Sleep Spent

I had a bad experience with Muni today. And I thought about it. And I’ve come to the conclusion that Muni needs some work. (I know, I know. Big surprise.) So I’m going to make a list of things that Muni (specifically Muni Metro) needs to do to improve things. As I’m new to the City, many of the things I have noticed have to do with inconsistencies and quirks that can trip up newbies.

1. Standardize the freaking arrival announcements.
   1. Sometimes it’s “Approaching, inbound, two car, Embarcadero in three minutes” and sometimes it’s “Approaching, inbound, two car, J in three minutes.” Why should someone need to know the ultimate destination of their train? But you only ever hear that quirk inbound, the outbound announcements always use the line letter.
   2. Sometimes it’s “Approaching, inbound, two car, N, N in three minutes,” and sometimes there’s only one “N”, still for a two-car train.
2. Some stations still have signs saying “Downtown” instead of “Inbound.” Inbound is confusing (moreso for busses than for Muni Metro), but since we’ve settled on it, let’s get the signage standardized.
3. Why are there long periods when the arrival times aren’t being displayed on the LED display screens? That’s what they’re there for, not to scroll messages across explaining that arrival times will be displayed there. Just display them already! We’ll figure it out.
4. Why the hell aren’t we running 3-car trains on the N line during peak hours yet? Every morning the inbound 2-car trains are packed to the gills. So much so, that I often can’t get on. We have 10-car platforms or so, let’s use them!
5. There should be a place on the Muni website specifically to let the public submit vehicle reports. Missing lights, broken seats, graffiti, etc. They have a “comments” webform, but that’s geared toward reporting Muni personnel.
6. In fact, the website has all sorts of issues. What’s up with that JavaScript rollover bullshit? And why are there pages on there that look like this? At least they’re not putting up Word documents as public records anymore.

I’ll think of some more, I’m sure. I think I’m going to try to make it to an MTA board meeting. At least suggest some of these changes.

On Caltrain, I think, on Thursday.

I don’t care so much about the phone. The real loss is the SIM card, because I don’t think I’ll be able to get a replacement from Cingular so I can keep using my old plan, which was $30/mo with more minutes than I needed. All the new plans are at least $40/mo, and most of them have fewer features.

Bastards.