Neighbor Keith is a valiant regular aboard Muni’s 67 Bernal bus line, and he’s rather unthrilled about a service change announced this week:

As a daily rider of the 67 – San Francisco’s friendliest bus route – I’m used to getting up close and personal with my Bernal neighbors. But, at the end of yesterday’s particularly packed small-bus sardine-a-thon to 24th Street BART, our very friendly regular driver happened to mention that Muni has decided to take all large buses off the 67 route for the next three months.

I asked our bus driver about the 67 Short Bus Switch™ again this morning, and she told me that the drivers haven’t been given any reason for the decision (apparently, they are normally told if it’s due to something sensible like the construction on Folsom). So who knows what Muni is thinking in this instance (or, for that matter, ever).

Overcrowding is already an issue most mornings and evenings, and using small buses will only make things worse (unless, of course, Muni is secretly planning to increase bus frequency).

Being squeezed in so tight is obviously unpleasant, but also seems unsafe – those twists and turns can get quite exciting when trying to hang on to a stroller and toddler.

In good neighborly fashion, I’ve submitted a complaint via the online 311 service, but  some noise from Bernal neighbors could help grease the wheels of progress.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

The SFMTA plans to relocate a bus stop on Crescent at Anderson, and Neighbor Ryon feels under-consulted. He writes:

Two weeks ago the MTA put up a sign to announce that the 23 line bus stop would move to a new location on Nov. 14, right in front of our house. Last week they came and painted in a coach stop sign (in the rain). Here are ten reasons why this sucks:

1. There is a bus stop one block away and another two blocks down.
2. There was no bus stop here when we bought our house in 2007.
3. I wonder what our home value just dropped to; a new low no doubt, 80’s figures I imagine
4. My small children and family are now subjected to strangers loitering around feet from our doorstep
5. Our gate area and/or tree will no doubt become a trash receptacle
6. People are staring at me when I look out the window
7. Cool new sounds of busses idling noisily outside at night
8. We just celebrated how great our block will be, only to have this nuisance kill our hope like a baby harp seal. Two doors down, Nassers Market has recently been transformed from a dangerous drug operation regularly raided by S.W.A.T. at which the former owner had been assassinated by local gang members facing robbery charges. So we are a little sensitive, yes.
9. Our children are small and vulnerable, just thought I would mention this again.
10. We don’t need this crap.

I promptly lodged a complaint (reference number 1659943) through 311. They were sympathetic and said they would lodge the complaint for me and would even ask the MTA to discuss it with me over the phone. Of course, that never happened.

You can probably guess neither we nor our neighbors were consulted about this, and you might also guess how far the obvious, “well we posted it for a whole week” argument would fly with us. In fact the man who put up the sign was intercepted by my mother-in-law who mentioned to him that there would be complaints to which he replied, “Oh yes, we are expecting them.” The problem is we don’t really know the right channels to go through to reverse this small tragedy. Any help and advice from the Bernal community would be greatly appreciated.

PHOTO: Neighbor Ryon