Municide

Step 1: Find this sticker on a Muni bus

Step 2: Using an exacto knife make one easy cut near the middle of the sticker

Step 3: Remove left portion of the sticker.

See, wasn’t that easy? Old on tops are necessary. Damn straight.

Now go young soldier, I expect to see these signs on every bus in SF.

The train I was riding this morning hit and killed someone. And you thought only Muni killed people.

After the accident we waited for an hour or so while we watched cops come and go.

Then we eventually got off the train

And got on a bus

that took us to the Palo Alto train station.

Never a dull moment riding public transit.

Because I’m a masochist with too much time on my hands, I decided to take a quick look through the MUNI budget to see just how many taxpayer and rider dollars they manage to blow through in a year ( for those of you who want to follow along at home, you can take a look for yourself)

So yeah $586,000,000 is quite a number. You could buy quite a bit with that kind of dough. Of course MUNI orginally low-balled their budget by about oh, 80 Million back in February but whats a few million between friends? As Doug alluded to MUNi could also be hurting even more once all these lawsuits start rolling in. So into which rabbit hole do these hundreds of millions of dollars flow? For the most part it goes to paying the salaries of the 4300 odd employees employed by our dear MUNI with 300 million or so going to salaries and another 112 Million for their “fringe benefits”. Busting out my dusty TI-86 I calculated the average total compensation package for a MUNI employee at around $95,813. Um, yeah seems reasonable to me. How much do you feel like a sucker now. Dropping tens of thousands on a college education just so you can make 45K in advertising. Might as well just chilled and been a pimp for a few years then gotten hooked up with one of these plum MUNI jobs.

Out of curiosity I plunged even deeper into MUNI pdf land to check out some of these job decriptions to see just what exactly these folks are doing to earn 96K a year. Here is a small sample replete with standard snarky commentary from yours trully:

General Laborer
This class is the entry-level class in the laborer series. Positions involve sustained physical effort and occasional exposure to a variety of disagreeable working conditions and inclement weather.
$41,288.00 - $50,102.00 annually

Wholly shnikes. A 42K starting salary for moving heavy objects from point A to point B with no education necessary. Many poeple who have gone to college for 4 years would love to start out making that much. I can’t magine there is a shortage of “qualified” applicants for this position, so whats with the ridiculous wages? Paging first year teachers…does it anger you the guy in the MUNI coveralls moving rocks makes more then you?

Automotive Body And Fender Worker
$63,388.00 - $63,388.00 annually
Nature of work involves: some physical effort and dexterity in the use of fingers, limbs and body

Qualifications for above nature of work: not comotose, able to tie shoes

Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor I
Under direction, supervises parking meter maintenance and repair work, and performs related duties as required
55,120.00 - $67,002.00 annually

Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor: What are you doing?
Parking Meter Repairer: Fixing a parking meter.
Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor: Can you do it any faster?
Parking Meter Repairer: uh, no I don’t think so.
Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor: Ok. Carry on then.
Parking Meter Repairer: Thanks, if I need ya where will you be?
Parking Meter Repairer Supervisor: In the break room playing pool and counting my hundred dollar bills.

Gardener
Requires ability to follow oral or written instructions and cooperate with others in the performance of duties.
42,692.00 - $51,844.00 annually

A study in contrasts:

Transit Paint Shop Supervisor I
Under direction, is responsible for supervising all shop and other activities in connection with the painting of a wide variety of automotive vehicles and equipment, buildings, facilities and other properties of the municipal transit system; plans, assigns and directs the activities of subordinate personnel engaged in such work; and performs related duties as required.

Requires responsibility for: interpreting and enforcing existing methods and procedures, and developing new methods and procedures relative to the painting of automotive equipment buildings, other facilities and properties of the municipal transit system; making contacts with the general public and other departmental personnel in connection with painting activities; gathering, preparing and maintaining shop and other painting operating reports and records.
85,462.00 - $85,462.00 annually

Transit Planner III
Under general supervision, the 5289 Transit Planner III performs urban mass transit and/or transportation planning work. The essential functions of this job include: designing, analyzing and evaluating reports of transportation-related data for various urban mass transit planning or transportation planning projects and grant requests; evaluating the technical aspects of transportation projects; developing, interpreting, coordinating, carrying out and monitoring urban transit or transportation policy and planning work, including completion of complex written documents and reports; supervising the design and preparation of models, maps, charts and other graphic materials to illustrate plans and or reports; developing and evaluating proposals for planning and coordinating the implementation of transit route and service changes; preparing plans and projections of future transit, transportation, economic or demographic conditions and trends; investigating and reviewing federal and state legislation and regulations for potential impact on transit/transportation plans and programs; preparing budgets, schedules and contracts for major projects; making presentations to the community, businesses, airport tenants and/or transportation agencies to explain transit planning and transportation planning policies, procedures, regulations, programs and projects; and preparing and reviewing correspondence in response to public, Commission and/or other agency inquiries. Some positions may require possession of a valid driver license.
67,964.00 - $82,628.00 annually

Why in Gods name does the guy managing the painting of buses get paid signifigantly more then a Planner manging long term projects that affect the lives of thousands upon thousands of riders? MUNI sort out your priorities. We don’t give a shit how the buses are painted. We do, however, take great interest in bus routes, scheduling, and on time performance. Note the relation to planning and the utter lack of relation to painting a bus. Same goes for the plumber:

Plumber
Cuts, bends, assembles and installs various pipes
65,858.00 - $80,080.00 annually

This one was too good:

Executive Secretary I
Under direction, provides administrative secretarial services of a specialized and responsible nature foe (sic) a member of executive management; may supervise a moderate sized group of subordinate clerical personnel; and performs related duties as required.
47,840.00 - $58,136.00 annually

Maybe you should include in the job description a little something on “proof reading” in addition to spell checking.

Getting back to the orginal point of this post, the huge budget of MUNI, who wants to just dissolve MUNI? If we divide the budget by the number of folks in the city, that’s almost 800 bucks a year back in our pocket, not bad. Thats about 80 cab rides a year…i’m just sayin…

No fucking way.

A mere 5 weeks after Muni finished its last rampage, which ended in the deaths of two pedestrians in December, Muni’s back at it again. You thought I was kidding when I said Muni had a master eugenics plan. You chuckled when I claimed Muni would just keep killing San Francisco pedestrians. And you didn’t believe me when I said Muni was targeting old asian women. Well guess what? I fucking called it.

Cable car accident kills S.F. woman, 76

Muni, are you serious? 3 deaths in the last 2 months? All 3 pedestrians were in crosswalks? Honestly?

Apparently the drivers didn’t get the memo from PR stating that killing pedestrians is bad for Muni’s image.

“The family has not decided whether it will file a lawsuit against Muni for the collision.” Muni, you’re fucked. Can you imagine if these three deaths bring lawsuits that all get settled around the same time? Muni’s going to be writing multi-million dollar checks it can’t cash.

Dear Mr. Nathaniel Ford: please stop killing my fellow citizens.

Riding public transit and being cheap as hell means that I read the SF Examiner. For those of you that don’t know, it’s the nearly-worthless (but free) daily paper in San Francisco. It usually takes a whole 5 minutes to read through anything of substance before I throw it away. Another fine example of “you get what you pay for.”

The one entertaining thing about the SF Examiner is that it has become an almost daily update on how shitty Muni is. Every day it seems there’s an article about Muni cutting service, hiking fares, or running people over. Today was one of the best days for Muni journalism since the accidents in December.

First, we learn that Muni paid out $7.1 million in accident claims in the 04-05 fiscal year. That included a $2 million payout for running over someone’s leg. I’m currently formulating my plan on how to get my leg stuck under a Muni bus. That’s an easy 2 million bucks in my pocket.

Next, we learn that Muni has budgeted $7.4 million for accident settlements for the 05-06 fiscal year. But when Muni loses its appeal in the case involving the 2003 death of a 4 year-old girl, there will be a $21 million payout ($15 mil to the family and $6 mil to others injured). This might take another few years, but it’ll happen. And already within the first quarter of this new fiscal year Muni has paid out $3.1 million. So half the budgeted amount has been paid out within the first three months. At least they’re off to a good start. Whoever drafted their budget should work for the White House.

But we hear about Muni’s safety record improving by leaps and bounds this year, right? Well, this is true, sort of. From 2000 to 2004 the number of collisions was relatively static, hovering around 3,000. Then just this past year the number of collisions dropped by 18% from the previous year, down to 2,437. And all sarcasm and Muni hatred aside, that’s awesome. For once Muni seems to be doing something right.

But let’s look a bit closer…

Muni apparantly categorizes collisions, so if we look at the number of collisions broken down, we see that some types of collisions decreased while others increased. The majority of the decrease can be accounted for in Muni hitting other cars. We can see that Muni hit less cars, less “fixed objects,” less “other objects,” and that fewer feeble retards hurt themselves getting on and off the bus. Nice.

But wait, what’s that I see? Muni managed to hit 59% more pedestrians than the previous year. And 43% more motorcyclists. And they even threw in an extra biker for good measure.

So Muni is hitting less cars and more people. Well, that’s something I guess. Except that dead pedestrians are the ones that cost the most in legal settlements. It’ll be interesting to see how Muni can handle the $21 million for the 2003 death, plus whatever insane million dollar amounts will be decided in the two recent deaths in December. Both pedestrians were in a crosswalk for Christ’s sake, that alone must be worth over $10 mil a pop. Over the next few years Muni will be paying tens of millions of dollars to make their accidents go away.

Another item of interest is the APTA audit that will be carried out to diagnose the horendous condition of Muni. Unfortunately, the results of this audit will not be released to the public. If anyone from MTA reads this, please, please, please leak those results. I would love to read that report.

Oh Muni, what big balls you have. Today I got off Caltrain at 22nd street and headed across the street to wait for the 48. Lo and behold there’s a bus sitting right at the stop. Sweet. I hurry over…

…only to realize that the bus says NOT IN SERVICE. D’oh.

Oh Muni, how you taunt us. You stick a perfectly good, working bus right in front of waiting passengers and let it sit there, laughing at us. As if I need a reminder that I’m your bitch. Trust me, I know.

As I was waiting there I happened to look directly across the street, where Muni has some main office building or whatever it is. And what do I see?

Yes, that’s right. I see a Muni employee playing pool.

Muni, I bow down before you. You have the biggest balls in the world.

Yes, we have buses ready to go. Yes, we have drivers. No, we will not drive your ass around.

It’s a sad, sad day. Fellow Municide blogger, Jonas, has thrown in the towel. He put up a good fight but just couldn’t take Muni’s abuse any longer. So what did he do?

Yes friends, it’s true… Jonas got a bike.

According to the SF Examiner, there were 13 pedestrian deaths in 2005. Muni managed to contribute 2 bodies to the total count, which means they are responsible for 15.4% of all dead pedestrians in San Francisco during the 2005 calendar year.

In 2004 there were 21 pedestrian deaths. I’m assuming Muni managed to not kill anyone in 2004, although I don’t know this for sure. So here’s a nice little graph for the last 2 years:

As you can see, in 2005 Muni managed to carve out a decent piece of the pie:

If we assume that Muni continues to add 2 more deaths per year (see my eugenics post for more on my grand theory of Muni’s homicide plan), and we also assume that non-Muni related pedestrian deaths continue declining at the same rate as the 2004-2005 decrease, then we can forecast future pedestrian deaths:

This bullet-proof statistical analysis shows that by 2010 there will be approximately 12 pedestrians killed in San Francisco, all of them because of Muni. Way to go Muni!

Tonight I got bitch slapped by the 48. I got off Caltrain at the 22nd Street station and walked to the bus stop across the street to wait for the 48 to come pick me up and take me home. I started waiting at 5:40 pm. I waited patiently until a 48 came along 17 minutes later in the opposite direction. It promptly stopped directly across the street to go on break. Sweet.

Almost directly behind this bus was another 48, which actually managed to not stop and continue on the route. Since the end of the route is only about 6 blocks away I figured that bus would come pick me up shortly. I was soon to find out just how wrong this logic was.

Somehow I managed to wait a full 50 minutes before actually getting on a bus. I waited from 5:40 to 6:30. During that time I had the luxury of watching 2 more 48 buses pass by in the opposite direction. Yes, that’s a full 4 buses that passed me going the other way. That’s a new personal record. Give me a fucking medal.

I took pictures, which are annotated and timestamped below. The pictures are really shitty, that’s what I get for trying to use a crappy camera phone in the dark. You’ll have to trust me that those are all the 48. I swear, I can’t make this shit up.

Now, if we take a look at the 48 route you’ll understand exactly how fucking ridiculous this is. The first image below shows the 48 route from the Muni map. The arrow shows where I wait across the street from the Caltrain station. Notice that the route ends just beyond where I’m waiting.

The second image shows the directions in Yahoo Maps, which show us that the total round trip distance from my stop around the rest of the route and back is a mere 1.1 miles. Estimated travel time? 5 minutes. 5 fucking minutes? Oh Yahoo maps, how naive you are.

So where the fuck do the buses go? How can I watch 4 buses pass by on a route that only goes a maximum of 1.1 miles beyond my stop? This defies the laws of physics.

This is the basis for a new theory that I am formulating about a frequently observed phenomenon: the Muni blackhole. Ever wonder how buses can just seem to disappear? How bus after bus can keep passing you by in the wrong direction without a single bus coming back your way? Once you accept the Muni blackhole then it all makes sense. The buses seem to be disappearing because they are disappearing. Into nothingness. Into the empty void of the Muniverse.

This was posted on the comments of an old post. It’s a rather intelligent response to our hatred of Muni that I thought deserved its own post. I’ll be responding shortly (oh yes, that’s going to be a fun post…), but for now, here’s the view of a Muni driver for y’all to ponder:

Some observations about your site (as a current Muni driver):

1. It’s cute, but you have a lot of hatred toward public employees and very little patience or understandstanding (possible a little prejudice). I’ve meet passengers like you who at the end of their ride say to me “You’re not like the other drivers.” Thank you, but what do you mean, I reply. “You know their ghetto, they don’t know their place.” Ah, … well thanks I guess. That little white boys and girls is California Closet Racism at its best. Our job regardless of race is to drive safely no matter the circumstances and to do our best to meet an unrealistic schedule made up by three guys who work two weeks every year (Muni drivers are not hired to be your House Nigger). The drivers don’t control the schedule the public does; the schedulers watch the passengers at the bus stops and do not take into account the actual boarding, alighting, and driving of coach. They drive little city cars that can zip through traffic and stop at each stop count how long it took them to reach the stop by 2 to 3 thousand pound car not 40,000 to 60,000 pound bus.
Anyway, it seems you probably wouldn’t be interested in how schedules get made or whether drivers actually get breaks as you call them, or how a driver/passenger feels about what is happening to Muni. On to the second point…

2. When one encounters a consistent problem one should either “put up or shut up”. Before I left my private sector office job to join Muni, I bitched about Muni service too (hell I still ride the 27 and call in to Passenger Services and file about other rude drivers or missing/ bunched up buses). Then a driver told me that bitching at him had no effect (which is very true in three years I’ve learned to tune out the passengers listening only for possible emergency or dangerous situations), he told me to go to city hall and sit in on the MTA meetings or watch them on SFgov tv which I did - and I was appalled and the lameass on the MTA board and the board of supes making random decisions about public transportation without consulting or informing the general public. But hey maybe you’re too busy running your cute and clever website to try to improve anything. I also bought a car so I when I important meeting I can make sure that I arrive ontime - but that’s me I do things, I take action, I think things out.

3. Many of your comments are very vague as are your photos of the buses (critical info like the bus number and run are illegible, you have these conversations with mystery drivers but don’t get there operator number off their shirt, sweater, or jacket (we just had two system wide inspections at the end of the year and every driver better have their operator visible unless their wearing their foul weather gear which isn’t numbered). You’re obliviously intelligent start posting these things everytime you rant and encourage your readers to do the same. If I start seeing operator, run, or bus numbers I will personally print out your complaints and give them to my division super and our union leader to point out that the public is going elsewhere to complain.

I do not intend to stay a Muni driver for more five years. Honestly, after spending ten years at a desk five here in SF I wanted to see people face to face, I wanted to see the city where I live and get to know it like I knew my hometown. If I had known what rude whiners the people of SF were before I signed on I would have stayed in my office by my lovely desk making more than I make driving for Muni. BTW - the city HR department di a poll and more than 75% of Muni drivers have a B.A., B.S., B.F.A. degrees. Most came to Muni for the job security/benefits or to work with family.

My suggestion - Don’t just sit there and bitch help make a change, help get rid of the bad drivers and get the service cut revoked.