Around the Muni in 80 Days: Man Plans S.F. Transit Odyssey

Bryan Dempler

'Man vs. Muni' dude Bryan Dempler has a long road ahead...

​Every Day, Bryan Dempler takes a train downtown for work. Then he take a train home. Then he takes a train back downtown for night school. And then he takes a train home. Now he's come up with a novel new way to spend his days: He wants to spend more time on trains.

The 22-year-old Lower Haight resident has launched "Man vs. Muni" -- a quest to ride all 80 Muni lines in 80 days. That Muni pared back its lines to 70 on Dec. 5 makes Dempler's life marginally easier; he was able to skip that ride on the 7-Haight he'd planned for later this week and jump right to the J, T, L, K, F ("awesome"), 10 Townsend, 21-Hayes, 22-Fillmore, 38-Geary, and Treasure Island's 108.

Incidentally, Dempler's journey is not unprecedented. A trio of masochists rode every last Muni line in 2004 in an amazing three days. But while they were sprinting, Dempler is running the marathon.

The Gilroy High School graduate has been posting photos of his bus journeys, jotting down write-ups, and tweeting out live transit updates. The Man vs. Muni Web site is newly born.

All of which leads to one big question: Bryan, what the hell are you doing? 

​His answer: Homework.

Dempler is an advertising student at Academy of Art University; a recent assignment was to undertake a fictitious ad campaign for a real client. He chose Muni. He opted against creating a series of faux billboards ("Like Slow Transit? Urine Luck!") or radio jingles ("Wanna roll around the city?/Well this is it/Take a Muni bus/Watch where you sit"). Instead, he thought the online journal of a Muni odyssey might draw in readers and dispel some of the overheated rhetoric about the system's shortcomings.

So far, in fact, the NextMuni time announcements have all been spot on, reports Dempler. He's enjoyed his rides. Though, yes, there has been urine, and crazy people yelling, and discord. But that's life.

"Real life happens on Muni," he says.

Wow -- now there's your slogan!

Photos   |   Bryan Dempler