Despite my support of mass transit (I haven’t driven to work in nearly three years) riding the San Francisco bus (MUNI) is not a stroll in the park and I dare say service has gotten worse in the past year. So I’ve whipped up this quick MUNI survival guide.

Despite the common assumption that riding a bus is a simple affair, I notice on a daily basis many clueless riders (usually tourists, executives, suburbanites) that seem pathetically confused by the concept of riding in a vehicle with complete strangers.

• Do: Wait at the stop well ahead of when the bus is supposed to get there.
• Don’t: Expect it to arrive on time.
• Do: Have your change or pass ready so you can board the bus in a timely manner.
• Don’t: Stand there and ask directions to some non-existent location while fumbling with change, which is inexact, or talk on the cell phone while boarding. You’re holding up the people behind you and making everyone late.
• Don’t: board through the rear doors and pretend you’re cluless when the MUNI driver throws a fit and demands to see your pass. An old transfer doesn’t work. You’re not fooling anyone - just get off the bus and realize you’re making fifty paying riders late with your shenannigans.
• Do: Be prepared to sit next to another person in close quarters, or stand with your nose in a stranger’s armpit.
• Don’t: Sit in an aisle seat and put your bag in the window seat, and feign ignorance or annoyance when someone calls your rudeness and asks to sit in said seat. Be prepared to have all your pointless material possessions fit on your lap so you occupy one seat. This includes large suitcases, musical instruments, extreme backpacks, bags of Chinatown vegetables, or weepy children in strollers. Otherwise, just hail a cab and save everyone the pain.
• Do: Figure out which stop you need to get off at before boarding.
• Don’t: Insist on standing near the doorway because you’re afraid of missing your stop that is miles away.
• Absolutely Don’t: Whine and moan while gazing forlornly out the window, as if you’re a victimized prisoner off to Siberia, ringing the bell every minute but then muttering “Oh, this isn’t my stop yet.” That’s a great way to piss off the driver including everyone trapped on the bus with Mr. Solzhenitsyn.
• Do: Move to the back of the bus and take a seat, even if it’s next to smelly patchouli lady with her extreme backpack and baby stroller.
• Absolutely Don’t: Feign ignorance and refuse to move to the back rear when there are thirty people crammed in the front, one of whom is wrapped around the bus driver. If your nose isn’t within odor-inhalation of your neighbor’s armpit, there is still room.
• Don’t: Insist on loitering in the front of the bus, with your Chinese-vegetable filled baby stroller because you’re afraid of missing your non-existent stop. You’re keeping others who know where they’re going from boarding the bus and sitting down.
• Do: Learn the art of standing on a moving bus, meaning feet parallel to the length, one hand on a rail, and the other prepared to grab onto something in the event of a quick halt.
• Don’t: Stand in the aisle with hot coffee in one hand and a cell phone in another and expect to remain in an upright position.
• Do: Give up your seat for the eldery, pregnant, and infirm.
• Don’t: Sit there with your shades and iPod on full blast, pretending you’re cluless when the Muni driver wants to flip your seat up to make room for the person in the wheelchair.
• Do: If the bus is prohibitively full and you’re standing in the exit stairwell, it might be a good idea to get off the bus, let the people off at their stop, and then quickly reboard.
• Don’t: Stand in the stairwell as people with extreme backpacks, strollers, and military equipment are forced to squirm their way around you because you’re insistent it’s not your stop or you believe you’re far thinner or better smelling than you really are.
• Absolutely Don’t: Stand in the rear stairwell and wonder why the doors aren’t closing. If you don’t get off the rear stairwell the doors can’t close and the bus doesn’t move.
• Do: If the bus driver closes the rear door before you have a chance to get off, the modus operandi is to yell “back door” and open it for you.
• Don’t: Yell “back door” when the actual problem is you not pushing the door handle when the light is green. If you can’t read the large words “push handle to open door” it’s your own stupidity that has you trapped on the bus with Chinese vegetables, speeding past the next three blocks.
• Absolutely Don’t: Be irate when the bus driver doesn’t open the doors for your stop, when what’s really going on is you rang the bell five times for the past five stops, but they were all the wrong ones, because you didn’t know which stop was yours, and muttered “oh, this isn’t my stop yet” for each. The bus driver is just dealing with the boy who cried wolf, and you deserve to smell armpit.
• Do: Bring an gadget to occupy yourself, for ignoring all this nonsese. Think Blackberry, cellphone, iPod, iPhone. Reading material is also good. Make sure you know how to operate said entertainment with one hand in case you must stand. Two handed devices (notebook computers) are not recommended.
• Don’t: Be so preoccupied with your entertainment that you miss your stop. The saddest sight is a yuppie laden with home-equity financed toys madly clambering over patchouli and Chinse vegetable-laden passengers, extreme backpacks, baby strollers, military equipment, tourists, and guitars in a futile attempt to reach the back door as it slams in their face and the bus continues on its merry way. Especially if said yuppie doesn’t understand the concept of “push handle to open door” or screaming “back door” at a unionized bus driver. Yes, mass transit is socialist, and you’re trapped on a one-way voyage to Siberia. This is how we roll in San Francisco.

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