampled location to the next in a color corresponding to the average speed across the whole distance, this one plots only the sampled points themselves, with the instantaneous speed the vehicle was moving at the moment it crossed that point. The unfortunate part is that you can hardly see the subway because the reporting there doesn’t interpolate nearly as many points as you get for vehicles on the surface. But on the surface you can see the slowdown at every corner. The plotting gets fuzzy in the Financial District because of noise in the GPS signal from the tall buildings.
Black is stopped (less than 3 mph). Red is slow (3-5 mph). Blue is overall average operating speed (5-9 mph). Yellow is fast service (9-19 mph). Green is rapid movement (faster than 19 mph). Data from NextBus, April 13-June 6, 2010.
See a larger version of the graphic here. Information is beautiful, what?
More on Back-Door Clipper Readers
Photo by messtiza
That was substantiated by a comment on Beth’s post from Jake, who says he’s a Clipper employee (yay for Clipper employees reading Muni Diaries!).
But SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose got back to us on the question of why they’re there, and his answer might surprise you.
“There are readers in the back for busy bus lines, at busy times of day. When we can have a representative back there, we try to use the back door for boarding to speed things up.”
Sounds logical enough, but I wanted to make sure I understood correctly. “So, this is basically a) driver’s discretion, and b) only when SFMTA can get another employee back there to check for Fast Passes (until they’re phased out) and to make sure their Clipper cards are being tagged?” Yep.
Asked about SFMTA rolling out an official back-door boarding policy, Rose couldn’t commit to any specific date, or whether it’s even under serious consideration now.
So there you have it. If you’re lucky enough to legitimately back-door board a Muni bus, let us know.
Photo Diary: This Way (to the Temporary Terminal)
Photo by Brandon Doran
Remember, the Transbay Terminal is closing (pdf) and being moved to a temporary site on August 7, 2010. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
52-Excelsior: Center of the Universe?
Photo by dannyman
I live in the Excelsior, at the top of the hill near McLaren Park. On days when I commute on BART, I sometimes take the 52 Excelsior for my uphill homeward trip, although the recent service cuts can mean a wait that’s longer than my total walk home.
Monday night, I saw by the Next Muni sign that I would have a very long wait for the bus, so I decided to start walking. I was carrying several heavy bags, my knee hurt, and it was foggy and windy – not a great evening for the 9-block schlep up the steep hill to my house. I was moving slower than usual, so when I got to Silver and Mission, I checked the sign at the bus shelter – 9 minutes for a 52. I decided to sit down and wait for it.
As soon as I did, I realized that I didn’t want to spend the next 9 minutes inhaling second-hand smoke from the kid standing directly upwind – and I didn’t want to move my tired, sore self from the bus shelter seat, either, so I asked him to move downwind. He turned around, and the last thing I was expecting to see was a sunny smile, but that’s what he gave me as he said “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English” (in quite passable English).
I made myself understood, he moved downwind, and I was settling back in to wait when he popped back, saying “excuse me, can you help me?” and brandishing a map. Now, I was not in the best mood, but he seemed very harmless, I had time to kill, and I never mind giving directions. I had a hard time understanding him at first – his accent was odd, though he spoke well – but figured out that he wanted to go to Prague Street. He didn’t know the cross, but Prague is only 5 blocks long, and he said he’d be able to find his way once he got there. As I was wondering why this clearly foreign visitor wanted to go to a random residential block in the Excelsior, he explained that he was an Argentinian on day 1 of a 3-month English language course, and was staying with a family in the neighborhood.
As it happened, the best way for him to get where he was going was the 52, so I told him to get on the bus with me, and showed him the sign that said the next bus was coming in 3 minutes. Read more