Muni's 'Service Cuts Monday' Off to Delightful Start

Meanwhile, on Muni...

​The first working day following Muni's enactment of 10-percent service cuts on Saturday did not run like a Swiss watch.

Standing around and waiting for buses and trains to not show up turned out to be what you did this morning if you were lucky. A delightfully timed SNAFU prevented N and J trains from heading underground at Duboce and Church, forcing scads of cheerful commuters off the light-rail vehicles and onto shuttle buses. Of course, folks on the K and M trains were already used to shuttle buses, as repairs at St. Francis Circle conveniently commenced on the very same day as Muni's service cuts.

Speaking personally, your humble narrator spent about an hour and 15 minutes commuting from said Duboce and Church area to Mission Bay -- a journey the trip planner calculates ought to take all of 22 minutes.

Here's the blow-by-blow:

Jim Herd

The morning commute did not whiz by...

​

• Run like hell to make N train at Duboce and Church. It pulls away without me; wait time listed on 511 as 16 minutes;

• Wait time listed at two minutes for inbound T train at Church Street Station. Run like hell;

• Miss train. That was never two minutes;

• Grab inbound L train, deboard at Powell;

• See incoming N train listed as "N Embarcadero" instead of usual "Mission Bay." I ask driver "This train is going to Embarcadero?" He replies "Every train going this way goes to Embarcadero," and drives off. Ask a stupid question...

• Run up to Market and Fourth to catch the 30 or 45. Wait 10 minutes. Catch the 45;

• Did you know they're tearing Fourth Street to shreds? Bus crawls toward Cal train Depot, until ...

• Detour! Bus loops around three blocks to go one final block. Sadly, this is quicker than motoring the one block on even a normal day. Driver and I share a laugh about this.

If this is a secret Muni-Industrial Complex plot to make us work harder -- well, mission accomplished. Many folks would rather toil until the bewitching hour than go through that again.