By now you’ve probably heard of the pretty big FAIL that happened around 7pm this evening (perfect timing)…those of you following on Twitter would have received some updates as I learned of them while I was out and about.
Readers also wrote in with firsthand accounts, such as this one from Warren about an hour or so ago:
7:15 pm Here I stand on the N in the subway stuck between Van Ness station and Church for the 15th minute. The train operator says there’s a problem up ahead and crews are on the way to fix the problem. The train starts to crawl but goes about 10 feet then stops again.
7:22 pm The train operator announces that the problem is serious, but that we would start moving again.
7:25 pm We make it outside. It looks like L,K, and M riders will be stuck for a while.
-Warren
Several others also wrote or Twittered in with reports as well. The irony that all of this is happening on the eve of fare hikes and service cuts? Priceless.
UPDATE: Tommy the bartender at the Blackthorn was commuting on the way to the BT, and was held up, and reports this interesting piece of news as he’s still delayed on his way in tonight.
I guess we’ve used up our contractually allowed one hour of downtime a year… lol.
An uncharacteristically articulate MUNI employee announced over the PA system that there was a computer failure. Kudos to whomever he was. That said MUNI could have done things much better:
– Evening out the outbound distribution of trains. I saw one single one car L in the MMT, but all that came out were outbound N, K, and J trains.
– Setting up alternatives and letting people know about them. I didn’t see any shuttle buses, and the announcer didn’t make any point of mentioning the F or BART as potential alternatives (I BART’d to Daly City and took the 28 back).
– Ensuring that the cab signaling system remains in place. The cab signal train control system was used before the newfangled ATCS was bought for millions of millions of dollars. It allows faster speeds (~35mph vs ~10mph I *think*) than manual control and is unaffected by ATCS problems. MUNI management wants to remove it.
– Used the NextBus signs to get the word out that there were metro delays
– Used the platform signs to do the same
– Put signs up at the turnstiles (or NextBus displays indicating similar info).
Interesting. This just about corresponds with a power surge/2 second blackout that I experienced. It didn’t kill any of my equipment, but did cause my modem and router to reboot right in the middle of my daily backup. :-/
It makes me both happy (for me) and sad (for everyone else) that since I started driving to work again last week, I have missed – in only 3 days of driving – two huge Muni FAILs and a 1+ hr Caltrain delay.
It’s hard to take mass transit seriously sometimes.
@joseph: what kind of commute are you doing now?
I used to commute from the inner sunset-ish area down to the fell st. onramp (now gone) to South City and it was not too bad, but one accident on 101 and life sucked.
Nowadays even doing that would be a hassle what with the Market/Octavia drama..ugh.