Comments on: The Enforcer

By: Hazards of Cycling « Clamorous Fall

Hazards of Cycling « Clamorous Fall — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:02:04 +0000

[...] system as my main form of transport for over a year and ended up switching to a bike for numerous reasons. But since leaving the city for graduate school, I have learned a whole lot more about air [...]

By: anna

anna — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:58:22 +0000

hahaha… i love this post. Poor muni. I wish they could just make it free and get it over with. Way too much of an optimist, I know.

By: mj

mj — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:11:47 +0000

I know that bus driver and although I hate the people coming in through the back, I really don’t like the guy. He is just such an ass and runs his but like he is the king and all the passengers are under his rule. He has a big chip on his shoulder. I have overheard some of regular riders of his bus speculate that his attitude might relate to his short stature.

Anyway, I have been delayed so many times because he was yelling at some old guy that didn’t speak English. I mean if 90% of the bus drivers don’t care if you get on from the back and probably about 1/2 the people do have passes or transfers that get on the through the back door (and do it at crowded stops) then why should most folks think it is a big deal. There is no consistency.

The fare dodgers do piss me off and honestly I never open the back door for trying to get in when I am standing there. I think moving to POP system wide could work, just put more fair checkers on. Really anything would be an improvement.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:19:53 +0000

Definitely get a bike. I’ve been riding as my primary mode of transportation for 3 years and–I only just realized this–haven’t ridden a MUNI bus since.

By: Lael

Lael — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:16:05 +0000

Right? Doesn’t it seem like there are so many easy solutions, from as far away as Brazil – bus pods sound amazing – to 3 feet away on Caltrain. For the entire past year, riding the bus on average 2-3 times a day, I have never ONCE been checked (aside from showing my pass as I board). And skud – that description fits pretty well if I remember correctly – I hope to run into him a lot more often.

I think a lot of other cities don’t have as major of a problem bc they have underground systems, I know when I lived in DC, buses weren’t nearly as crowded so it was much harder for people to get away with back door boarding.

By: munirider

munirider — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:54:16 +0000

The solution is to fire Nat Ford and save millions, and hire a few “surprise ticket checkers”.

That way the bus driver does not have to wait 3 minutes at each stop checking peoples fares.

I ride the Muni regularly and my transfers NEVER get checked. I ride caltrain as well and alsmost everyday my caltrain fares get checked,

By: Skud

Skud — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:01:58 +0000

This driver… long hair, Harley Davidson vest over his brown uniform shirt? He’s an institution on the 49.

By: moon unit

moon unit — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:01:50 +0000

bike, you’ll feel better.

By: Allan Hough

Allan Hough — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:47:53 +0000

I used to ride the 30 with some frequency, and there was this one driver that every day at the busy 4th and Market stop would get up and shout in the most nasal shout I’ve ever heard, “NO BACK DOOR BOARDING” — regardless of whether anyone was trying. So he was kind of an enforcer I guess, but his little routine was sooo irritating. It never made me secretly happy. I’m glad, Lael, that your enforcer was different.

Vecgon, yeah! Since the Sunday Streets thing was modeled after some event in Bogota, and it seems to be going so well, why not model us some bus pods based on Brazil’s? Plus, “bus pods” sounds so cool!

By: meave

meave — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:03:32 +0000

Sometimes the afternoon outbound 9 bus has extra MUNI employees board around Montgomery, and they’ll do just that, but they always get off at Civic Center so it doesn’t last long. Still, watching people get busted is extremely satisfying.

One of my angry MUNI fantasies is to stand at the back doors and force the people who try to sneak on that way to go to the front and pay. In real life though I am not at all intimidating so the only thing I’ve got is impotent rage. It is a lot of rage. How do the transit authorities in Chicago and New York deal with this kind of thing? Besides having a magnetic card reader, I mean.

By: Vecgon

Vecgon — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:37:01 +0000

Awesome – go bus driver. Maybe SF can learn from Brazil and use bus pods. People pay fare, enter pod, then bus pulls up to pod. You can only enter bus from pod. Everyone gets in, having already paid. Goodness. More realistic – go to proof of payment system, and send out a few inspectors once in a while. Best solution – merge all these transit agencies into 1 across the Bay Area and get one neck to choke.