Muni Diaries

What’s the price of preserving history? If you’re Muni, it’s a cool $1.9 million to renovate the city’s first street car, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The San Francisco Street Car #1, the only surviving vehicle of its kind in the city, will undergo renovations in preparation for Muni’s centennial celebration in 2012.

Sure, the streetcar has definite historical significance. According to the Chronicle report:

“Streetcar No. 1 has historical significance,” said Rick Laubscher, president of Market Street Railway, Muni’s nonprofit preservation partner. “This is not only San Francisco’s first publicly owned streetcar, but it’s also America’s first.”

The celebrated double-ended streetcar, built by the W.L. Holman Car Co. of San Francisco, began service on Dec. 28, 1912, running on the now defunct A-Geary line that ran from Geary Boulevard and 39th Avenue in the Richmond District to Kearny and Market streets downtown.

Celebrants showed up to watch the mayor guide the first municipal streetcar down the street – another reminder of San Francisco’s can-do spirit that emerged from the rubble of the devastating earthquake and fire six years earlier.

But seriously, $1.9 million? I thought we had a budget crisis or something.

In our last installment of Tara’s interview with SFMTA spokesperson Judson True, we get the skinny on Muni’s image issues, how to keep the agency accountable when riders file complaints, and what the agency is doing to prepare for Bay to Breakers this year.

Muni Diaries: Would you say Muni has an image problem?

JT: You saved the best for last.

It’s an interesting question. The answer I’m trying to take a step back from, in my job and my role now, in the time I’ve worked at the MTA, to think about how I perceived Muni before I worked for the city. I took the 21, I liked it. I’d write down the books people were reading. I’d keep little lists like that. It’s interesting, and I liked Muni, I liked riding it. I was frustrated if the bus passed me at Grove and Gough, which it did sometimes. I’d walk down and take Muni Metro or BART or I’d just walk. Occasionally, I rode my bike to work.

I think the feeling I had about Muni then is fairly similar to how most users in the system feel. That it’s great when it works, and it’s very frustrating when it doesn’t.

A lot of people choose to live here because it’s a city you can live in without a car. I didn’t have a car for five years. In that sense, Muni is successful. BART and the whole system of transportation, even in the Bay Area. Like Caltrain. When my brother was at Stanford, I took Caltrain down to visit him. You can move without a car here.

But Muni has challenges, and I think those are reflected in the negative publicity we occasionally get and the frustration people feel about the system. The people who work here are very sensitive, and they’re working hard to try to improve the system to prevent that perception. Perception is a reflection of reality. I’m not a person who works in media relations because I want to say, “This thing over here is really good,” even if it looks like it isn’t good. Nat Ford is the kind of person who calls it like he sees it, too. That impetus goes throughout the organization.

There’s so much more I can say about that question. My final answer would be, “Yes, but …”

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You asked, and we brought your questions to Muni: in today’s installment, Tara asks SFMTA spokesperson Judson True all about the TransLink payment system and bus rapid transit, two of the major improvements under way for Muni. Come back tomorrow for Tara’s last installment of her interview and find out how Muni is gearing up to prepare for Bay to Breakers this year.

Muni Diaries: When will Muni conduct the full rollout of TransLink?

Judson True: We’re in the early trial phase now. We’re happy with how it’s going so far. We’ve got more than 3,500 folks signed up and using it every day. I use mine to ride the system. When I see a reader that’s not working on a bus, I email it in to customer service to be addressed.

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Ever feel stuck in the dark with Muni? Like, somehow the problem your bus or LRV has encountered pales in comparison to a lack of knowledge of what’s wrong, when it will be fixed, and what your alternatives are? For the third part of our conversation with SFMTA spokesperson Judson True, he and Tara talk about the system’s communication shortcomings, and the frustrations facing the agency, its personnel, and we, the riding public. (This and all posts in this weeklong series are cross-posted at SF Appeal.)

Muni Diaries: There was another reader who had some suggestions to improve the rider experience: In the tunnel, if a train is stuck. One of his main wish-list items was that the operator provide information clearly and quickly as to when there’s a delay and when it’s expected to be resolved. I think part of the problem is that a lot of us feel left in the dark, like, “Oh, we’re going to be here X amount of time. I’m not sure why or when. Hold tight.” What are drivers supposed to do in that case? How do we get that information, and are drivers already told to be giving us this information?

Judson True: Yes. Whenever one of our light-rail vehicles is stopped under Market Street, our operators should be asking people to remain patient, and they’ll update them with information as soon as they have it. Our Central Control staff can make announcements directly. I’ve made them myself. That should happen once there’s about a 3-minute wait. And then every two to three minutes thereafter.

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