Muni is Paying Attention to Akit's Blog - But There's One Mistake They Made

As a result of some recent Akit's Complaint Department reports, Muni has taken the positive steps to make changes after I challenged them to do better.

Youth and Senior Muni Paper Passes - Extended Until May
I was the first to report before the news media and the press office of Muni said it was official: the youth and senior paper passes was extended from January to May.

I first got word from Clipper on their Twitter account, and not long later, Muni quietly updated their website to say the paper passes will end in May.

My initial post about the delay.
My second post about Muni quietly confirming the delay.

But I still challenged Muni do to a little better; they needed to at least get the word to the general public, and their press room did. Read the press release here. They also sent out the same press release via e-mail to local media outlets.

The 2.5 Hour Gap for Saturday evening service for the 38L and 38-Geary
I argued that it was not appropriate for Muni's most heavily used transit line to have a 2.5 hour gap of no service on Saturday evenings when the last 38L departs 48th & Point Lobos at 5:37PM, and the first 38-Geary (regular) bus leaves at 8:02PM.

One of my commentators pointed out Muni posted a service alert over a week later to give notice to the general public about the 2.5 hour gap. Sadly, the agency took the easy route by publishing a notice, and did not correct the bus schedule to at least fill in the large gap.

(The best solution is to have all Fort Miley operators during the 2.5 hour gap to make a right turn on Point Lobos at 43rd, pick-up the folks at 48th Avenue, and start their run inbound towards downtown.)

To make matters worse, I drove by the bus stop just after 6PM on Saturday the 15th and noticed about a dozen standing at the 48th & Point Lobos stop. Some of them looked like tourists while the rest are locals. Since Muni made an effort to put a public notice online, did they post at a rider alert sign at the bus stop? The answer is no. There was ZERO signage at the stop. I saw the 38L outbound that just dropped off passengers drive off back to the garage. There wasn't even a Muni supervisor at the stop, unlike on Saturday the 8th when I noticed the white city truck at the location.

As a courtesy, I decided to pull over my car and give a call to 311. I told the person about the issue and asked for a Muni supervisor to go over there and inform the people because there was no signage telling them to walk six blocks to 42nd Avenue.

It took five minutes to explain this to the 311 operator. Why? The operator is a total moron; he said: "the 38-Geary doesn't run to 48th Avenue from 8AM to 6PM." Well, no shit Sherlock, I live in the Outer Richmond district and know the 38 and 38L lines very well; were you listening to a word I said about the problem? I told him to go to the SFMTA website and look at the alerts.

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I like it when one person can make big changes to a major city agency; but it's only bittersweet for me because Muni messed-up by not modifying 38-Geary service or posting a notice at the bus stop.