Muni Passenger Confronts Driver for Deliberately Skipping Passenger on 28-19th Avenue Line

With the advent of smart phone cameras means that the actions you do, may get you caught by a person you don't even know.  It's being used more regularly these days to capture memorable moments and when the stuff 'hits the fan.'

What happens when a Muni operator does something totally inappropriate by doing it on purpose?  Most of the time, it is ignored or nobody reports it to 311, even if passengers knows what the operator did was totally inappropriate and deliberate.

Earlier today, I received an e-mail from Tiffany, a long time of my blog.  She gave me the link to the video (as seen on the top of this blog entry) and asked for my thoughts.

From reviewing the video, it shows a passenger confronting a Muni operator on why he could not stop for an extra five seconds to pick-up an older lady passenger whom was running for the bus.  From what is shown in the description of the video (below), the driver skipped the elderly passenger with deliberate intent, and therefore the young man confronting the driver must have ticked the driver so much he pulled over and shut-off the engine.

Video description from YouTube: "On July 2nd, 2012, As I was taking the bus home on the 28 line, San Francisco Muni, a lady was running to catch that bus. As soon as the bus stopped, the lady was still running and approaching near it. But the driver did not stay stopped for her and then sped off. At all the assumptions of the passengers on that bus, the driver did that on purpose and arrogantly. This is not the only time I see this kind of action of a Muni driver. However, this time, the passenger in front of me has finally stepped up and actually ran to the door for that lady. The driver then was displeased and began arguing with him. Then the driver stopped the bus on all of us, and this is where I started video taping as they began a shouting match. I'm pleased to see that someone has finally have the guts to confront the arrogance among Muni drivers. And it's also nice to know now that Muni drivers views us riders as "peons" after all its complete lack of friendly customer services and employee bonuses during financial deficit?"

From viewing the video, the driver pulled over on the northeast corner of 19th Avenue and Irving (the Chevron gas station), therefore it seems the driver must have intentionally skipped the elderly passenger at the Irving bus stop.  Based on the location, this incident happened on the 28-19th Avenue line going northbound to Fort Mason.

Akit's Opinions
While I'm not a fan of the heavy swearing from the passenger, I commend him for being brave and sticking up for the female passenger whom was skipped.  Muni passengers needs to stand-up for injustice, instead of staying silent.  So what if the driver pulls over and refuses to continue on with the journey?  Might make some fellow passengers frustrated, but will further humiliate the operator whose "on-time" window is ticking away.

My method isn't to do a face to face confrontation, but to use the power of my blog to tell the story, such as when I had a problem with the same 18-46th Avenue bus driver who kept driving to the far front end of the bus stop when all the passengers was waiting in the middle of the stop, at least 40 feet away from the front door.  A year later, I caught the same driver continuing to not give courtesy at the same bus stop.

I know Muni installed the DriveCam system on their buses to record the front of the bus, what does the video show on Muni's end, or is this going to be some kind of "internal investigation" where the public will never see the footage from the bus?

Lastly, what action is going to be taken on Muni operators who continue to deliberately skip passengers?  It's a public service folks; heck, let's remember the bus can be up to 4 minutes and 59 seconds behind schedule and still be "on-time."  An extra five seconds wouldn't hurt.

Caught Same Muni Driver a Year Ago Continuing to Treat Passengers Poorly

If you recall back in late August 2011, I mentioned about a Muni operator on the 18-46th Avenue line that continued to treat passengers poorly.  In one incident, he pulled over to the front end of a very long bus stop at La Playa and Cabrillo instead of the middle of the stop where the bus shelter is located; but with no passengers requesting to exit the bus, he sped off while I noticed passengers in the shelter grabbing their groceries and starting to move towards the bus.

So did the driver learn his lesson all these months?  Nope.

Just yesterday, I just finished my medical appointment and went down to my local Safeway at LaPlaya and Cabrillo (also known as "Safeway by the Beach") to pick-up something for dinner.  When I walked back to my car, I heard the familiar sound of the 18-46th Avenue inbound bus to Legion of Honor come by.

When I took a look at who was driving, I noticed the familiar cap the driver of the previous incident wore.  Thinking he might pull that unfriendly trick on passengers again, I quickly pulled out my iPhone and started recording video.  You can view the video at the top of this blog entry.

The short video you watched shows the same driver pulling all the way in front of the bus stop, instead of stopping near the cluster of passengers waiting next to the bus shelter.  The 'regular' size Muni buses are 40 feet long, and the back end of the bus was as the front end of the shelter, so I'd estimate the driver pulled 40 feet too far forward (as usual) to discharge and pick-up passengers.

Akit's Opinion:
I personally feel this is totally rude and disrespectful.  He knows the shelter is where all the passengers wait for the buses and nearly all the other drivers stops in front of the shelter, but decides to go all technical and pull to the far forward end of the bus stop.

I'm also concerned about the elderly passengers.  I normally notice many older passengers riding the 18 from that particular stop, and forcing them to haul Safeway groceries an additional 40 feet while worrying if the driver is going to close the doors and drive off is not a great feeling.

Lastly, wouldn't you think the incident back in August I blogged about and calling it in to 311 solved anything or disciplined the operator for being discourteous?  It seems like he hasn't learned his lesson.  Perhaps this blog entry doing some public shaming will teach him a lesson.

For the record, this most recent incident happened:
Thursday, June 7, 2012
5:07PM
LaPlaya and Cabrillo
Bus #8439
Route: 18-46th Avenue
Destination: Legion of Honor

Akit Already Knows Muni Won't Take Action Against an 18-46th Avenue Driver - So I Will Just Report it Here

When you ride Muni on a regular basis and strictly follow the time schedule, it's likely your bus operator will be the same person. This is especially true for me when I take the 18-46th Avenue line because it operates on 20 minute frequencies during rush hours.

But when you ride with the same driver, you start to notice certain patterns that are just inappropriate, and I finally got fed-up enough to call 311 and report the driver for poor practices. But as we well know, reporting problems to Muni just gets ignored, so I'm deciding to take another step and use the power of my blog to get a wider audience.

Before I tell you about what happened, did you know that in order for Muni to take action against a bus driver, the union rules states that you have to surrender your name and contact information? I usually call 311 and just state I refuse to provide that info, but without it, Muni can't do shit.

Here's the whole story:
Bus: 8417
Line: 18-46th Avenue inbound (to Legion of Honor)
Time: Bus leaves at 6PM at Stonestown (outbound terminal for 18 line)
Driver #: Not known
Description of driver: African American male, thin build, in his 40s.

First incident: Stop at Lake Merced & Font (SF State)
I normally ride the 6:05PM bus arrival at that particular stop because it's just a short walk from my office and it takes me close to my home in the Outer Richmond District. The same driver always picks up passengers 50 feet ahead of the yellow mark on the pavement that indicates the bus must stop there to pick-up passengers.

To make it even more amusing, I flagged the driver by standing near the yellow mark as it was about 200-300 feet away, enough time for the driver to gently hit his brake and hazard lights, but every single time, pulls fifty feet ahead of the yellow mark, thereby forcing any passenger waiting there to rush over to the front door.

Here's a streetsview map from Google:

View Larger Map

On the map image, you'll see a bench on the right side, and just in front of it on the pavement is the yellow mark indicating it's a bus stop for the 18 line. All other Muni operators who drives on this line always stops very close to the yellow mark and the bench, but the regular driver of the 6PM bus doesn't; that driver pulls up to where you see the green "Font" sign, about fifty feet ahead of the bench/yellow mark.

Second incident: Stop at La Playa & Cabrillo
The bus stop at La Playa & Cabrillo next to the Safeway supermarket is a really long bus stop of about 400-500 feet, and the passenger shelter is in the middle of the long bus stop. This stop is so big because back in the day, Muni used that long red zone as a terminus for the 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch, and those articulated buses are a good 60 feet long. These days, it's not used as a terminus stop because Muni built a terminal area for the 5-Fulton and 31-Balboa in an empty lot just across the street, and the 38-Geary Ocean Beach branch doesn't exist ever since the 18 line was forced to take over that route.

View Larger Map

Since the bus stop is so huge, the same driver always decides to pull to the very front end of the bus stop, this means the people sitting or standing near the passenger shelter has to walk about 50-75 feet just to catch this particular bus. When I ride at other times with other drivers, they stop as close to the shelter as possible, and that even includes the 31-Balboa. A lot of times, the passengers are mostly senior citizens carrying grocery bags, and making them rush to catch a bus that pulled 75 feet in front is just rude and disrespectful.

Here's what made it worse. Yesterday, the driver did the same tactic: Pull the bus to the front end of the bus stop (very close to where that white truck is). Nobody wanted to exit the bus (did not ring bell), and there was about three people sitting in the shelter. The driver slowed down upon approach to the front end of the stop, and I noticed in the window, two people standing-up wanting to catch the bus when they saw it. The driver assumed nobody wanted to board, so he picked-up speed and continued on. I took off my headphones and hollered at the driver, "wasn't there people who wanted to board?" I got no response.

By this point, I was fed-up with this driver. He doesn't give any respect to passengers pulling-up close to the passenger shelter at La Playa & Cabrillo and doesn't make an effort to stop at the yellow marking at Lake Merced & Font. Oh, but he'll allow any of his friends to board at any point along the route that's not a designated bus stop.

Now that I told my story online WILL MUNI TAKE SOME ACTION? It seems complaining to 311 just goes through the cycle of nowhere.

Another reason why I don't ride Muni

For the past few days, local San Francisco news media outlets, including the Chronicle has been reporting about the new "T" Third Line, which replaces the classic "15" Third Street bus line that has been operating on San Francisco streets for many decades.

This new project has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and a five year construction project in order to promote gentrification in the low-income areas, such as Visitacion Valley. Gentrification has already started a phenomenon in the Mission Bay district with the extension from the Embarcadero MUNI station to all the way to the Caltrain terminal at 4th street. Much of the credit also goes to the Pac Bell Park/SBC/AT&T Park that opened in 2001, and in six years, has skyrocketed the price of land and new condos and businesses have established themselves to cater to the baseball fans and people looking for a quick metro ride to downtown for work.

But back to the new "T" line's woes. The Chronicle reports that the new "T" line is still having some operating problems since opening for public use on Saturday, and passengers are complaining of delays ranging from 30 minutes to one hour. Typical train frequency is supposed to be 8 minutes, but frequent train breakdowns, electricity problems, and clogging in the Market Street tunnel is making passengers upset.

Does anyone remember Muni's classic "meltdown" when the metro was so clogged that people hated Muni for at least a year? I was stuck in a tunnel for 15 minutes with no air conditioning. The reason, they were running their new automated train control system, and it was not working well with the old trains, and other trains had to run manually, causing headaches with the system.

"T" means trouble, says the Chronicle. It makes people wonder, is it really worth getting in your car and paying expensive gas and parking fees for being inconvenienced by Muni? I say yes because I got fed-up with Muni a year ago, and now I drive everywhere I need to be. It's definitely faster, and while I pay about $25 every few weeks to fill the tank, I say it is really worth it.

Let's summarize my rants:
Muni's "T" line needs some work
Bring back the 15 line until the "T" is working
Just another Muni meltdown?
Just drive

CSU Strike?

If you haven't heard the word, the California State University faculty association has voted and the tally is that a strike has been authorized.

Read it here.

Other than the cooling off period before the universities go on a rotating strike, just how much will this affect students?

I know that some students will celebrate by sleeping-in late and enjoying their nice day without the pressure of turning in their homework.

Others would say that it would impact them, especially that there are only about six weeks left in the academic year and that some also needs to complete their semester projects.

For undergrads... they are screwed. Grad students are a little more lucky, depending on their program. Grads only working on their thesis work will not be affected because it is just independent work. Grads taking seminar classes won't be in too much trouble either because some classes are a little more laid back and flexible in their assignments.

I don't really like strikes, especially if it will deeply affect my daily activities, but I really think that professors and lecturers deserve a higher salary for the amount of education they receive. This may sound interesting, but if you work as a bus driver, you'd earn more or equal the salary of a professor. When comparing education, a bus driver may only need a H.S. education, when a professor needs a PhD.


If they do strike... please stop using those generic ass chants that everyone else uses! They are so annoying!

Here's some examples:
"What do we want? (Bla bla bla) When do we want it? Now!"
"Hey hey, ho ho, (bla bla bla)'s got to go!"

Think of something creative, like imitating Gov. Arnold's voice: "Hey Ka-Lee-Forn-Ya, I'm gonna turm-inate your education! I'll pay you to wash my Humm-ahh (hummer)."

Or how about playing fart sounds over a bullhorn, and commenting: "Does it smell like Chancellor Reed in here? I guess passing gas is better for him than giving us a new contract."

Or how about an improvised rap jam? or a song parody?

Let's summarize my rants:
They don't want to strike, but the faculty may be forced to do so.
I'm gonna be a bus driver!
Stop using annoying strike chants!