Thursday 5-Fulton Report

by Andrew Dalton on January 28, 2010

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going undercover this week as an average MUNI rider on a rush hour commute. I haven’t had a regular morning commute in roughly 9 months, so I’m kind of like a second grader on the first day of school. (Not a first grader though, because duh I’ve ridden the bus before. I’m practically a big kid now.)

Today’s report!

- Running a little late so I caught the bus at 9:05ish. Less than 1 minute wait on NextBus so we both arrive at McAllister and Central in one of the most perfectly choreographed moments in Public Transit history. (read: I didn’t have to run and look like an asshole.)

- Farebox was broken again today, but this one was wrapped in plastic, so I assumed that meant FREE. I could’ve asked the driver, but I tend to avoid human interaction wherever possible. No transfer necessary because my destination is on Market st.

- A woman with hair the color of a day-glo, skateboarding carrot is mumbling along with her headphones as she reads the paper. She’s got a 21+ wristband from a Boston Red Sox game strapped to her backpack. That’s the weirdest person I saw today, so all-in-all relatively normal bus crowd.

- People must think I work really hard at my job because I’m typing so much on my iPhone at 9:30am

- The weather is quite agreeable today and sun means no one takes off their sunglasses on the bus. This is actually so they don’t have to make eye contact with each other because that might result in a moment of shared shame: we all have such nice shades, but such ploddingly slow rides to work. Somewhere inside each San Franciscan lurks a secret desire to be driven to work in a vehicle that gets less that 30 mpg.

Actually, the weather’s so nice I probably should have just ridden the bike, but as we all know. That shit is dangerous.