No Man-Sitting!

no man sitting

Remember the big-balls-having guy from the first Muni Mind Reader episode, the guy whose nuts are so big they take up two seats?

Well, the ladies of Boston had enough of these guys too, and they’ve created a button warning against such behavior.

The AboutWomen project in Boston, who made the button above, also wrote a letter to the MBTA expressing their concern:

We’ve designed a badge for public transportation customers to wear in order to encourage passenger civility. We hope to raise awareness of fellow passenger’s comfort with this visual reminder.

Often, we believe, some T-riders aren’t aware that they’re taking up three seats with their knees. Of course, there are many other discourteous behaviors, like occupying additional seats with your belongings, but the particular posture depicted on our button is the most commonly complained about offense found in our survey of T- passengers.

Read the rest of the letter here.

Thanks to our friends at Tenderblog and the London Underground Tube Diary for this hilarious find.

L-Taraval Crash This Afternoon

L crash 1
Photo by Earthnik

Update (8:36 p.m.): Earthnik sent us this photo (“one more showing minimal damage to the robust Muni train”)
@munidiaries - one more showing minimal damage to the robust ... on Twitpic

Original post: Our Twitter feed is all abuzz about the L-Taraval crash this afternoon. Reader Kath also sent us an alert from her building guard, who saw the aftermath. According to SFGate:

The inbound L Taraval train was on Taraval Street when it collided with the car heading south on 34th Avenue at 12:09 p.m., Muni said. The male driver of the car was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with unknown injuries.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. There are stop signs at the intersection for traffic on 34th Avenue but not for traffic on Taraval.

Another pic from Earthnik after the jump:

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Bike Racks, a How-to Rap

Our brethren across the Bay, AC Transit, alerted us to this amazing video demonstrating something most of us need help with — getting your bike into one of those dadgum contraptions on the front of the bus. Why, just this morning, we ran a diary-ette about “mounting” stuff to the bike rack. How timely.

Say it with me now one time: “Bring it down, pull the bar, put it on, put it on, take it off, put it up when you’re done, when you’re done…”

Cameras, plugs and actually correct engineering choices

bart-camera-power1
Photo by Devin

Several months back, BART replaced all the cameras in Embarcadero station. I have no idea why — there were tons of cameras in that station already. “Replaced” isn’t the right word, of course, because they didn’t remove the old ones, just installed dozens more, often pointing at the same things. At a guess, the new ones don’t work yet and they won’t remove the old ones until that’s corrected. Or, knowing BART’s ability to do technological upgrades, the new ones will never work properly, so they’ll all stay up, gathering dust and grime and preventing no crime or disorder at all. At a wild guess, the only reasons Embarcadero is so richly endowed with cameras are (a) it’s full of tourists getting their pockets picked, and (b) part of the station is underneath the Federal Reserve Bank, engendering a sort of mutually reinforcing bureaucratic paranoia.

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$2 for ladder transport

IMG_1188

This harrowing, probably-totally-against-the-rules tale arrived in our inbox the other day from Muni rider Christine:

Dear Muni Diaries,

The other day I learned you can’t bring a ladder on Muni.

I borrowed the ladder from a cross-town friend. The 22 bus pulls up, I put my bike on the front, and walk up the stairs with the ladder, and flash my Fast Pass. The driver tells me that I can’t bring the ladder on the bus. Dumbfounded, I stare at him. He tells me it’s “too dangerous.” What?!

Anticipating a very long walk with my bike AND a ladder, I came up with a solution by the time the next 22 pulled up…. 🙂

Camouflaged, my ladder rode happily back to my apartment.

– Christine

Seen contraband on the bus lately? Let us know: muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com

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