This Time, I'm Hating on Caltrain

Clearly my mistake was buying a 10-ride ticket this morning.

Last year I rode Caltrain 3-5 times one way a week. I bought tickets one at a time except for a 10-ride in the Fall, which I lost after about 5 rides. This year I'll be riding it both ways from SF to Palo Alto around 4 days a week. So on my first trip of the year I bought a 10-ride ticket at Millbrae and vowed to hang on to it. I validated a first ride in Millbrae, rode to Palo Alto, all was well.

Returning home after work, I stuck it into an inoperative validator at Palo Alto while a friend watched. "Oh, you didn't get the free pass from the company," he commented. Nope, we have change in our commuting program this year and we do get free passes for one mode of transit (3 zones of Caltrain in my case) but I missed the deadline. "These things only work half the time. The one down there probably works but whatever," I said, pointing to the other ticket machines 75 yards away. I put the ticket away and we sat down and talked. The train came and we got on. He went on forward to the restroom and do his own thing and I sat down and opened my computer.

I looked up and a conductor was going by, so I said, "Hey, sir...." You have to see the conductor promptly if you have a 10-ride that isn't validated so he can do some scribbling on it. I got out of my seat and started fishing around for my shiny new 10-ride. Meanwhile he didn't even notice me (or ignored me) and headed off to another car.

I would have taken off after him except that I kept looking for the 10-ride ticket, and couldn't find it. Not in my jacket pocket where I thought I put it. Not in any pockets. Not in my briefcase. Not on the floor. Not anywhere! This preoccupied me for several minutes as I more or less turned my belongings inside out trying to find it. But, nope. So I sat back down, philosophically accommodated the $50 I had just wasted, and started fiddling with my computer again. Whatever, I figured, it'll get sorted out.

A few minutes go by and a conductor appears, checking tickets. I really don't know if it was the same guy - the first one blew by me while talking to someone else and I never saw his face. He spends a while dealing with someone else who either didn't have a ticket or took a while finding it. Anyway, he walks up to me and I tell him, matter of factly, hey, I had a 10-ride ticket when I got on, validator wasn't working, now I can't even find the ticket.

I guess I expected he would do one of the following:

1) "Okay, man, sorry to hear that, you have to have a ticket, be sure you have one next time." This is what I see conductors do about 1/2 the time.
2) "I'm sorry, sounds like a bummer, but you'll have to get off the train and get a ticket." This is what I see them do the rest of the time.

Instead, what he does is flip open a pad and say, "You're giving me no choice, I think it's time to write you a TRAN-SIT CI-TA-TION." (He lingered over the syllables.) So he writes me up. I give him a series of "What the hell?" looks as he progresses down his pad. "I bought a new 10-ride in Millbrae this morning. I stuck it in the non-working validator 15 minutes ago. I *thought* I brought it on the train with me. But I don't have it."

He gives me a series of indifferent stares and repeats "You're not giving me any choice" a few times, then says, "Well, I work with people when they come get me right away." I pointed out that I tried to get his (or someone's) attention, failed, and then spent 10 minutes looking for my ticket. Then shortly after that he came along. What am I supposed to do, run down the hallway after him fumbling through my stuff trying to find my missing ticket?

Anyhoo, now I have a fare evasion ticket, requiring an actual court appearance in San Mateo (where I don't work and don't live), and I'm out 9 3-zone rides (well, I guess I got this one for "free"), and instead of being wryly annoyed at myself for throwing away money for a couple of pizzas, I've been fuming about this jerk for the past 2 hours.

Just for the record, "R KELLEY," or "R KELLET," (I can't tell your T from your Y) serial number 551, you are an asshole.

I have my banking statements and whatnot and it should be pretty obvious that I'm actually telling the truth whenever I show up in court. Hopefully I can get the conductor to appear, and get Caltrain to produce maintenance records for the broken validator.

If I weren't on a diet I'd go drink a whole bunch of alcohol calories now.

You're So Busted

I feel a little conflicted here. Let's examine the pros and cons.



Pro: The N waited quite a while for me as I made my way from Trouble Coffee down to the 46th Ave stop.

Con: That's because the operator was getting a sandwich at 7-11 across the street.

Pro: He said, "You ain't got to show me nothin'," as I got onto the train in front of him. I said he needed my token, but then noticed that he had helpfully strapped a stack of serve-yourself transfers onto the coin box with a rubber band.

Con: Same as the "pro."

Pro: The driver asked (as this photo was taking place), "Is that a camera?" I said, yes, it's a Tessina, actually a very small 35mm camera. He said "I've got a camera at home that takes 620 film. Now that's old!".

Con: As I got off at 22nd thinking how cool it was that an operator knew what 620 film was, the train took off with a piece of passenger's luggage still sticking out of the wide-open rear door.

Goes to show, you can be a nice, smart guy, and a lousy operator.

I Can't Breeeeeeeeathe!

I've had a horrible cold, or something like a cold but worse, for the past 4 days, and finally ventured out onto the N today.

So I'm riding in the front car next to the middle door, and suddenly somewhere around 22nd street, when the door opens, I'm blasted with this horrible gust from above that not only freaks out my entire olfactory system, but makes me feel like if I don't move, I'm going to die. Not the odor of pee or poo or vomit, or something rotting, or a paper mill, or one of the traditional awful smells. Instead, imagine a mixture of overly scented laundry detergent, and pesticide. Something like that. Imagine the mixture very strong, and warm.

I don't know what it was about it but immediately I felt disoriented and unhealthy. The door closed, and wherever the blast was coming from (the ventilation system? I don't know), it stopped. I could still smell it but from where, I couldn't tell. Then three streets down, the door opened again, and I was blasted by it again, felt instantly dizzy, claustrophobic, and nauseated, and I had to get out of the seat. I felt like I was being gassed! I left by the back door and got into the rear car. But I couldn't get it out of my head, and so I left the train entirely and waited for the next one.

I can tolerate quite a variety of less than ideal smells, or at least endure them while I get away, and I am one of the last people to complain that my environment is unhealthy, but this was freaky. Maybe it was someone's detergent or (horrible) perfume, and my nose was messed up from the cold. Later I was in the elevator standing next to someone who had been smoking and rather than smelling stale, the odor of his clothes was acrid and piercing. Maybe it's a new body spray from Axe. ("Here at Axe, our products make you so irresistible that we had to invent a spray to keep women away.")

But, of course, maybe someone sprayed Fresh Scent Nerve Gas into the ventilation system to kill some critters there, and used 50 times the recommended amount, or didn't let it air out afterward.

Either way, once was enough.

And the obligatory postscript: As the car I had exited took off uphill away from me, the rear door stayed open. I looked at a guy standing on the other side of it and shrugged, and he shrugged back. Then it closed.

Random Weird Moments, Part II

Every once in a while there's someone engaged in a troubling distraction in the close confines of public transit. For example, last year, I'd been riding the N Judah from downtown out to the Sunset, and suddenly there was this middle aged Asian guy (balding, stocky, but not fat), running back and forth between the front and back of the car going, in a baritone:

AAAAAAHH! AAAAHHHHHH!! AAAIIIIAAAHHHGHHGGGGG!!!

He was yelling plenty loudly enough to make it obvious that every single person in the bus (iPod or not) was actively ignoring him, in the hope that the screaming would be the worst of it. The yelling and running kept up for a little while, then suddenly, a guy in his 20s yelled:

SHUT UP!

Then something wonderful happened. The crazy Asian guy actually shut up. He sat down and spent the rest of his ride nodding and mumbling busily to himself.

Maybe I'll try this yelling shut up thing sometime.

The Nightly Bunch Report, and Other Happenings

Last night, after a little weirdness (see below), I got off a very slow N Judah in the Outer Sunset at around 11pm ... with 4 more trains right behind it. (Call it 3-1/2, because one was a 1-car train.)





Maybe it's just me, but this seems a little ... inefficient.

Where No One Has (Typically) Gone Before

Meanwhile, all this got started when I got off Caltrain at 10:00 and, to my delight, a couple of minutes after I started waiting on the N Judah platform, an N showed up. Everyone got off, we all waited a little while to see if the train was turning around at the platform, and when it apparently was, we boarded. I guess the operator wasn't paying attention to the dozen people getting onto his train, because shortly thereafter the train didn't turn and continued southbound. So there we were, sitting in the parking area and looking at the employees wandering outside, who really didn't pay much attention to us.

The operator never said a word, probably because he was embarrassed at dragging a load of passengers into the parking/switching area. Or maybe because he just doesn't talk.

Aside from That

Two women, who sounded questionably sober, engaged in a brief screaming match while the train was in the subway.

"Oh you bet, you're going to pay."
"I'll pay when I want to." [unintelligible]
"You just committed a felony by threatening me!"
[unintelligible]
"Driver! This woman is threatening me!"

Me, I would have pushed them both onto the tracks at that point.

Another Short Turn at Arguello

I really thought I had seen the last of this. But apparently not.

---

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joseph N. Hall
Date: Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Subject: Short turns on the N Judah again
To: Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Cc: Greg Dewar , Carmen Chu , Fiona Ma , "De Leon, Elvira"

(Greg, feel free to post an excerpt from this on the N Judah Chronicles. In fact I encourage you to. You can edit it as necessary.)

Dear Ms. Gordon,

If you recall your article of August 6:

Muni operators who shorten runs given warning

I was on an outbound N Judah last night (Nov 10) that made a short turn at Arguello, and it was *25 MINUTES* before another train arrived to pick up my fellow passengers on me. We were left IN THE DARK LATE AT NIGHT ON THE SIDEWALK FOR A HALF HOUR by the operator who said he was "ordered to" do this by control. This is probably complete bullshit; if it isn't then someone in control is equally responsible for this inexcusable action - and the operator should have ignored the instruction anyway. The train was labeled "Ocean Beach" when I boarded it at 4th & King and the roller did not change to Arguello until the operator exited the Market St. subway.

There were plenty of trains returning inbound (no shortage, in fact one passed us while the operator was switching back), and few outbound trains, so this train was needed outbound. Ahead of us some outbound passengers would have been waiting over 30 minutes for a train.

This is totally, spectacularly inexcusable and is the kind of unnecessary stupidity and callousness that creates such a negative perception of Muni customer service - when in reality it is only a small percentage of operators and managers who are responsible.

I've filed a complaint with Muni, and will contact Fiona Ma, Carmen Chu, and at least Sarita Britt (Green Division Supervisor), possibly Ken McDonald, today, to find out precisely why this turn occurred, and whether or not some kind of disciplinary action will in fact be taken.

Thank you very much. If you have a little time to continue pursuing this story I would very much appreciate it.

Best regards,

-joseph

Muni's Response to "Almost Ripped in Half..."

I'm a somewhat frequent user of the online Muni complaint form. I submitted one after seeing someone nearly killed on the N Judah platform at 4th and King. Sometimes I get responses. For example:

Thank you for your report regarding an incident with a MUNI transit operator on the N-Judah line, which occurred on September 26, 2008. Your report helps the Municipal Railway provide better service by allowing us to focus on areas of concern.

I have asked Sarita Britt, Green Division Superintendent to investigate this situation, and to implement corrective measures to prevent a reoccurrence of this type of behavior.

I appreciate your taking the time to inform MUNI of your concerns. We are earning a new reputation at MUNI, and riders’ feedback is crucial in achieving this goal.

If you need additional information regarding this report, please contact the MUNI Passenger Service Department at (415) 923-6275.

Sincerely,

Maria M. Williams

Manager, Passenger Service

SF Municipal Railway

My Year of Commuting

I've been photographing my commute on Muni, Caltrain, and BART almost all of 2008. Hopefully my project will be a Blurb book by the end of the year. In the meanwhile I've posted some of the photos on Flickr.

Interlock, Schminterlock

Alarmingly, around one half of the N Judahs I've taken eastbound from the Outer Sunset these past two weeks have had non working interlocks, or have had them disengaged. When I say this I mean that I've seen the trains move with doors open and/or see the doors open automatically while the train is moving. This used to be a rarity and now it seems to be de rigeur. Today the right rear door of the car I was riding in closed after the train started moving, the obstruction beep sounded, and the door reopened ... train kept on moving. What's the deal with this? Even scarier was when I used that door to exit and the operator shut it on me before the alighting passengers had even gotten in. Fortunately I didn't wind up riding down Judah half in, half out of the train.

I'll write Ken MacDonald and see what happens.

Photography is Allowed

While I was doing my usual thing of moderately discreetly taking photographs a little earlier today (this time at Montgomery station), I passed another photographer, this one a woman who was carrying a more conspicuous camera and a small metal folding ladder. (!) She was taking photos of handrails or something like that, from outside the paid area, in the corridor away from almost all foot traffic. But after a while, someone in the BART booth announced on the PA that "Photography is not allowed on BART property without permission."

Well, that would be wrong for any number of reasons, the most obvious of which is the actual BART policy:

WHEN A PERMIT IS NOT REQUIRED:

BART is a Bay Area icon. As such, it attracts more than a few amateur photographers. If you are a paying passenger making your way from point A to point B, then there is no specific prohibition to taking photographs in areas that are accessible to the public provided you do not appear to be a security threat, involved in a commercial activity or harassing other riders. If, however, you appear to be taking photographs of potentially sensitive areas or is obviously involved in some commercial enterprise like an advertising agency, BART employees, especially BART Police Officers, may approach you and ask you to identify yourself and possibly take further action against you.

Permission, which required, involves a time-consuming and relatively expensive ($250) permit process, but a woman taking photographs of nothing in particular is not a security threat, not harassing riders, and not doing anything commercial (if she was taking salable photographs, I'd like to know what kind of nut is buying them).

I use less conspicuous gear (I never use a camera on a neck strap, and don't shoot with a huge pro body) and keep my camera out of sight when I'm not using it. But her mistake was carrying the damn ladder (one of those white kitchen type step things about four feet high) around with her.

Maybe you guys in the booths could just chill out a little. Anyway, I've shot around 1500 photographs on Muni and BART this year, for a Blurb book project and possibly an exhibit, and no one bugs me about it.

The Wide Stance

As a friend of mine has observed, a few people like to sit on the bus or train with their knees two feet apart. Normally these are guys. Maybe they think their units need extra room.

This is fine by me as long as you aren't sitting next to me getting into my personal space. I can do without feeling your warm thigh pressed up against mine, you know?

Anyway, this morning, I had a wide stancer to my left, and the corresponding unwelcome warm thigh. (This person turned out to be a she, but this wasn't apparent until she got up and, um, walked away from me.) Then my left side was rejoined by another wide stancer, this one a hippie, and definitely a guy. I rode another 15 minutes with a warm hippie pressing against me.

Can I just say, ick?

Also: If you need a belt, and have a large, hairy, pasty white, extremely unpresentable man ass, please don't get up out of the seat next to me and stick nine inches of your immense nasty cheek cleft in my face. I may just bitch slap your lobe. (Then cut off my hand.)

Here We Go Down the Street with the Doors Open

Today's ride on the N westbound from the beach featured (multiple) doors that were open while the train was moving. This was actually a new thing for me!





Dear Operator: Can you please make sure your interlock is enabled, and whether it is or not, before you move the train, please look to see if the doors are actually closed. The moms whose kids don't fall out into traffic will appreciate it.

I was horrified a couple of weeks ago when this happened on the 4th and King platform. This time I guess I'm dulled. On the other hand, this time no one was stuck in the door as the train started moving.

You Ruined My Picture, Holmes

To Smoove B who stopped and turned around to flirt with the sly-looking girl eating a banana, before I could snap her photo, I hate you. All I needed was another couple tenths of a second.

Fallimente! Insuccesso!

Apparently Fleet Week came as a big surprise to Muni this weekend. That's the only ready explanation I have for my experiences Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday: I was headed downtown (not to North Beach); I started waiting for an N at 43rd & Judah at around 1:45. There was no N in sight, however - none at the turnaround and none on the tracks to the east. NextMuni said "29 minutes." Um, seriously, folks. When the train did arrive (about 29 minutes later), it had a broken door. After a while the operator put the door out of service, but it took at least 20 minutes spread out over several stops to get things "working." Unfortunately the door wasn't in shape to enter the Market St. Subway anyway, so when we finally got there, I got off at Church and walked down to Church station. Elapsed time to get downtown: 1:15. There were a bunch of people on the train who apparently thought they would get to see the Blue Angels from the beach. Um, on a normal transit system, maybe you could go 7 miles in 1-1/4 hours, but on Muni, think again.

Sunday: This time I really did want to get to the beach for the Blue Angels. So I got to the 43 & Judah stop at a little after 1:00. Again, no N in sight. (Why would anyone from the Sunset want to get into town for Fleet Week anyway?) So I walked down to Trouble Coffee for a mocha. An N did show up and it worked out; I got onto the N with a fresh mocha. (Haven't spilled food or drink on Muni yet, don't worry.) This time the trip downtown to Van Ness was relatively uneventful although the train (late) was packed by the time we got to the subway.

So I got off at Van Ness and started waiting for a 49/47. Oooeee, a 49 showed up after about 10 minutes, totally packed, and began the crawl north toward the Maritime Museum. Traffic was, of course, nightmarish (wouldn't want cops helping keep parking trollers away or keeping a lane clear for buses, or anything like that). So with Muni fully "functional" it still took me over 1-1/2 hours to find a decent viewing spot. That's less than 5 mph, by the way. (It really is less than 7.5 miles.)

Is there even a point in talking about the 30 Stockton back at 7PM?

It's not as if it should come as a surprise to Muni that when the Blue Angels are flying in an area of the city that is difficult to access and basically has no parking (except for garages charging a $40 "event" rate), people will be trying to ride mass transit in. So, maybe we could make that mass transit work?

I'm obliged to mention: If San Francisco city is allowed to take over the electric utility infrastructure in SF under the aegis of "green public power," how do you think SF Power will react to "this weekend is predicted to be hot"? By browning out every A/C in the city, of course.

The 29 Got Lost, but I Thought the N Couldn't

Words are superfluous.

Random Weird Moments Part I

You know those weird things that happen that have no particular context?

Some evening a while ago, I was riding the 44 O'Shaugnessy from Glen Park to 9th and Judah. Shortly after I boarded, two 20-30 year old women came on and sat on a front bench, opened their cellphones, and started talking a little loudly. Kind of: yap yap yap riiiiiight oh my god sure sure yap yap yap oooo really? ....

After a minute or so, the driver abruptly stopped the bus and turned around to face the two of them. He said: "If you ol' bitches don't shut up and stop makin' this an unpleasant environment for everybody I'm goin' throw you off this bus."

You haven't seen two women on cellphones taken more aback in your life, I bet.

The one in front piped up semi-assertively, "Excuse me, did you just call me a bitch?"

"Yeah, bitch," he said. "Now you shut up or get off my bus."

They folded up their phones and sat quietly, making unhappy faces, and the driver resumed his route. I have to admit, one less person talking audibly into a cellphone anywhere near me is one more person I don't mind being around.

Almost Ripped in Half and I Had My Camera Too! Shucks!

Seeing someone get caught in the door of an N Judah and then immediately ripped in half - while you sit a few yards away with a camera ready to go - is an opportunity that hardly ever presents itself.

I got off Caltrain around 10PM on Friday evening and headed toward the N platform where an outbound train was waiting. As a group of about a dozen Caltrain passengers and I crossed in front of the lead car, walk light on, the operator pulled up toward us. I gave him an exasperated "what the Hell?" gesture, because he had just blocked the lead car doors with the railing at the north end of the platform. And of course because he was piloting the huge Breda person-grinding machine that had just lurched toward me. Normally when an operator pulls up like this, he keeps the doors closed and then heads on down King St. while the passengers beat on the sides and flip him the bird. Anyway, the entire front car was blocked by the railing, which extended to within a few feet of the front door of the rear car. The railing stands close to the train - about one foot away.

Unexpectedly, the operator waited, opened the doors, and let us in the rear car while he was out of position on the platform. There was a guy excitedly darting back and forth on the platform asking people at random, "Is this Broadway? Does this go to Broadway?" "There's no Broadway here," offered one passenger semi-helpfully, as she hurried inside. The guy seemed entirely unable to decide whether to be inside or outside the train, and so he temporarily resolved the dilemma by standing in the front doorway, half inside the car, half on the platform. And at that moment, with the door wide open and starting to close, the train moved forward quickly.

The guy, with an expression of complete shock on his face, the kind of expression someone has only when he realizes he is just about to die, leaped backwards out of the door. (This is an expression I had actually never seen before, and even by itself, it was kind of cool to watch.) Almost immediately the railing whizzed by the still-closing door as we headed up King Street.

Of course, had the guy stayed in the door for a fraction of a second longer, he would have been bisected by the railing, and absolutely, without question, torn mostly or completely in half and been dead within 2 seconds of an untimely moment of vacillation.

And I would have been there with my camera!

Well, okay, though I would have been Weegee-on-the-spot until the police ushered me away from the grisly scene, I actually found this horrifying. An LRV is required (by State and Federal law) to have interlocks that prevent the vehicle from moving forward until all doors are closed, and that brake the vehicle if doors are opened while it is in motion. This is not an optional "nice to have" feature; it is a "must have otherwise people will die in ways that can't be shown on CSI" feature. To wit, the guy who was ground to bits beneath the N Judah between 31st and 33rd earlier this year (as in, he was distributed all the way from 31st to 33rd) may have been caught in the door, at least initially. And this confused young gentleman came within arm's length of a similar fate.

Several other passengers were left gaping as we pulled away. After a couple of stops I moved to the lead car and told the operator as we waited at the Embarcadero portal, "Hey, dude, your interlock is totally not working. There was a guy in the door when you pulled away back there at 4th and King." He looked a little my way and said nonchalantly, "Really?".

Yes, really, dude.

I got off at Embarcadero and headed up to the Muni booth where I told the lady inside, "That N I just got off of, the interlock isn't working at all, and the operator pulled away from the Caltrain platform with a door wide open and someone jumping out of it." She looked surprised and got on the phone.

From there I don't know what happened, but apparently no one was dragged to a grisly demise. I got on the next N and rode uneventfully back to the Sunset.

For those of you who care about such things, the rear car was 1550 and the lead was 1545. For the time being, you might want to step lively through the doors of 1550.

I have to point out that the fact that the LRV almost killed someone is not the fault of the equipment. (The equipment sucks, but that's a different story.) It's first the fault of the operator, who was obviously not looking to see if the train was clear down the right side. Checking both sides of the immense metal death hulk to see if they're clear of soft, squishy people is not optional. It's also the fault of whoever failed to find, report, and fix the problem with the interlock or allowed the LRV to be operated without the interlock on.

Another 29, Another FAIL

I got on the 29 this morning in plenty of time to make my work shuttle to Palo Alto. The bus was full and we passed up the usual dozen or so people on Sunset, but all was well until we turned around at Crespi and Varela (Park Merced), where the driver began to say things like: "What's she doing?" and "Well we may not be going anywhere with this bus today." We crossed 19th and our driver stopped, got out, had a quick word with an inspector who had apparently flagged her down, then pulled around the corner and stopped again. The inspector (an efficient-sounding, slender 50-ish woman) and the driver started talking about the outside right mirror on the bus. "I know, I was just trying to get everyone where they want to go this morning," she said.

But the inspector pulled the bus out of service and the driver offloaded us. I guess the reasoning was that we would run over fewer people, on average, if the mirror was set properly. Doing the arithmetic, I figured my shuttle would be 1-2 minutes gone (at least) by the time I got to Balboa Park, so I crossed to the M platform ....

So I'm in our downtown office today, which is fine, except that my management gets annoyed with me if I spend more than one day a week here, and Monday isn't the day I wanted to spend here this week.

Plus I really, really, really need coffee now. At least I can go take care of that in a few minutes.

I Should've Got off at Chrissy Field, Part I

So Saturday I was planning to take some photos of the Maltese Falcon crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge at low tide, 2:00 PM. It took me a while to get my incredibly disorganized gear together but eventually I set out at around 12:30 to catch a 29. NextMuni told me the bus would pick me up at my Sunset stop a little before 1. I figured, most of 45 minutes to get to some spot toward the east end of Chrissy Field, I'd have 15-30 minutes to spare, no big deal.

1PM passed and no 29. I asked a girl waiting on the bench next to me, "Have you been here a while?" 20 minutes she said. Eventually two 29s arrived together. The first was a 25th and Geary and the second, according to the driver of the first, was "going allllll the way." Sounded like my bus! So I got on, lugging over 30 pounds of camera gear, and a tripod, and got set for a scenic ride through the park and around Baker Beach.

Little did I know that on this Saturday morning, there had already been an accident on Lincoln. Then there was this:

Mile-long line for Academy of Sciences opening

The California Academy of Sciences finally opened its revolutionary, eco-friendly, glass-enclosed iconic building in Golden Gate Park on Saturday, and welcomed an enthusiastic invasion by tens of thousands of visitors waiting in line for five hours or more.

It took us at least 10 minutes to get into the park from about 22nd and Lincoln, and traffic was still inching along northbound on 19th. The reason for that became clear a few minutes later when we inched by a couple of cop cars behind a rear-end accident in the left lane. But at that point the road was wide open and it was clear sailing to Baker Beach.

After that, we continued to the Golden Gate Bridge, squeezed our way through some confused tourists, and started to enter the dubiously small bridge underpass. A 28 was coming the other way, though, and almost immediately our driver was window-to-window with the other driver saying things like "It won't work!" What definitely would not work was either bus continuing forward. Now the underpass is a very popular route for Muni, tourbuses, cyclists, pedestrians, and of course disoriented tourists in rental cars. Immediately vehicles stacked up behind both buses. It took two cops (who fortunately are easy to find there) and about 10 minutes to get our bus backed up and out of the way and then back into the tunnel, without the 28 in the way this time. At this point it was probably about 1:40, not good, but not panic mode, because Chrissy field was less than 5 minutes away.

Our driver was one of the most cheerful and good-humored drivers I've ever encountered on Muni, which was great up until this point, but I began to lose confidence when he started to say repeatedly, "I don't know my way around here. I've never driven this route all the way up here. I'm not supposed to be here." (Dude, step outside and look at the letters above your windshield.) Just out of the tunnel he stops next to an outbound 29 and asks "Have you got the lefts and rights for this route?"

Yes, we had a driver who had never driven the route and was asking another driver for his route sheet.

Good humor, it turns out, won't actually steer a bus. But the driver, cheat sheet in hand, did manage to find Chrissy Field by about 10 till. Hoping to get a little farther east to get a slightly better vantage point (I wanted to be farther from the bridge so I could get a larger variety of photos), I stayed on.

Unfortunately, after that, we proceeded to take a route that no 29 had ever taken before, and probably never will again - wandering aimlessly through the Presidio until somehow we wound up on California, then on Geary around 4th, and then of course he drove all the way to 25th and Geary and let us off. By then it was about 2:30 and a once-in-a-lifetime photo had already sailed away, so to speak. Clearly, my gambit to save a little less than a mile of walking with my gear had been a foolish one.

So, fuming at this point, I rode a 38 to Park Presidio and waited for a 28, along with about 50 other people (!!) who had apparently been there as long as an hour. Three or four 28s came by in a row and I got on the last one and around 3:00, ta-da!, I was back at the bridge. I wondered, could I get a photo of the yacht? Could it somehow be late? I hurried to the railing at the overlook, to see three huge sails disappearing behind Angel Island at least 5 miles away. The sight lasted maybe 10 seconds. Oh well. I sat at the inbound 29 stop and out of boredom took photos of tourists with a 300mm lens. Tourists are boring subjects, though, so I got back on an inbound 29 (you're thinking, do I have a hole in my head?). Figuring I would wind up taking some photos of sailboats or something I did get off at Chrissy Field this time, then hoofed it to the beach and set up a tripod. (I really dislike carrying tripods and I was determined to get at least a little use out of it.) Turns out, most of the sailboats had left the Golden Gate for parts more interesting. The alternative of taking telephoto photos of couples walking in wind jackets on the icy beach was even more boring than just standing around being bored.

A group of people in their 20s came by and asked, as groups of carefree happy people in their 20s often do upon seeing a tired looking 40 year old guy set up with a tripod and an impressively large white lens, "Would you take our picture with the bridge in the background?" Sure, no problem, I took three okay photos with their point and shoot, and then one of them asked was I there photographing the big ship? No, I missed it, grumble, my bus driver got lost, grumble, et cetera. "Well I think it's still out there; it sailed around Angel Island and then came back."

I really couldn't see a thing - Belvedere (where the yacht was to be moored) was 4-5 miles away, and although it was a reasonably clear day there was still some haze. Even an immense ship with sails over 190 feet high looks pretty small at that distance. Not obvious to the naked eye unless you know what you're looking for. But after some searching ... I thought I saw something ... and even though they look like photos from a beached spy satellite, I did get a few snaps of the Maltese Falcon.

But wait ... that's not the end ...

Cash Passengers the Wrong Way and the Right Way

So on the day when I met Greg Dewar a couple of weekends ago, we were both riding the N inbound on a sunny Saturday. It was a fairly busy day and the N was about 20 minutes late (I called 311 to complain while I was waiting). By the time we got into Cole Valley we had stopped for a couple of wheelchairs and had also no doubt picked up a number of cash passengers (being a sunny weekend day and all). Greg and I were in the second car, however, and although there were a few standees it was nothing approaching full.

To my surprise, the operator closed the doors pulled away leaving a dozen or so people standing. He announced, "There's another train right behind us," which means only, "There's another train. Today." And from that point he passed up most of the passengers who would have paid cash, between Cole Valley and the Market Street tunnel - all the while with room for 50-100 passengers in his second car. So I called 311 again.

I was on an inbound N this past Saturday around 11AM - during Outside Lands - and we had the same situation, but with a huge number of cash fares. So when we got to Cole Valley, I started hearing "didididididi shing BEEP! dididididi BEEP! didididid shing BEEP!" faintly over the PA. Apparently the mike was open and I was hearing zillions of cash passengers boarding. Then, after a little delay, people bearing transfers began to trickle into the rear car. Yes, the operator was letting people board and pay, and then asking them to move to the rear car. This repeated for the rest of the surface stops until we entered the tunnel with a full load and hadn't passed up a single passenger.

Almost like he was trying to get everyone where they wanted to go.

Weird, huh?

Stupid Passenger Grouch

How is it that regular riders on a half dozen consecutive stops today couldn't manage to operate the rear doors on an Orion hybrid?

Stupid passenger: "Back door!" Bangs on door. Door doesn't open.

Adjacent passenger: "Just hold your hand there." Door opens.

Next stop.

Stupid passenger #2: "Back door! The back door won't open!" Bangs on door. Door doesn't open.

Adjacent passenger: "Put your hand on it." Door opens.

Next stop.

Stupid passenger #3: "Back door! Open the back door!" Bangs on door. Door doesn't open.

Adjacent passenger: "It won't open if you bang on it. Hold your hand there."

And so on.

Muni was, of course, foolish in calculating that Muni riders would be intelligent enough to operate an assortment of door opening mechanisms. But then again, a rat would have no difficulty learning to operate two different types of doors as long as it received a sufficient stimulation of its reward center upon success. So what is it going to take to straighten out these otherwise high-functioning* passengers? Do we need to install hoppers of food pellets at bus stops?

Good news: Today's driver filled up the bus.

*Remember, what "high-functioning" means to psychologists and behavioralists is more along the lines of "generally does not drop trou in meetings" than "got Ph.D. at age of 16."