For the last two years, I've been taking the commute to and from Oakland via MUNI and BART for work. Although it was an added about 30-35 minutes to my commute than the one I had from Berkeley to Oakland, it wasn't too bad. Over the months, I've found myself passing the 45-50 minute commute with books I've been putting off reading, music that I haven't listened to in years (despite popular belief, I do listen to stuff other than Hilary Duff, though she IS on my iPod), and other random activities like writing and GRE studying. I've never really had a bad experience... that is until yesterday, courtesy of MUNI.
I should've figured out that the commute was going to be awful when I read this article over at Metroblogging SF. I figured if I avoided the N-Judah, I should be fine. This was how my commute went.
5:01 pm: Left work
5:08 pm: Arrived at BART station
5:11 pm: Took SF BART line
5:25 pm: Arrived at Embarcadero Station. Walked over to MUNI station. Took the L-Taraval.
5:40-5:45 pm: MUNI stopped and stayed in place at Church station. Conductor announced that a train ahead broke down and there was no ETA when it will go back online. I decided to chance it and walked over to the Church/Duboce intersection.
5:55 pm: N-Judah arrived. The train was PACKED. I decided to wait for the next train. The crowd of people waiting for the next train grew.
6:05 pm: A Duboce/Church shuttle arrived at the stop and EMPTIED out everyone. The crowd of people waiting now doubled in size. The shuttle moved forward a little bit before turning around and heading back inbound.
6:15 pm: ANOTHER Duboce/Church shuttle arrived and it emptied out everyone. There were so many people around that we are literally blocking the street now. The shuttle moved ahead and parked.
6:20 pm: Yay! A N-Judah finally arrived. Unfortunately, it was PACKED and got even more packed when the waiting crowd got a bit aggressive with people pushing to get in the train.
However, a backup of trains resulted in a horrible domino effect. The inbound N train was not given the go-ahead to enter the underground tunnel. The parked shuttle, which couldn't go forward because of the inbound N Judah, was blocking the path for the N-Judah outbound to move forward. Coming out of the tunnel was another N-Judah train waiting to reach Duboce/Church to pick me up. I looked at another person waiting for the MUNI in astonishment and called it a Charlie Foxtrot.
6:27 pm: Things started to move and finally, the traffic cleared away. The second N-Judah train arrived and I push my way into the car to get on.
6:37 pm: Reach my normal stop. Walk home.
97 minute commute. Ugh. Rohit suggested that I run as Mayor on a single issue platform. He might be right. Who's in?
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