A Muni bus stop at the corner of Van Ness and McAllister was filled with a mixture of Outside Lands concertgoers and regular passengers trying to board a westward 5 Fulton bus.
As is usual every year, Muni doesn't seem to bother putting extra buses on the route during the Golden Gate Park music festival...
...so it's a predictable disaster when the 5 Fulton line becomes so crowded that they stop picking up passengers altogether, leaving hundreds of people stranded.
Meanwhile, a whole fleet of empty buses is shuttling invisible people from the Civic Center to the northern waterfront for America's Cup festivities.
Update: At 3:00 PM today, there were suddenly no queues at the corner, along with new signage announcing special bus service to Outside Lands on something called the 5L Limited. Since "this blog is an extremely powerful publication" and "Muni is a swift, nimble organization" are both dubious propositions, let us just call this latest turn of events kismet. For a schedule of the 5L Limited, but without a schedule of where they actually stop and pick up people, click here for the Muni Diaries post.
Good news. Ran into the same problem once trying to get bus back
ReplyDeletefrom Bay to Breakers exhausted and with aching feet.
I would not underestimate the power of your blog. Civic Center rules! And if something motivated MUNI to get off its rear and be smart for once...all power to whatever that was
ReplyDeleteI ended up walking home from Outside Lands on Saturday Night along with thousands of others. Six miles. Not the worst thing for me, but I feel badly for out town folks who were left utterly stranded in a major American city at a major music festival. It was a bonanza day for Uber and other ride share operations, though. Sunday's arrangements were MUCH better for me at least, although it always feels that way when you're the one inside the bus passing masses of humanity that will NEVER get the bus.
ReplyDeleteGood point about America's Cup contingencies.
I'm getting a bicycle for next year's fest. MUNI has failed to keep pace with San Francisco. Full stop.
Dear DbV: Thanks for the first-hand report. I think Muni drivers are a lot better in every respect than they were when I moved here in the 1970s, but Muni management has fallen into a sinkhole of stupid that only gets deeper with each passing year. Weird.
ReplyDelete