Archive for the ‘Wayfinding / Signage’ Category
Downtown SF Stations: Frustratingly Amateur
I generally try to keep the posts here above the realm of merely whining, but every once in awhile, a little whining is in order. You may have caught the recent SFist article about the broken change machine at Church Station — and the would-be rider pleading with the station agent to take her money, only to be told to go to another station with a functional change machine.
Sorry, but it is inexcusable to require that patrons use these change machines, and then allow them to sit broken and unusable for any period of time longer than about one hour. San Francisco only has a handful of subway stations to begin with, and of those, even fewer feature SFMTA-maintained change machines. The fact that riders without passes are still feeding fistfuls of coins into turnstiles to pay fare is already pretty deplorable — but telling riders (customers!) that their only option to pay fare for the train is to somehow travel to another station (not on the train, of course) and make change there is the type of interaction that only cements the widely-held view that Muni really could not care less about its riders, customer service office notwithstanding.
I recently found myself at Powell Station without fast pass, because the pass had mysteriously hidden itself under piles of paper on my desk. Upon opening my wallet, what do I discover but… a single $5 bill. Great: the denomination of bill you cannot get change for at the downtown stations. One minute later, I was back upstairs purchasing a bottle of water to get change, and then again on the platform — apparently having just missed a train I would have taken. Is this really the sort of complication riders should have to deal with? Of all things that Muni should make easy for riders, paying the fare is right at the top of the list.
All of the above is a clear reminder of the fact that San Francisco’s downtown subway stations could stand to be improved, especially in terms of making them clearer to navigate. Imagine you are a traveler entering one of these stations for the first time, with little to no familiarity with BART or Muni. Perhaps you wander for a bit between station booths, trying to ascertain the difference between the two systems and to determine where to catch the right train. There, you are greeted by the following “professional” signage:
Mapping Bay Area Transit
To start, I would like to wish all readers a happy Pi Day. (This post was published at 1:59 pm with good reason!) But now, onto the real business of this post.
It is hardly news that Bay Area transit websites are, on the whole, rather lackluster. The 511 Transit Planner has the benefit of covering for the Bay Area’s large collection of transit agencies, but it is sometimes slow and unwieldy, or it offers an inadequate trip path that is based on often fictional bus schedules. And no doubt you have run into the highly colorful vomit officially known as the SF Muni System Map, a document that is confusing enough that you practically have to know the whole system in advance just to follow it. I’ve wondered how many potential riders are sufficiently put off by navigating transit websites that they just decide to just drive instead.
What if you don’t want a whole trip planner? Wouldn’t it be nice to just type in your destination address on Google maps, and not only be able to get a feel for the location via Google Street View, but also see the exact corner where you can hop onto the closest accessible transit option? Or, wouldn’t it be nice to click on a train station icon and see a complete listing of all trains and buses — from any transit agency — that you could easily transfer to, and be just one click away from seeing the route of those transfers, with each and every stop mapped out? Why, yes, you might say.
Connected Bus Pilot Schedule Released
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| Courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle. |
In a partnership with Cisco Systems, today Muni started its pilot schedule run of the new Connected Bus. Muni’s antiquated technology is sometimes quaint, and at other times downright frustrating or embarrassing — but that technology is about to get a booster shot of the future. The new Connected Buses feature a wireless connection, but even better, they include displays with real-time updates, displaying the position of the bus relative to the rest of the system — in other words, information about transfer points. That’s right, folks: interactive wayfinding, especially useful because although most Muni lines offer many transfer opportunities, very few operators actually make an effort to announce them. Data about the vehicle and its trips — fares, passenger counts, and mileage — are transmitted to a system that will hopefully help to streamline bus maintenance. In the future, the MTA plans to use the new buses in connection with giving buses priority at traffic signals, which is an important component of decreasing travel times.
Okay. Admittedly, Muni has no shortage of things to work out — very basic operational issues, like making sure it can actually provide the advertised level of service in a reasonably reliable and punctual manner. And yet, one thing is clear: if we intend to attract more choice riders and bring them into the transit fold, we will need to do more than just run the buses on time. Combined with reliable service, a more comfortable ride with extra amenities will help to achieve the underlying goal of increasing ridership. This latest effort is encouraging, in that it demonstrates that Muni is beginning to realize that its riders are actually customers, and that everyone who does not ride Muni is a potential customer.
Connected Buses will run on weekdays through April 8, approximately 6:40 am – 11:00 am and 2:00 pm – 6:40 pm. The lucky routes are: 1, 1AX, 1BX, 2, 10, 12, 18, 23, 26, 28, 29, 43, 47, 48, 52, and 71. Check out the full schedule here.
Time Capsule at the Transbay Terminal
The Transbay Terminal, dark and uninviting though it may be, is downtown San Francisco’s hub for regional bus lines that connect the city to the counties lying east, south, and north. Many Muni buses also terminate at Transbay, and the terminal is just a short walk from a slew of other bus and train lines running on and under Market Street. As such, you might expect to see many clearly labeled maps of the various services located in or near the terminal, kept meticulously up-to-date, so that riders can make smooth transfers and make their way to their destinations as efficiently as possible.
But hey, this is the Bay Area. Since when has transit here worked the way it should?
Instead of meticulously updated maps, one instead finds a time capsule of sorts, a treasure trove of outdated maps — some rather obscenely so — chronicling a mini-history of service to the Transbay Terminal. The geek in me loves this sort of thing, so here you are reading a post about it. As usual, full-sized versions of all these maps are hosted on my Flickr account, so please click through any image you’d like to see in close-up detail.
One map posted in the Transbay Terminal (pictured at right) shows the entire Bay Area region, clearly displaying our decentralized patchwork quilt of transit agencies. Unfortunately, the design is hideous, and the map doesn’t make particularly clear how one might transfer from system to system, or what the level of coordination is between transfers. In short, the map simultaneously contains too much information and not enough information. It is also shows BART’s terminus on the Peninsula to be Colma, thus not conveying the quite important piece of information that since 2003, BART has terminated at Millbrae, not Colma, and also provides direct service to San Francisco International Airport.
