Akit's Complaint Department: Van Ness Muni Station Flood

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Van Ness Muni Station Flood - It Happened Before

With the crazy amount of rain in San Francisco yesterday, Van Ness flooded like crazy, and is especially evident in this locally popular video on YouTube of the Van Ness Muni metro station having a waterfall on the stairwell.

I recalled that happened before, at least five years ago when I was a student at City College of San Francisco and I would commute on the Muni metro from Montgomery. On a really bad rainy day, I was riding the subway and at Van Ness, I noticed with the gasp of my fellow passengers, a rush of water going down the stairwell. I soon learned later over the PA system that Muni declared the station "closed," but kept the trains running.

In yesterday's flood, Muni only had to shut-down for 20 minutes. After that period, trains operated, but avoided Van Ness station.

My big question to the city and SFMTA is, this looks like a repeat problem. What went wrong? I've never seen any other Muni metro station flood like how Van Ness did.

1 comment:

troymccluresf said...: I'd imagine it's at least partially due to a lack of BART tracks below it.; October 20, 2009 at 5:57 PM