F-Market/Wharves – Page 13

Newsworthy Muni-Accident Streak Stands at 2 Days (updates)

August 11, 2009 jeff One comment

Update (4:12 p.m. Wednesday): SF Appeal reports that the pedestrian in this incident is expected to recover.

Update (5:55 p.m.): SF Gate quotes Judson True as saying that early indications have the incident being caused by the pedestrian.

Original post: In what is becoming too routine, SF Appeal reports that the F-Market/Wharves line has been disrupted due to an accident involving a pedestrian. Early reports indicate that the pedestrian’s injuries are not life-threatening. Shuttle buses are running between the Embarcadero and Van Ness. Stay tuned for updates …

Category: News Tags: F-Market/Wharves

Weekend Photo Diary: They didn’t see me

August 7, 2009 jeff 3 comments

Photo by tangobaby from the Muni Photos Flickr pool

Amazing photo by tangobaby that I don’t really want to ruin with words. So I won’t.

Instead, I’ll recap a pretty busy week here on Muni Diaries. I’ll start with the post that kicked the week off for us: the July post of the month. Honors this month go to Plug1’s photo post: The Proof-of-Payment game. Later Monday, we posted a report of the M crashing into a car over the weekend, a story that was quickly eclipsed later that day in the now-famous SUV sandwich with F trains for bread. Later in the week, for whatever reason, old news about MTA’s purchasing an insurance policy came to the fore, and our weeks-old question was answered.

Also on Monday, we published the first of two posts by our favorite Muni mom, Beth W. One was about a cool new feature on txtmuni, an SMS service for bus predictions. The other was our first Muni poem, a villanelle.

Category: diaries, Photos Tags: F-Market/Wharves, M-Ocean View

Ringtone Riot

June 22, 2009 eugenia Leave a comment

In Japan, the Kanto Railway enforces that cell phones be on silent mode. Photo by Flickr user Nemo’s Great Uncle

I was riding the F line several months ago during the morning rush hour toward downtown. A teenage girl boarded somewhere around 8th or 10th Street, and her cell phone began playing some sort of ring tone at a very high volume. The driver told her that she needed to silence the phone, to which she explained, “I’m getting a text message.” When the phone continued to play, the driver stopped the car at the next stop and told her that she needed to either silence the phone or get off and that he was not moving the car until she did one or the other.

She again explained, “I’m getting a text message.” The explanation, of course, made no sense to anyone on the car. Silencing the ringer doesn’t prevent a text message from being received, and by this point, the phone had been playing the same ringtone for nearly five minutes. So the car didn’t move, she didn’t get off, and the other passengers, now becoming late for work, grew restless. Shouts began to erupt from the back of the train to “Turn the phone off!” Soon, the whole car had joined in the shouting, and the girl, instead of turning the phone off, kept shouting back that they should shut up because she was getting a text message. A riot felt imminent.

Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: F-Market/Wharves

Weekend Photo Diary: Doggie Diner Dog, Meet F

April 17, 2009 jeff Leave a comment

Photo by WHAT IM SEEING dot com from the Muni Photos Flickr group pool.

Have a lovely weekend, outdoors (supposed to be warm, as in 70s) or in.

Category: diaries, Photos Tags: F-Market/Wharves

Casual Complaint on F Ridership Protocol, If There Is Any

April 16, 2009 Tara 17 comments

Another installment in the continuing saga of WT(F)

An enormous field trip gets on the F at Market and Main, like they often do.

A kid observes that the driver is annoyed because, “We took up the whole bus.”

Well, sort of. More like the whole bus is annoyed that you all packed on during rush hour.

In my perfect Muniverse, field trips, like bikes on BART, would not be allowed on the buses, especially the tiny little streetcars, during rush hour. I think they can do something awesomely educational while they wait for go time.

Thoughts? I swear its not just the cranky post-vacationer speaking here.

Category: diaries, WTF: Weirdness on Muni Tags: F-Market/Wharves, muni-gripe

Vigilante public transportation

April 7, 2009 Tara 3 comments

F car at Beach and Stockton is 11 mins out. Guy in snazzy black limo pulls up and starts offering rides anywhere in downtown/FiDi for $3 per person. Promises door to door service.

He goes up to individual people, asking for takers. He gets to me last, since a coffee cup, iPod, magazine, and stony expression turned out to be an obvious, carefully engineered (OK, not really) sign that I’m less-than-interested. Armed with a FastPass that gets me as many damned rides as I want, I snobbily turn my nose up at the bargain offer for $2 a ride instead. I have principles, after all.

Currently, I’m suffering the indignity (to be overly dramatic) of riding on a replacement F car: yes, that means a regular bus driving on the railway tracks, which is easily the bumpiest ride you’ll ever be on in SF, because who knows what happened to the actual rail vehicle. To add insult to injury, it’s stopping at the Ferry Building: I need to go a mile farther than that.

FYI, F-car: Some dude is stomping on your territory and pretty much beat you at the transportation game today. Next time, I might not side with you (and my principles) if I’m in a pinch.