An all-too-typical afternoon on the N-Judah
The deterioration of service on the N-Judah since the startup of the T-Third is at its most dramatic during the PM commute. This random glimpse via NextMuni speaks volumes about the state of things on the line:
Supposedly, trains are being re-designated at Embarcadero to even out service, but, at about 6:00 p.m. Thursday, after waiting 13 minutes for an outbound N at Van Ness, only to be passed by a crush-loaded N (and a slew of half-empty M-Ocean Views), and to be informed by the helpful folks at 311 that the next N would be in, uh, 26 minutes (and obviously crush-loaded too, after that long a gap) I gave up and took a cab.
And on days when there’s a game at Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T/its-heirs-and-successors Park, well, just forget it.
Is Metro service just as bad on the other lines? What’s your experience? This can’t be unique to the N, can it?
-Daniel M.
On weekends, when I am more likely to take the N, I have seen this happen about half the time. Last Saturday the N did come in a reasonable amount of time, but several other days it has been missing entirely from the subway (so I went to Castro and walked).
Service gets worse west of 19th Avenue. A substantial number of trains are turned around at 19th, and don’t serve the outer Sunset.
Having to walk the last two miles to the beach is not unusual. Half hour waits for trains are not unusual.
I wrote to the Chronicle about this a week ago, but apparently it’s not newsworthy.
The N Judah has obviously been cannibalized to provide service on the T. I have to wait twice as long for a train now when I go downtown and getting back is impossible unless you ride back to Embarcadero and wait 15-20 minutes for an N you can get on before it gets packed at Montgomery.
They should shut the T down and bring back the 15 until they figure out how to run it without destroying the other lines.
This is a grand mal meltdown, not petit mal. On the N it’s worse than the first meltdown.
I get emails about this on an almost daily basis. It’s clear that MUNI has decided to take a wrecking ball to the N line, and it is also clear they have no intentions of doing anything to fix it. It’s too bad MUNI’s poor planning and lack of trains has caused this. I sure wish someone would do something about it – it’s topic A amongst people on the west side.
I agree completely.
I commute from the outer-ish Sunset to Mission Bay, and am dealing with hour-and-a-half transit times in the evening (when factoring in waits between transfers, the switch to an N Judah at the Embarcadero, and stalls in the tunnel). It’s not just a matter of delayed trains or bunching: there seems to be fewer Ns on the line at any given moment (I don’t have the Nextbus proof for this, but it sure feels that way).
During the morning commute they’ve been running diesel shuttles along the N Judah line, with no announcement as to why…sometimes two in a row.
It’s common to see four two-car N Judahs following each other bumper-to-bumper in the Outer Avenues…just a few minutes behind each other.