In recent weeks, it seems like Muni Metro has been almost peaceful, especially when compared to the problems from this past spring when the T-Third was first introduced. Lest riders become smug and complacent, difficulties with the wires between Van Ness and Church stations inconvenienced thousands of commuters this morning. Muni provided extra bus shuttles to compensate, but single tracking trains caused delays to extend into the afternoon. Meanwhile, a completely unrelated problem with the overhead wires at 30th and Judah halted N service for several hours while the wires and several trains were repaired.
With regard to the problem in the Market Street subway, the Chronicle article quotes Muni spokesperson Maggie Lynch:
“If the tunnel was empty you could just zip (the maintenance equipment) in, but this was peak service time, and we have to keep providing some semblance of service rather than shutting down completely,” Lynch said.
A desire to offer some semblance of service? Can’t shut down completely? Funny, that hasn’t stopped Muni before.
In light of today’s events, the N-Judah Chronicles blog is increasingly becoming the Angry Rider Chronicles, with a seemingly endless stream of messages from riders who are just plain fed up with N trains that turn around at 19th Avenue, and with the unreliable service in general.
This also seem to be an opportune moment to formally introduce a link that I quietly added to the Transbay Blogroll, namely, the Muni Outrage blog. This is a brand new site, and the folks behind it are collecting and compiling actual data from riders, to clearly demonstrate to Nat Ford and Gavin Newsom that the system is still far from fixed. It looks like they could use volunteers, in addition to lots and lots of data, so if you are interested in helping with that project, check out the link. Update: Howard Vicini of Muni Outrage wrote in to add some extra information; click here and scroll down to check out his comment.
Got any tales of Muni Metro or other transit woe? Feel free to vent in the comments, if you’d like.
Transbay Blog 
Thank you for adding the MUNIOutrage.com link. The report link on the site will be activated Thursday, Oct 11, from which MUNI riders and interested parties will be able to post their observations, on-time reports, and incidents involving MUNI vehicles directly from their computers, PDA’s, and cellphones.
The initiative will be formally announced during tomorrow’s episode of ‘My Country’, on SF cable channel 76, Thursday, Oct 11, from 7-7:30 pm. ‘My Country is a weekly, live talk show hosted by MUNIOutrage.com founder, Howard Vicini. Viewers are welcome to express their views on-the-air by calling: 415-621-4473, during the show.
Posted by Howard Vicini | 11 October 2007, 12:46 amHoward, thanks for writing in and fleshing out the Muni Outrage project. I’m looking forward to seeing this develop.
I’ve updated the post with a link to your comment so that readers will see this information.
Posted by Eric | 11 October 2007, 1:30 amEric, thanks to you as well … I hope our database proves useful. The MUNI Outrage Service-Incident Report Form is now activated. The direct link to the form is:
http://www.baymedialab.org/munioutrage/report.php
Posted by munirider | 11 October 2007, 4:41 pmAfter some technical delays, our reporting form is now permanently available for reporting MUNI schedule issues and service incidents via computers, PDA’s, or Internet-linked cell phones.
http://www.baymedialab.org/munioutrage/report.php
Thanks for everyone’s patience. Please help spread the word!
Posted by Howard Vicini | 25 October 2007, 9:34 pmLast weekend, I accessed the site to report an incident, but I ran into an error. Glad to hear it’s up and running again.
Posted by Eric | 25 October 2007, 9:46 pm