By Ann-Marie AlcĚÁntara
Complaining about Muni is a San Francisco tradition as deeply entrenched as poop watching or rent gouging, but get ready to tap your Clipper Card with joy because a whole new round of improvements is coming our way on April 25.
You might’ve heard rumblings in the past about MUNI Forward, the SFMTA’s grand plan to actually make the system faster and better. The main tenets include a rapid bus network, new names for routes, better signage for bus shelters, and a new map that took eight years to see the light of day. Those changes are finally happening.
Come mid-April, you can expect to see an actual pole that lists what other buses stop at those wavy, red-roofed shelters, along with new bike racks and a light that can shine through fog. More importantly, faster and more regular service is coming to several lines, including some on the weekends. All the changes are outlined below.
- All “limited” buses will now be labeled “rapid” buses, so the 5L, 9L, 14L, 28L, 38L, and 71L, will now have R’s.
- Express service on the 1AX/BX, 8 AX/BX, 14X, 30X, 31AX/BX will end around 10 a.m.
- You’ll see the 5R more throughout the day and during peak times. It will also get an additional four buses added to its route.
- The 8 will become frequent during the day, with a bus coming every seven minutes (instead of every nine).
- The 8AX will arrive every six minutes (instead of every eight), will have five more buses during the evening commute, and three more buses in the morning.
- The 8BX will also arrive every six minutes, with an additional two buses in the morning and five at night.
- The 10 will have two more trips in the morning.
- The 14R will arrive every 7.5 minutes (instead of every 9), two more buses will run during the week, and it will go from 8 a.m. to 6:47 p.m. on weekends, instead of starting later and ending earlier.
- The 14X will have four more buses during both its morning and evening commutes, meaning it will arrive every 5.5 minutes when you’re on your way to work and every 7.5 minutes when you’re headed to happy hour. It will also run until 10 a.m. inbound and start at 3 p.m.
- The 28 will add another trip in the morning, while the 29 will arrive every 12 minutes (instead of every 15, so those of you who live in the Presidio can jump for joy).
- The 41 will add one bus to its service during the morning commute.
- And for those of you who ride the god forsaken 38R and have fond memories of being smashed between 10 people, there will be five more buses during peak times. FIVE! FIVE! It will also run on Sundays.
As for those new route names, they won’t change your life that much but will definitely help newcomers (and tourists) understand exactly where they’re going. The new route names and numbers are below.
- The new route names for two lines are: 6 Haight-Parnassus and the 33 Ashbury-18th.
- The 16X Noreiga Express is now the 7X Noreiga Express. The 17 will now go by the number 57; the 71/71L will now be the 7/7R; and the 108 bus to Treasure Island will be the 25.
- The 8X Bayshore will now just be the 8 Bayshore.
But, of course, in an effort to become faster and more reliable, a few stops had be removed. Those are also below.
With all these changes, Muni’s operating hours will go up by 2.5 percent, reports SFGate, and more increases will come in the fall and again in February 2016.
While all of this is great, I just hope people stop clipping their nails on the bus.
[h/t SFGate; top photo courtesy of Sonny Abesamis/Flickr]
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