What’s your experience with the T-Third and related Muni service this week?
Today’s Chronicle has a detailed article on T-Third delays and how they are affecting commuters. The Examiner also has an article on this.
See also:
Are delays affecting you? Post your comments here. We are particularly interested in hearing from ex 15-Third riders who now need to ride the 9X lines.
(Note that you will need to register to comment – not to worry, we won’t spam you, though we might ask you later if you would like to get announcements.)
I live near Washington Square, and used to ride the 15 to my job in the financial district or walk to work. Usually, if I could see the 15 rolling up the street, the bus ride was faster than walking.
Now that the 9X has replaced the 15, my old bus stop (next to the Transamerica building) no longer exists, and the 9X equivalent, on Stockton just before the tunnel, is a poor substitute.
Routing the former 15-Third passengers through Chinatown has slowed down the trip tremendously, increased congestion on the bus, and lengthened the commute of many SF residents who work in the financial district. For me, riding the bus is no longer faster than walking, and I am considering discontinuing my monthly FastPass purchase.
As a daily N-Judah passenger, I cannot believe that Muni dis-service has gotten EVEN WORSE
this week as they debut the T-Line.
Every morning I am finding NO trains waiting at my end-of-the-line stop with 3 or 4 arriving
within minutes of each other, sitting ( not turning around & loading passengers) another 10-15
minutes doing nothing (probably awaiting instructions from one of those STUPERVISORS in the
white trucks who like to congregate at busy intersections)
Every night, I stand in the Civic Center station and WAIT, WAIT, WAIT as 4 or 5 J-Church, 2-4
Castro Shuttles and at least 2 of the “invisisble to the system: T-Line trains go by before even
1 N-Judah shows up, loaded to the gills, usually ( as is Muni;’s fashion) by 1 or 2 more N-Judah’s, 1 of which may actually take us to the end of the line. As any N-Judah rider who rides
past 9th Avenue knows, your chances of being taken to your destination decrease exponentially
the further you travel west of 9th Avenue.
Why the STUPERVISORS in the white trucks think it makes more sense to turn a train around
at Sunset instead of completing the last 4 stops is beyond me-perhaps they can then PRETEND
they are ON-TIME?!! downtown? It takes nearly as long to turn one of these pieces or crap around as it does to continue to La Playa and use the turnaround!!! On top of which they are
nearly ALWAYS EXTREMELY RUDE ABOUT IT! That’s if you can even understand the announcement that you are once again being kicked off a train you waited for almost an hour to
board-seems to me if people are going to be dealing with the public they should be able to
speak a coherent sentence IN ENGLISH! I shudder to think about one of these drivers trying to
dispense information in an EMERGENCY!
MUNI is beyond broken-as far as I’m concerned they can start witrh that bullshit artist
Nat West and fire the lot of them from the top down-THE SO-CALLED SYSTEM COULD ONLY RUN
BETTER ON ITS OWN!!!
I am a resident of Potrero Hill and used to take the 15 Third daily to the Financial District on California and Kearny. I used to leave my front door at around 7:30 am, walk about a quarter mile, and wait for the bus. I arrive at my desk at 600 California at right around 8:00 am. Although I have experienced interesting moments on the 15, I was overall very satisfied with my daily commute costing me $45/month.
Now, with the T Third, my commute is about 50 minutes door to door. I have to walk double the distance over half a mile to the 20th St. station (used to be 22nd St.) and have to take a lovely but slow commute around the Embarcadero. Of course, there’s traffic on 4th and King and right before the Embarcadero underground.
I have tried taking alternate routes, getting off 4th and King and taking the 30 or 45 to the financial district. I also tried taking the 45 (48?) Quitara to BART and then getting off Montgomery. None of these options save me much time so I’m going to suck it up and drive to work everyday (about 15 minute commute door-to-door).
The thing that dissapointed me the most was that I didn’t experience any horror stories about the T Third, as others have so I think this 50 minute commute was an accurate measure of what my commute time would be now with this new light rail system.
I live in a decent sized condo development and a few of my neighbors share the same frustration.
The only suggestion I would make is to bring back the 15 Third. It was a workhorse of a bus and didn’t waste any time to get me and many others to work.
One more thing, please improve the quality of the muni bus drivers. I don’t want to rant and rave about the bus drivers as others have but sometimes they can really ruin someones morning. I have seen them torment passengers coming aboard, deliberately pass by stops driving an empty bus, and talk unprofessionally through the intercom. I used to ride BART from the East Bay and have never experienced the level of unprofessionalism as I have riding the Muni.