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.

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.

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.

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 ...

Pass-ups meets Most Ignored Federal Law #1

From the driving-is-hard-let's-go-shopping dept.

A flawless double performance by today's morning driver on the 29 Sunset:

1. The bus was an old one with no annunciator. This allowed the driver to strive for complete perfection, by saying not a single word between Irving and Ocean. Not a single stop was announced audibly or visibly in any way. Score: 10.0 / 10.0.
2. And evidently as a Muni driver, when the mood strikes, you no longer need to pick up passengers - even if your bus isn't full. Although the bus had room for 10-20 more passengers, the driver didn't make even one stop between 19th and Ocean - same as yesterday. Score: 10.0 / 10.0.

1) is illegal; next.

With regard to 2), Muni counts a refused boarding as a pass-up only if there is no bus with room following within 3 minutes. But what about when the first bus isn't full? Why should a passenger have to watch a bus go by when it still has space, even if the wait for the next one is "less than 3 minutes."

Not even thinking of picking these people up....

Anyway, I've been on the 29 3 out of 4 mornings this week, and we've blown by 30-40 (would-be) passengers so far. Nice work, Muni!

And also:

Oh my God, this is funny. I thought it was only in South America that people ride on trains. I wonder, is or isn't fare evasion one of the things you could be charged with for doing this? You're not inside a paid area when you're clinging to the outside of a vehicle, are you?

Pass-ups Part 3: Back in School

From the see-ya dept.

The kids are back in school and the 29 is full again in the morning. The bus ran 5-10 minutes late and it was almost standing room when it arrived at Irving. We blew past Noriega, completely full, leaving about 10 people standing there. We passed up every single stop between 19th and Ocean.

The cool thing is, this time, I have pictures! With any luck you'll be able to see the sad faces of people holding out bus passes as we drove by.

Yesterday the bus also ran late and was full when it arrived at Irving. However, there was another bus right behind it, as in, right behind it.

My back-of-the-envelope calculation is that if you board the 29 somewhere between Judah and Wawona, between 8 and 9 in the morning, you will be passed up by at least one out of every 10 buses. Probably closer to one out of 5. If you live on the hill between 19th and Ocean, maybe one out of every 20?

Hey, it's only $1.50; what do you expect?

Freezing to Death at Taraval (Where were the 29s? Part 2)

So Saturday around noon it was beautiful out here in the Sunset. I had such plans for photography. I was going to shoot some street candids then in mid afternoon walk from Sloat to Judah up the beach, and take more candids and some IR photos. Part A worked out well; I took the N to Noe, then walked down to Castro Station, and took the L or K or something through the tunnel. I'd never been to Forest Hill station so I got off there and actually walked the 120 or so steps up, then back down. (Damn, that's a lot of stairs. They're complaining about the proposed Chinatown station being 100 feet underground? Forest Hill is already 75 or 80. Like, big deal.)


Then I rode the Taraval to the end of the line. Still, from inside the train, it looked like a beautiful day! I got out and was instantly disabused of that notion. It was only about 3PM but the weather had changed .... It was about 50 degrees and the wind was blowing. Blowing. So much, in fact, that sand had drifted partially across the parking lot opposite Sloat. I tried to walk down to the water but my hair, pockets, and eyes were filling up with sand. I turned around, and so much for that. Problem was, now I was stuck down near Sloat and I needed to be on Judah, and it was just no fun anymore. I needed a bus. I'm embarrassed to admit that I forgot that the 18 runs on 46th; I began my search for it at 45th and kept walking uphill. "Where is the bus stop?" I wondered. I zigzagged my way to Taraval and finally thought, okay, I will just walk up to Sunset and take the 29.

What all this very very long story is coming to is that when I got to the 29 stop, the nextmuni banner read 33 minutes. On Saturday afternoon. In godawful weather.

That's service for ya.

I had lost interest in freezing to death so I took the L back to Van Ness and then the N home. Sooo sloooow. Oh well. I had a nice conversation on the way back, which was unusual, and cool.

Oh. I thought it was kind of neat that the Taraval bus stop faced away from the water, to shield passengers from the weather. But then again, if you're shielding yourself from the weather, how do you see the bus, and vice versa? The striped glass isn't all that transparent from a distance. A well intentioned, but fundamentally stupid, design.

Honesty ... and Unrealistic Expectations

So this was what the inside of the N Judah looked like early St Patrick's Day afternoon:


Into this mayhem comes a young couple at Stanyan and Cole. Both are wearing small packs. The girl says to her guy, "We couldn't get on in the front to pay so one of us needs to go," in a pleasant tone of voice. "Here, I'll hold your backpack." To my amazement, the guy started working his way forward. I had my doubts he would ever make it. Maybe if he was on fire, as in, literally on fire.

I couldn't help it - I said to her, "You realize, you are probably the only person who ever got on an N Judah this crowded who tried to pay."

She said, "I know but they are probably checking tickets downtown."

Probably not, was my theory.

The Adventures of Officer Duh and the Bus Lane

Of all the places to pull someone over, why choose the westbound Balboa Park bus stop at 9:30 in the morning?