Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
This video came by the way of @kerouaconacid via Twitter of a lady belting out some serious tunes at the Church Muni station yesterday.
Wow. I suspect I sound just like that in the shower. Nice job capturing this candid performance, @kerouaconacid.
Got some video footage of Muni happenings? Email it to us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com!
Note: See our update from an alleged witness who told SFist that the teen was provoked. Thank you, SFist, for spreading the word and reporting this story.
This shocking letter from the Noe Valley Voice (via reader Randy) had us thinking, “Has it really come to this?” The Muni incident began when a 60-year-old woman asked a teenage girl not to take up three seats on a packed J-Church train headed toward Mission High School. When the teenager refused after being asked repeatedly, things turned ugly. The woman recounts the incident to the Voice:
I very politely asked her if she would move her bag so two people could sit down. She said, “No.” I asked her again and she told me, “F- -k off.” I asked her a third time and told her that I would remove her bag if she didn’t do it herself. I reminded her that this was public transportation and that everyone on the streetcar had paid the same fare to enter and that she didn’t have the right to take three seats. I reminded her that these seats were reserved for seniors and people with disabilities. She told me to “f- -k off” again. I reached down to move her bag and when I did so, she stood up and very forcefully slapped me in the face, knocking off my glasses. I’m 60 years old and the surprise and force of her slap knocked me down. She then proceeded to curse at me, calling me a “f- -king bitch” and several other things.
As if that weren’t enough, the abuse allegedly continued until the teenager got off the streetcar at Church and 18th Street. You can read the rest of the incident in her letter here in Voice‘s May Letters to the Editor (scroll down to “Incident on Muni”).
It’s supposed to be another beautiful weekend, weather-wise. Makes you wonder why god keeps smiting this town he’s so clearly forsaken. I mean, seriously, is nice weather the modern-day equivalent of blood and guts and curses on your house? Why do we Sin Fransickens keep getting blessed with it?
Also, keep in mind that Bay to Breakers is happening Sunday, although if you’re anything like us, you won’t be attending thanks to all the wonderful new rules ING has imposed on the event in their attempt to strip it of any and all fun. Here’s a list of Muni’s planned service changes for the day of the event.
And as always, enjoy yourselves and we’ll see you Monday.
xoxo Muni Diaries
Photo by -nanio- from the Muni Photos Flickr pool
A lot of gross stuff can happen on Muni, but we weren’t quite prepared for Muni rider Jean’s submission about a downhill-rolling 22:
Puke on the 22
Riding Muni blows chunks. Just like the girl behind me on the 22 that day. It was a few years ago and this girl who was sitting behind me started getting sick. She didn’t smell like booze, I think she was just having some kind of stomach thing.
Anyway, next thing I know, she puked on the floor of the bus. I heard this splattering noise and felt it splash on to the back of my shoes and my pants. OMG!!!! I tried not to freak out and calmly moved to the front of the bus, wishing more than anything that I could be off the bus and not wearing puke splattered clothes.
All was ok for about five minutes. That’s when the bus started going down a hill. The puke rapidly slid from the back of the bus to the front and everyone let out a collective groan of disgust/panic. That’s when I knew that ride was over.
Apologies if you lost your lunch a little just now. I know I did. So what’s a hygienic Muni rider to do? Dear Muni Manners ladies, got any tips for us to keep it clean and righteous on the bus?
Photo by Flickr user So Cal Metro
Good question, indeed. More broadly, where’s the leadership on Muni, outside of Supervisor Chiu and a few others?
This nugget arrived in our inbox today. It’s basically a contest for any of us to enter. Snap a photo of Gavin Newsom riding a non-cable-car Muni vehicle, and this group, Where’s Gavin, will buy your next (and the last $45) Fast Pass:
Dear Sir or Madam,
As riders of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (buses and trains), we were very disappointed that Mayor Newsom decided to push through a Muni budget that will cut routes and balance the budget on the backs of transit riders instead of making everyone share the burden. We don’t think that Gavin actually gets it on transit or gets on transit, contrary to the comment in the Chronicle that said he goes incognito. We’d like him to ride more, perhaps to get a feeling for what riders go through even on days when the budget hasn’t been cut. As kind of a push to get him to take more transit, incognito or otherwise we started this page. It’s basically a contest: be the first to get a picture of Mayor Newsom on Muni incognito (other than a cable car) and we’ll buy that person’s fast pass for the month after they win. We think its a pretty good incentive, especially in these tough economic times. We’re also going to buy some beers for everyone else that brings in a photo at the end of the run. We hope you can help us in our quest.
Where’s Gavin?
http://wheresgavin.comPS: We wish to remain anonymous as long as Gavin remains incognito on Muni vehicles
So dust off your cellphone’s lens and keep your eyes peeled. This type of mysterious-beast sighting could net you a sweet prize. We’ll keep our ears to the ground and report back when there’s a winner.
The way I see it, there are two basic methods of attacking the problem of getting around San Francisco on public transit: chance and control. Chance, I believe, speaks for itself. Control is what the rest of us attempt in neurotic fashion, day in, day out. We use NextBus, iPhones, BlackBerrys, crystal balls, bat droppings … whatever it will take to inform us when the freakin’ bus will be there.
It’s a crowded field, to be sure. But what if, just what if, some augur of reliability emerged from the crop to solve [most of] your woes? Here’s a first look at a series of apps that we’ll review here at Muni Diaries. Today, we’ll look at iCommute.
The first thing I noticed about iCommute was its groupings of routes (1-10, 11-20, etc.) on the right side of a list of all the routes, much the way iPhone apps like Contacts and iPod use “index-scrolling” (my term) for quick access to far-off parts of your list. It was then that I realized iCommute might just turn out to be a must-have app.
Like many GPS-enabled apps, iCommute asks your permission to use your location. Yes, please. Every subsequent use sensibly uses your location without being prompted. After you drill down to the route you want, it automatically highlights the nearest stop on that line, and tells you how far away it is.