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MUNI Rant: This Might Be The Last Straw

February 26th, 2008

Warning: Regular readers of this blog may not be used to the out of character raving and ranting that follows. Please don’t take it personally.

I’ve ranted before about my at times ridiculous commute, going from San Mateo to San Francisco on the CalTrain and then going across town via the MUNI. The ridiculousness is that the first leg of my trip typically takes less time than the MUNI part. Wile CalTrain with its “Baby Bullet” rocks – the MUNI sucks.

MUNI is basically falling to pieces. They first screwed my commute royally with the introduction of the “T” line, cutting the route of the 82x, and eliminating the 15 for the 9AX which is a nightmare route through the hell that is Chinatown.

The F line to Embarcadero is somewhat acceptable, however it usually means riding an antique cable car meant for much smaller and fitter Europeans, not overweight and clueless tourists from Alabama. Meaning, whenever I take the F home, it’s a safe bet I’ll wait five minutes while boarding because of the inability to understand the words “exact change,” and another extra five for clueless rider mishaps. I then have to transfer to the N or T or whatever they’re calling it this month.

The plain truth is these freaking classic vintage cars, while pretty for yuppies to look at say “oh, what a charming cosmopolitan city we live in!” while they drive their Prius home, are utter bullshit when all you want to do is get from point A to point B. We’re talking handbrakes, wooden benches, doors that fly open, hurling Alabamans onto cobblestones (okay, I made that part up, but people do get run over), and rickety rattling that will surely be even more charming during the next, inevitable earthquake. For the utter stupidity of these light rail cars, read this long history at Roughly Drafted which I would love to reiterate here but my version would be filled with expletives.

So I’ve mostly been catching the traditional bus line “10 Townsend” which is borderline tolerable, except that since the 15 was canceled, it now makes a retarded zig zag route between Market Street and the Transbay Terminal. My morning 10 ride is typically so full I’m standing half the ride with my nose in someone’s iPod headphones and an umbrella in the small of my back.

Anyhow, I haven’t even gotten to the best part. Today I read that MUNI is now planning a complete overhaul in 2009, meaning new lines added, others eliminated, all with the false hope of improving service. Certainly, yet another rate hike will come along with it. Expecting the worst, I pull up the Proposed System Map. the 9AX and the 10 are toast. In their place is the 19, which doesn’t go South of Market to the train station. My only choice both ways will be aforementioned F and T which will surely be even more crowded, further highlighting the antique nature of those rustic, rusted, pitiful excuses for mass transit.

What are my options? At this point I’m seriously thinking it’s time to give up on San Francisco altogether. Why do I torture myself so? I have no idea. Maybe Obama has some answers for substantial “change.” Because right now, I’m not hopeful in the least.

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  • Mike
    My (admittedly, touristy) experiences with the New York City subway system are pretty much the opposite. Get the hell on the subway, or you'll be left behind for the next subway car. People don't care. Yeah, the subway seems to be crammed much of the time, though sometimes you'll get a seat. Even more rare, you'll get a whole bench to yourself, but that doesn't usually last too long.

    But if nothing else, it's quick and you get to your destination on time - if you actually understand the subway system. I'm still figuring it out, I get lost every time I attempt to use it. Luckily, there's still busses, cabs, etc...and they're all fine solutions, too.

    I suppose a move across the country is out of the question, eh? :P

    Visited San Francisco for the first time last spring, and I must admit...cars always seemed out of place. I saw lots of people walking, busses, and even Segways...and the cars always seemed to be out of place to me. It must be difficult to drive those streets, what with so many people walking around (it's difficult for that reason to drive in NYC, for sure).
  • Having had to do commutes back and forth from SF to either the East Bay (Orinda) or to San Mateo County all I can say is, um, I feel your pain.

    One of the things that MUNI has fumbled for a while has been the Caltrain/MUNI connection. Adding the T made things horrid for everyone, and this new Central Subway is a freakin' joke. They've hacked the line to pieces to accommodate everyone and have created a line that will not make anyone's commute better at all. Oh and it'll cost like 2 billion dollars, too!

    The funny thing to me is that San Franciscans love to tell everyone what to do about being "Green" and everyone's all talk, but when it comes to doing the things they need to do to make it so that people such as you or I can just go about our business sans autos, they don't do it. I once heard an old MUNI engineer say that if a transit system is truly running properly, you don't notice it- it just exists and no longer occupies ones mind because of its many faults. But I think that can-do spirit was killed off ages ago...
  • MUNI is the SF proper buses and the light rail, which is haphazardly connected to the BART and all the other bay area mass transit systems. BART is cool except for their abridged hours, expense, and the retarded Millbrae project which I won't get into right now. CalTrain I have no issue with except they've been promising WiFi for way too long now.

    So my beef is mostly the connection between these systems, and MUNI in particular.

    The bottom line however, is it takes a transfer to get across town. WTF is up with that? The city is only 9 freaking miles long, yet it takes over half an hour to travel that distance. Why on earth is there not a light rail line that goes from the ball park to Fisherman's Wharf along the Embarcadero? Does that just make too much sense? And in lieu of that, at least provide a freaking bus that does it.

    Now, New York, I lived there for a year after college, and that is a serious mass transit system. That's the sauce I'm craving. Portland, Oregon (where I went to college) also has some good ideas like bus only lanes and a free fare square in downtown proper (SF explored that idea recently and it was axed).

    Anyhow, I'm starting to agree with the imposition of a car toll - similar to London - in downtown SF proper, and use all that money to fund MUNI. With less traffic, the buses should move faster and that would discourage driving.
  • ^ Hi greg (njudah) -- long time no see!

    Jase, I'm not gonna argue with you about commute pain. It can certainly get trying and rant-inducing at times. Curiously the F has become one of my primary rides lately (ferrying the kid to school). For that purpose it has worked great. But then I'm on the Upper Market segment which doesn't get much tourists so the ride is smooth, relatively empty and no boarding woes. I do think the F works for short segments (and short segments only). But longer segments wouldn't be tough to deal with.

    "We’re talking handbrakes, wooden benches, doors that fly open, hurling Alabamans onto cobblestones (okay, I made that part up, but people do get run over), and rickety rattling that will surely be even more charming during the next, inevitable earthquake. For the utter stupidity of these light rail cars, read this long history at Roughly Drafted which I would love to reiterate here but my version would be filled with expletives." <---- this article is about the Boeing and newer Breda cars used in the Muni Metro system NOT the vintage PCC and Milan streetcars (not denying problems with the light rail cars - but this is a bit of non sequitor)

    Maybe you should submit your post to Nathanial Ford @ SFMTA and Gavin Newsom.

    Frankly, the only way I see things being improved is if this country starts placing some emphasis on investing on infrastructure rather than bombs and blowing up stuff in the middle east. Budget cuts invariably lead to service cuts which invariably leads to slower service, lower frequencies and fewer routes and more rider headaches. It's the never-ending death spiral...
  • ^ Congestion pricing would be cool. That will be a tough sell politically in the U.S. -- but that would certainly help. If it were to happen, SF is probably one of the few places in the states that might be up for attempting it.

    SF has some bus-only lanes...the only problem is they're usually clogged with double-parked cars and nobody enforces the bus only nature of them :-(

    There's a program to equip the buses with cameras to ticket the scofflaws but it's still in the trial stages I believe.

    And didn't you know that we already have a fareless square program? It's called "board-via-the-back-door-and-hope-you-don't-get-caught" :-)

    But seriously, fare evasion is another big problem that robs much needed $$$ and operating revenue from the overall system. There are definitely a lot of problems that would require a pretty sharp cookie and a lot of political support to solve.
  • Hey Dave - actually the link to the article regarding the newer cars is valid - I have to transfer from the F to an N or a T to get to the train station. I mention as such in the third paragraph, so maybe that reference is lost. The N and the T are the newer cars, which admittedly are a smoother ride, but there are three things that piss me off to no end regarding the N and T at my leg of the trip:

    1) so many of the cars terminate at Embarcadero, so I might be waiting there for ten minutes as every car is "going out of service".

    2) When there's a ball game, the cars get so packed that they either drive right by, or you're up to your armpits in people. I've literally had to shove my way into these cars.

    3) There is a retarded intersection right outside the caltrain station where the T turns south, the N terminates, and cars are trying to speed their way out of the city onto the freeway. It can be a mess. You have people crossing a busy intersection from one MUNI stop to the other, jaywalking to catch whichever comes first, drivers doing the "california stop" and a traffic cop trying to direct traffic yelling at everyone.

    Basically, over four years relying on MUNI in the City proper, the MUNI has deteriorated significantly as far as my commute is concerned. The fare hikes are just icing on the cake.

    I'm filling out a complaint form on the new MUNI plan website as I write this - this peeves me to no end.
  • The link is valid. My comment was about the writing. You wrote about the problems with the vintage street car and then finished the paragraph with a comment about retarded light rail which reads as if the article will be about the vintage street cars. Maybe my reading comprehension is poor, but that's the non sequitor that I was commenting on.
  • My favorite MUNI experience was around 1992.

    I was riding along with a friend of mine and one of the doors kept making this popping sound.

    Then it fell off.

    The door fell off.

    That just killed me.
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