It's so hard to be me. You have no idea.

Hi,
The driver of bus 5477 sped past the stop at Fulton and Stanyan on the 21 route this morning, even though there was a passenger there waiting to be picked up. As the bus drove off, the passenger started running down the sidewalk alongside the bus, shouting and waving -- there is no way the bus driver could have avoided hearing and seeing him, unless the driver was wearing headphones.
The driver even created a hazardous situation in order to avoid acknowledging the passenger: he or she attempted to merge to the left so that there'd be a lane of cars between the bus and the frustrated passenger. This merge was done very abruptly and nearly caused a collision.
Eventually, the bus had to stop at a traffic signal about 30 feet from the stop, and the passenger caught up to the door of the bus and knocked on it. But still, the driver would not let the passenger onboard. I was standing some distance away, and I couldn't tell whether the driver eventually relented. But in any case, it was really, really, really bad customer service; not to mention just plain rude of the driver.
Thanks for your attention to this.
Matt Baume

And:

Hi,
The poor service provided by four different drivers on the 43 route made a lot of people late for work this morning. It was a combination of drivers bunching up their runs and then skipping stops, stranding the waiting passengers.
First, at 8:57, the driver of 7358 ran through a yellow light so that she wouldn't have to pick up some extra passengers. There was a big crowd of people waiting to cross the street so they could catch that bus; in fact, one of the women in the crowd shouted to get the driver's attention. The driver glanced at her, closed the door, and accelerated through the changing traffic signal so that they wouldn't have a chance to board. One minute later, at 8:58, the driver of 8333 blew past the stop without even slowing down. There were at least four people waiting for the bus, some in the shelter and some standing by the curb.
Then, after those two bunched-up buses, there was a 20 minute wait for the next 43: that was bus 8325 at 9:18, and it was followed immediately by bus 8220, driven by driver 0874. There was no gap whatsoever between those two buses at this point.
So, there are several problems here:
- A driver not waiting to pick up a large group of passengers
- A driver not even slowing down to pick up waiting passengers
- Drivers bunching up their runs, and then leaving long gaps
It all amounts to really poor customer service. I know Muni's ridership declined slightly in the past year; maybe it's because some drivers have decided to arbitrarily avoid picking up passengers.
Thanks for your attention to this.
Matt

And:

Hi,
It seems as though bunching on the 5 route is the rule, rather than the exception. Tonight I caught bus #5487 at Fulton and Stanyan; there was another bus immediately in front of it, and a third bus (#5563) immediately behind it. According to Nextbus, that bunched-up group of three was followed by a gap of ten minutes, after which two more bunched-up buses were predicted.
Please place some enforcement officers on the 5 route to deal with this frequent bunching-up.
Thanks for your attention to this,
Matt

And, a day later:

Hi,
I observed another bus driver refusing to pick up a passenger this morning. This time it was on the 1 line, heading east at Sacramento and Presidio. The bus has already picked up the passengers who were waiting, and pulled up about five feet before it was stopped by a traffic signal. Part of the bus was still in the bus stop, and the front door was adjacent to sidewalk. One more passenger ran up and knocked on the door, but the driver wouldn't open it.
There was no reason not to let the passenger onboard. The light had just turned red, so he'd be waiting there for another minute. He wasn't in the middle of traffic -- the bus was still alongside the sidewalk. And in fact, because the bus stop is right next to the traffic light, most of the bus was still inside the bus stop area. It was just mean of him to make her stand there and wait, when he could have easily and safely let her board.
Matt