Rant: MUNI Survival Guide

November 9th, 2007

WebomaticaDespite 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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Viewing 6 Comments

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    Hahahaha...I enjoyed these!

    Though it seems that your list has as much to do with bad *rider* behavior as it does with Muni operational problems. I'm not arguing that either issue isn't painful...I just find it funny, b/c even if Muni was functioning smoothly you'd still have to deal with some of the idiotic riders.

    I was on the F this morning and rang for a stop and the streetcar stopped at a surface platform such that the back door was blocked by the handicapped ramp. Before I could run to the front to exit, the dude started up again. With Muni you need to roll with the punches...constantly...

    I do hate it when the area around the door on Muni Metro train is totally sardine packed while the interior of the train is relatively empty. Kinda cracks me up. It's like we are collectively so lame that we'd rather just clump up rather than look up and spill into the less crowded parts of the train. Too funny.

    Fwiw, I get pissed driving too, so it ends up being a wash.

    But when I need a good laugh, the Muni Haiku page is always there:
    http://www.munihaiku.com/wp/
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    Ah yeah I guess I'll do a future rant about how ridiculous the system is as a whole - ever since the 15 was eliminated the 9AX is freaking unbearable - but also unintentionally hilarious as you get the tourists from Iowa trapped aboard a bus going through the thick of Chinatown that are shocked at how many people you really can fit on a bus when nobody cares about physical comfort.

    (actually, one of the haikus on your recommended muni page captures the sentiment perfectly):

    they took you from me
    15 3rd, now i suffer
    stink fish spit pushed pigs

    My personal MUNI bus operational gripe is when the freaking long things that attach to the overhead power lines comes undone and the bus driver has to stop in the middle of an intersection, get off the bus, and reattach the long things on his own - what kind of pitiful technology is this?

    Sometimes I take the light rail that goes along the Embarcadero which has its own problems - from the start - stop - start of the "retro" European cars that unfortunately has a way of hurling the clueless tourists into the wooden benches, to the battle on the N Judah (or Third Street Line) with the crazed Giants Fans, packing the cars to where people are standing on the platforms watching the MUNI cars zoom right on by without even stopping... it can be really tiring.
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    Awesome. As a non-driver I'm more than familiar w/ MUNI, TTC (Toronto), SEPTA (Philly) and TransLink (Vancouver).

    My commute in SF was the worst - cable-car to MUNI, MUNI to Caltrain, Caltrain to Redwood City, shuttle to work. Total time: 2:00hrs. MUNI was the worst part. Packed and never on time trains. Those stupid cable cars were OK in the morning (no tourists) but such a pain when going home (full of tourists, which lets face it is probably the only reason they still exist).

    Philly wins for "grossest" overall transit. The seats were all stained (with I don't want to know what), the stations all smelled of urine and were COVERED in dirt. Toronto wins for cleanest and best overall. Vancouver is by far the most polite (when people get off the bus they yell "Thank you!" to the driver at the front - which is a habit I've thoroughly enjoyed picking up, and never seen in any other city).
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    Ross - your past commute sounds like it was the reverse of what mine is - I currently do the CalTrain and then MUNI to get to work up in the city. I have much less complaints about CalTrain but there are a few even there.

    Philly sounds pretty nasty but humorous - I'll have to ask some coworkers that used to live in Philly what their experiences were. Canada is sounding like a better and better place to visit by the day :)
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    Btw Jase, in case you were wondering about the buses with the overhead electrical wires (aka "trollybuses"), there's a wikipedia article about them:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

    Article elaborates on the pros and cons. Obviously the disconnecting issue is a con. But on the benefits side of the equation is their performance on hills and low pollution (hence the prevalence of them in SF).
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    This is observant and funny. And here I was thinking that riding the DC metro was a pain in the ass, I guess I can't complain that much.
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