I love public transportation. But I hate Muni sometimes.

I may be touching the electric third rail when I say this, but sometimes it's the pedestrians that slow muni down. They walk where there are no cross walks, and even when they are in one, they don't obey the traffic signals. They will just charge blindly into the intersection when the traffic has a green light. This forces buses to make unexpected stops all over the city, further delaying service. Not to mention, dangerous for the jaywalker.

To fix Muni, they need to add express buses to every major route and update the fleets themselves. Bus-only lanes also helps. But I think a lot of traffic could be avoided if people just quit double-parking on the street so that the rest of us could get to work. there should be stiff tickets for those who do so.

My former boss once had to back an accordion bus out of a dead-end street for the bus driver who had made the wrong turn. Seems there's no shortage of drivers that need help handling situations for which they should have been trained.

That's standard 14-Missions goings on. Sucks that the person that got stabbed was the nice one.

This morning may have been a low point in my relationship with Muni, which is saying a lot.

I thought it strange when nextmuni.com didn't seem to have a train coming anytime soon. I understood why when they proceeded to shut down Duboce & Church. Several dozen of us migrated to Church, where almost none of us were able to get on any of the one and two car trains that sporadically came into the station. I felt like a coal miner at a bread line somewhere in Eastern Europe during the Soviet era. Upshot: none really, except that I did eventually make it to work.

Total travel time: 50 minutes

I suppose that's a reason to sometimes actually like Muni... the 'I was late because of Muni' excuse...

@davesimon1 - do you still have your photo-journalist account of trying to get in one day? That's a great story to add to this.

Here are just some of my gripes with the public transportation system:
- how can you have several "trains" that all run on the same track in the area of heaviest congestion?
- why would you have trains that run both above and below ground? what's the point when it's all dependent on street traffic anyway?
- where exactly do you pay for the muni trains? if they had a system where payment could actually be enforced then maybe they would have money to improve the system.
-lastly and most importantly, the muni trains dont really go anywhere that i need to go. and so, i have been spending a lot of my money in SF on cabs. Which is a whole other topic.....

All you N-Judah love/haters should support congestion pricing for SF: a proposal to charge cars entering the city, and plug all the money into expanding and improving public transit.They're doing it in London and have seen less traffic, cleaner air, reduced global warming emissions and more $ for public transit. Plus Gavin loves it. How can you say no to that? -->Watch this clip: http://www.yourtv20.com/news/green/10214471.html

Another fantastic morning on the N-Judah. This morning I got to my normal stop at 8am, I was going to be early to work and get some stuff done. I waited, and waited, and waited, more and more people kept coming and then FOUR trains came the other way. I knew we were in trouble. I heard the faint sound of a large vehicle and over the hill came...a bus? So we loaded in the bus, which took us on a nightmarish ride down Haight, people were banging on the doors to get out, the bus driver would open the doors for 3 seconds and then close them so no one could escape. Finally, we get to Church and Duboce and he makes us all get off and wait there for the 4 totally packed trains to pick us up, one by one, since there was no room. Luckily I spotted fellow outreacher and muni rider, Kasia, and we had a lovely ride to work. I got in at 9, exactly 1 hour after I left my house...more postings to come from me I am sure.

Very "A Fish Called Wanda."

While not specifically about the N-Judah, I can tell you that the other day a "Not In Service" Muni bus driver came within inches of killing me as I rode my scooter to work. I was irritated and asked him if he say me. He said yes. I blew up and started yelling at the guy. He told me to kiss his ass. This was not the first time a Muni bus came within inches of killing me. In my mind, the first thing we can do to rescue Muni is to get some people in this agency who actually give a shit. The drivers (and I can imagine mechanics and people in every other department) are so apathetic and covered by their union that it is not in their best interest to care at all. This is a long-running gripe of mine and I will gripe until either I die or Muni runs like Amtrak, whichever comes first.

I shouldn't even participate in this.

MUNI is quite possibly the worst public transportation in the country. Yeah, yeah, I haven't been on every City's public transpo system, but...

Lets see...

75 minutes to go 6 miles?

Drivers who scream at passengers (with obscenities) over the PA system on a packed train with kids, grand parents present.

Broken equipment, including doors, leaking air conditioning system, etc.

Either freezing or boiling hot train cars

"Frequent trains" that come once every 25-30 minutes in peak times, then 3 in a row.

Running a training car during peak times underground.

etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

Well I came from LA where people there don't even know what the word public transportation means, so I was thrilled to be able to take the train to work...now, not so thrilled. This morning I was squished against an uptight woman who kept yelling at people and a man who smelled like alcohol. The other day I had to take FOUR N trains just to get to work...I will be adding to this blog regularly.

sometimes?

A look to wikipedia is very instructing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro

"In fact, 31 of Muni's cars were originally made for MBTA and were rejected due to their poor quality and proneness to mechanical failures."

So, the rolling stock is old and even that, we inherited some crappy trains not suitable for the MBTA (Boston area).

When the T-third line opened, MUNI did not add more trains to its float. So, longer lines, more stops to service with the existing stock. That explains why I have to take a bus some morning (I live in Sunset) and pretty often the train switch back at Arguello, 19th Avenue or Sunset boulevard. It happened once I had to take four (4) different trains to commute from work to home.

MUNI - 1912-2007: Working hard for 95 years making your life miserable.

jonah - sounds like the riders continue to be MUNI's victims.