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.