The Muni Service slash is a success! You know how we know: The Chronicle published an (unbylined, per confounding journalistic tradition) editorial saying it is!
Muni deserves credit for its deft handling of a major overhaul of its transit lines. The proof: near silence on the complaint lines over the past week.
Near silence? Hmh. I guess the Chron’s Ed board doesn’t read Muni Diaries. Or live in SF/ride Muni.
Speaking of mysteries (which I was: mysteries like how folks who don’t live here or ride our transit system regularly get to confidently state anonymous opinions on it), remember the Great Twin Peaks L Taraval Derailment? No one knows why it happened, still.
But back to that seamless Service Slash. Last week, we talked about how replacing Muni shelter maps was going to cost $9,200. Matt Baume asked some really good questions in the comments that we sent on to MTA spokesperson Judson True.
Is Clear Channel responsible for changing the shelter maps?
“Clear Channel replaces the maps per the Transit Shelter Advertising and Maintenance contract,” says True. Now, that doesn’t explain if the $9200 being spent is ours or Clear Channels, so we asked True that and will update when he responds, and he says that, yes, the $9200 comes out of the SFMTA budget, and reminds us that Muni “replace(s) all the maps periodically as service changes.”
Does Clear Channel own the shelters, as a commenter suggested? Do they make the decisions on which way the shelters face, which stops get shelters, etc?
“The SFMTA owns the shelters. We decide which way they face and where they go” True responds.
Finally, readers are still reporting “lots of little bugs” in their NextMuni (that is, the real-time arrival predictions you can get on your computer, phone, or at the shelter). The issues we’ve gotten emails regarding vary from no results on lines that have changed service, results for stops that no longer exist, and long wait times being reported even as buses arrive at the stops.
We asked a data fiend we know if the problem is Muni or NextBus. His response:
I can’t say for certain, but my guess is that Muni hasn’t done much to clean up the data they supply to NextBus. If this were any other company, I’d wonder why they didn’t figure this out before the switch, but this is Muni.
We emailed John Eaton, CFO of NextBus to see if he had any idea why and for how long these reported problems might persist, but have not received a response.
