December 07, 2006

People ARE the Problem

As any avid reader of this site (yes, all 2 of them) could tell you, in the recent years, there had been some question as to whether its chief author (me, morons), perhaps due to some unknown mental breakdown, was capable of producing anything but dubious and/or nonsensical rants about the horrendous failings of San Francisco's deplorable public transit system. Under no obligation to contradict this hypothesis, I will once again venture into this metaphorical cesspool to write about everyone's favorite use of tax dollars. Today's topic: systemic incompetence and bureaucratic idiocy cannot solely explain the true dreadfulness of MUNI; there is a much more insidious cause for our travails. Three anecdotes from recent weeks should be instructive.

The three anecdotes I refer to are as follows:

1. [November 30, 2006] – My roommate Phil texts me around 1730 to inform me that the man next to him on board the MUNI has a sizable snake that he is allowing to roam freely across his bodice. The man boarded the train at Carl & Cole (suspiciously close to the Haight—no surprise there) and was accompanied by a lady friend who had a small dog that was possibly dirtier than the aforementioned couple. Initial analysis indicates Samuel L. Jackson was not involved and the sequel to his critically acclaimed summer hit Snakes on a Plane (i.e., Snakes on a Train) was not beginning filming in San Francisco; it was just another day on the MUNI with random worthless assholes from the Haight.
2. [December 04, 2006] – After 4+ hours of shopping hell at the newly opened San Francisco Westfield Center, I am pleasantly surprised to find a N-Judah train arriving just as I come down the stairs of the Montgomery MUNI station. Boarding the train, I see a noticeably large piece of mud, with the indent of a footprint. Moments after the doors to the train close, a disgusting smell overwhelms my senses. The conclusion comes a second too late: the mud I saw was in fact shit and the entire train smelled like it. Some one had shat in the door of the train! How does that happen? Does someone just walk in, pop a squat, and go at it? What the hell? Ridiculous.
3. [Every Day] – My bus will stop at Laguna Honda & Clarendon (it is hard to imagine a more jerk-off spot than that) to pick up a handful of fat, lazy imbeciles and then drop them off 20 feet later at Forest Hill Station. This is the biggest waste of time, and also, hopelessly inefficient. Why the hell would anyone wait 20 minutes for a bus when they are within 100 yards of their destination is beyond me. Forest Hill is a good mile from my house, and I'd say I walk it at least once a week—with a heavy laptop bag. The least these assholes could do is walk 5 minutes.

The bottom line: people are the problem. All right, perhaps not the whole problem, but with assholes bringing snakes onto the train, random run-by-shitters on the loose, and idiots opposed to the concept of bipedal motion, it's hard to lay the blame squarely on systemic incompetence or bureaucratic idiocy. Certainly, that plays a part as well, but until we come up with a solution to deal with the grass roots issues, no amount of management shuffling will better our MUNI experience.

And may I humbly suggest, the next time you see a dirty guy with a snake or an bum popping a squat, feel free to bludgeon him with a blunt object. I'll personally nominate you for a community service award.