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The MUNI Chronicles

Ok, this story has been a long time coming.
It started after Bay to Breakers, that hellish little cross-town run/walk/crawl where every freak in the city decides that it’s time to go out and show the world that “Hey, I am a little active”. For some reason, Janet and I were feeling really energetic and we decided to drop down a chunk of change (about $40) and join the “World’s Largest Roadrace ™”.

Fast forward 3 hours. We’re sore, we’re thirsty and hungry. The news reported that approximately 80,000 people signed up for the race, and by the time we finished, about 35,000 of them were doing exactly what we were: waiting for a bus.

I don’t know why MUNI doesn’t understand! If there is a planned public event, why the hell don’t they run more buses? It took us almost an hour and a half to get home, and that included a mandated walk from UCSF to the Lower Haight.

This morning (6/28/98), we decided to head downtown about an hour after the Pride Parade had finished to pick up a copy of X-Wing Collector’s Edition at the new Comp USA. Every underground stop that we passed had a platform FULL of people trying to get from Downtown to the Castro. Of course, MUNI was running on a Sunday schedule, so the trolleys were running infrequently and when they did run, it was a single car only. Give me a break.

Fast forward another two hours… we’re all geeked out and ready to head home. So, we walk to Montgomery Street station, figuring that the further east we headed, the better chance that we would get a seat. At Montgomery, there was no line and we got a seat immediately. At Powell, the crowd was not bad… there were still seats available. At Civic Center, there were hundreds of people just trying to get anywhere… including a person with a sousaphone. In High School, I used to play a sousaphone. I would never think about getting in a crowded MUNI with one, but I digress. Anyway, if the crowd at Civic Center was large, the crowd at Van Ness was even larger. I’m surprised that we could even get off at Church Street station.

The moral of this story is this: MUNI, observe reality. You know when there are going to be throngs of people waiting for a MUNI. Pay the freaking overtime and get more buses and trolleys on the road. Sheesh. — Avery

Posted in Muni Chronicles.


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