This Just In: Muni Really Does Suck

Hi. I suck.

Bitching about Muni is a San Francisco pastime, but I like to save my commentary for those really special times when it really is the most asstastic way to get around town. I'm talking to you, Muni Driver who closed the doors on me and laughed as you drove away. And you, unforgiving prick transit cops who ticketed my husband for a torn transfer and then threw him and my toddler daughter off the train and onto the cold concrete of Montgomery Station. Oh yes, those things sucked big time. But in general Muni has been good to me, and I don't use up my complaining power, lest I become the little girl who cried Suck.

But lately it's been different. In the past six months or so I've been wondering, is it just me or does Muni suddenly blow goats like it's never blown before? After years of mostly okay service, suddenly we have long waits for trains, bottlenecks where they never existed before, excessively cranky drivers, and inexplicable route changes (if I get on the N Judah, I should end up at the ballpark. That is just the way it is. I don't care if it makes the T and J lines feel left out.) Am I going crazy or is Muni just plain bad these days?

Well, it's official. It's not just me. Muni is truly fucked. The Chronicle says so. There is an excellent story in today's Chron by the sublime Rachel Gordon about how woefully screwed up Muni is. There's no money, there are huge shortages of employees across the board, and the employees Muni does have are reverting to the good old days of punching their time cards in their jammies and going back home to snooze and watch The View. The head of the Muni agency is actually admitting that things are far, far beyond bad and we're not just hallucinating when we read that NextBus sign and it tells us the next train is coming in 37 minutes.

I'm so glad this story came out today. Because Friday was a journey into the ninth circle of transportation hell for the Polito family. We had tickets to the As vs. Giants at Pac Bell Park (fuck you, I'll call it what I want). Game start time was 7:15, so we all rolled out of the house and up to the Cole and Carl stop at 6:20 or so. We saw a train leave the stop going inbound. We could have sprinted and made it, but we thought: oh ho ho, we'll get the next one. It's rush hour and game night, they'll be another train along in a few minutes, right? RIGHT?

Ha ha ha.

NextBus told us that we would be waiting 18 minutes for the next train. Or we could really settle in and get the next train after that....in 38 minutes. We then proceeded to wait the longest 18 minutes I've experienced since I was in heavy childbirth labor. Only this time the kids were on the outside and getting hungry and cranky and not being understanding about the delay. About 25 minutes later, we boarded an overcrowded train with our wild animals and inched our way toward Embarcadero station to change trains, because you know, we really hated that direct line to the ballpark. It really wasn't working for anyone. You're right, Muni, we'd much rather get off and change trains to go the last 3 stops on the J Church. Brilliant.

Anyway. To make a long story slightly less so, we spent the next 25 minutes crawling toward the last stop, where we met with a bottleneck stretching back past Montgomery station and approximately 10,000 angry and already drunk Giants and As fans comparing body paint and getting antsy. We took a cab to the game. The way back? More of the same! Hooray.

We had hoped to get to the ballpark at start time and scoot out early after 90 minutes or so. Instead, we got there at 8:30, when we originally wanted to LEAVE, and left at 10pm to get home close to 11. Why yes, those were our kids looking like satan's assistants on the way home, thanks to sleep deprivation and having to wade through transportation bullshit that would cause even the most forgiving and patient adult to go bugfuck.

So there you have it, Muni sucks. Muni, you suck. I say so, and Rachel Gordon says so. Clean up your act. In 2 weeks, I'll take my leave of you and begin riding the shiny happy low-emissions party buses of Boulder that make you look like a fleet of broken down mule wagons.

Until then, you owe me Giants tickets. Club level, motherfuckers.