Don’t wait for the Culture Bus
Don’t wait for the Culture Bus, because starting at 6PM today it will no longer be making its run between downtown and the museums. After 11 months and numerous service cuts, the Culture Bus line, known as the 74x, will finally go out of service, freeing valuable man power and bus resources to the cash-strapped SFMTA. Even cutting service to once and hour and raising fares to $10 for all day rides wasn’t enough to lure enough passengers.
Rescue Muni’s policy since this line’s inception was the immediate elimination of the 74x, and we’re glad to see it finally happen, but the loss of precious revenue to this program over these 11 months could have gone to stave off other Muni cuts.
I totally agree – the C-Bus is best gone and forgotten. It has passed me numerous times, with never more than two passengers aboard.
A much better idea will be to promote MUNI service to our many cultural centers and spaces in the neighborhoods, including not only the four Arts Commission-funded CCs (sfartscomission.org), but the struggling independent dance, theater and visual arts centers, most of them non-profit.
-Richard R.-Excelsior neighborhood.
Good riddance 74x.
But how many know about the 76 to Marin Beaches on Sunday?
How many tourists know about…
1, 3 and 7 day passes w/ free cable car?
(not just $5 one way)
Or that there’s an underground train under Market?
(not just the F line)
Or that BART goes to the airport for $6?
(cab = $50)
I’m serious. Ask around. Most fast pass holders don’t know about the 76.
And you can believe 99.9% tourists don’t know about it either.
“just take a cab”.
That’s the precious, ultra casual attitude tourists hear from LOCALS who don’t even know how to use transit when asked for directions. It’s passive and insidious.
And the locals who do use transit but are resentful of tourists on MUNI are also a problem: “it’s already too slow, too crowded”.
Without more encouragement to use transit and buy passes and know what the pass can do, more lines like the 76 will go away.
Soldiers and civilians die for gasoline. MUNI electric buses and trolleys are powered by water from Hetch Hetchy, not fuels. Does MUNI brag about that on overhead signage? No.
Look at the chaos at Powell. Many tourists get there by cab because the airports do a terrible job corralling people onto BART (not enough arrows, fee comparison signage and outreach, too much orientation to “the door”). When they reach Powell, they don’t realize the underground station is anything more than a train to nowhere they want to go. And nobody wants to hang out there looking at the map to learn that MUNI can do everything a cab can do for pennies because locals feel it’s not “nice” to shoo away panhandlers trying to help tourists “press the letter H” to make $1 change on the BART ticket machines. Then there’s the machine that changes 10s and 20s, but not 5s. You have to go upstairs for that. Insane.
Tourists also don’t realize the guard shack sells transit passes with FREE cable car, not just $5 one way tickets. Worse, guard shack staff don’t proactively sell passes or explain what they cover. And there’s no easy big bold signage. “how much to ride the cable car?” “$5 one way” That’s it. That’s what tourists hear. They go home and say “SF is expensive, you have to take a cab EVERYWHERE”.
Hotels like the Whitcomb (formerly Ramada) need to be promoted as a financially efficient, transit oriented alternative to Powell that’s only one stop away on the underground AND connected to BART for the airport. All the messaging needs to be done in complete sentences – because tourists don’t know what “BART accessible” means. But the door staff keeps hailing cabs, they aren’t selling passes or directing people downstairs. What a missed opportunity.
Poor communication exists because we don’t have a collective goal for getting everybody out of cabs and onto transit. Because that wouldn’t be “nice” to the cabbies.
Powell needs to be remade as a transit/tourist education center. That crunchy little wing tucked under the ped bridge that nobody uses does not count. The station staff needs a Q&A info desk in the middle of it all with signs advertising the all inclusive pass, signs explaining the difference between BART and MUNI, which OWL bus to take/when, arrows to transit destination dots, etc. Sell, sell, sell.
“The environment” might be a trendy sentiment, but outside the bubble, we need something more people can relate to. Transit should be used because you can see more, it’s a more responsible use of materials, fuels and lives and its more convenient than parking and cheaper than car ownership or cabs. The environmental benefits just happen to be there from doing the right things for the right reasons, not the other way around.