About time. But what's the deal with Bay Citizen's headline writers? Are they refugees from the Examiner?

MUNI has a policy that after (I believe) 8 pm at night, a rider can request the driver to stop at any street corner, even when there is not a stop. It's rarely publicized or used....

My observation as a frequent rider of the MUNI 5 bus is that the buses are more often caught up in traffic on Market Street and slowed down traffic congestion rather than the frequent stops.

Safety issues on the MUNI 5 buses are much more of a problem than speed. These stem from many sources in addition to the occasional rider who might present problems. Some of these issues are: the mix of buses with other vehicles on downtown Market Street with weaving of lanes in the mix, overcrowded buses, and I have even seen about 20 preschoolers standing for more than a mile on one of the bus trips because there were no seats except for the few of us who offered ours. Another big safety problem is the roller coaster ride by some of the route 5 drivers racing inbound to downtown to attempt to meet schedules. In a few cases standing passengers were knocked down due to speeding buses. What is needed are more route 5 buses and better synchronization of schedules and, perhaps, even synchronizing traffic light operations on downtown Market Street with MUNI schedules once traffic lights are better synchronized with one another along Market Street.

I don't see anything wrong with eliminating some stops as long as seniors and disabled people can request one of those eliminated stops. I've been to a number of meetings about MUNI and suggested buses/streetcars be fitted with transponders to turn lights green and be given right of way over cars. Other suggestions: the N and J lines would run faster if there were a light at Duboce and Church (where pedestrians and cars often play chicken) and a public campaign warning NOT to cross the front of a MUNI vehicle after being let off. Too much sense?

The reason AC Transit has a faster average speed than Muni is because so much of its service area is in sparsely populated areas with few destinations. In the core cities it is no faster than Muni. San Francisco transit has *always* operated at around 8 mph for at least the past hundred years, and the only way it will get substantially faster is if it stops being useful to riders.

Can't compare AC Transit to MUNI...and why the hurry? People in the East Bay are not
happy having their bus stops cut back to save an average of maybe a minute or two in time?

We all need to slow down.

Tom Radulovich is one of the few people who actually makes sense. Muni needs to move faster to make these common sense decisions. I totally agree with Mr. Planthold that we need better traffic enforcement in bus zones and traffic signal prioritization for the buses and light rail. But having said that, when about 70% of the stops are too close, clearly there is something wrong here! If people cannot walk even a couple of blocks, then they need to use paratransit instead, not slow down everyone else.

As for Question Now's comment, my guess is you don't use Muni to get to work everyday, or you don't have to arrive on time, so you don't appreciate the reason rest of us want Muni to speed up. We are the slowest transit system in the country...there is simply no excuse for that.

And Chris P is right about the lame headline. Quite biased and not very professional at all.

SPEED increases accidents-- if traffic is heavy if you can walk- do so. Or get an earlier bus
We are a very Lazy people- and our entitlements skew what is possible.

We forget that public transit also serves elders-- am so tired of seeing able bodied people (which I am one ) impatient for edlers and those of slower abilities. Not all elders are slow-- many on buses have mobility problems.

AC Transit is like riding a wild horse-- the drivers are stressed because of the schedules are almost impossible to keep with traffic issues, boarding of wheel chairs...OUR society has to slow down!!!

As a regular user of the 5 Fulton, yes there are some absurdly close stops - the two stops on McAllister at Van Ness and again at Polk, are the most absurd (but I figured City Hall wants those two so nobody misses getting to City Hall). But the real issue for speed is that of conflicting traffic. The recent change of routing on the 5 Fulton inbound, to travel on McAllister to Market rather than that zig-zag swing around on Hyde and then onto Market; that must have allowed the buses to avoid some congestiion, but why was the one-way on McAllister from Hyde to Market not reserved solely to buses and taxis? All over central San Francisco are narrow, busy streets, with lots of buses, and yet still encumbered with cars: Stockton from the northern end of the tunnel to Columbus is one - surely buses and taxis only, no private cars ... things would speed up markedly, and the same for about 6-8 blocks of Chestnut on the 30 Stockton - it can take a bus forever it seems to go from one end of Chestnut to the other. There is no need for private cars on that street. San Francisco shows little talent in segregating bus and taxi traffic from automobiles ... does nobody travel abroad to see how it might be done more effectively?

Always easy to cite the few obvious examples of stops too close to each other, but the real issues are auto interference, lack of signal prempts 4 way stop signs--both N and J have too many. The Tenderloin story was classic Muni stupidity. They have a Geary Ltd which zips thru. Instead of trying to gut the convenience of the local, changing the mix of locals and LTDs would serve both markets better. Enforcing the bus only lanes , and USING the signal preempts on the Embarcadero for instance buy much more time savings.
As to the 14 and 49 in the commercial heart of the Mission, more riders board/alight block by block than ride long distances--that is why there is a 14 Limited.

Of course road traffic conditions have an effect on MUNI transit time. People just need to start using cars less in this city and travelling more by bicycle, MUNI and BART. But as a frequent rider I can attest that there are far too many stops, and on the routes I travel this seems to add at least as much time as being stopped by traffic. Having grown up in London and Bristol and having travelled extensively in Europe, I have never seen so many bus stops as I have in San Francisco. It's ridiculous! In my view MUNI should immediately make the minimum gap at least every two blocks. I would be very happy to see stops only every four blocks. That means you might have to walk two blocks to the bus stop. People will adapt, humans are remarkably resilient and adaptable.

A really stupid proposal. Walking two blocks to another stop could easily make me half an hour late because a bus might go by in the meantime.

Eliminating stops is REALLY idiotic. They've already eliminated any number of routes, while wasting money on transit gestapo and the Culture Bus....

Rieskin is TOTALLY unqualified for this post!

the worst is downtown, where you sit through three traffic light cycles while the driver entertains questions from tourists, lingers to let one more person on (but never me!), idles while some daydreaming passenger realizes that this was where she wanted to get off, and waits while boneheads standing by the rear door prevent it from closing. None of these things has anything to do with number of stops or distance between them.

There's a fine line between increasing Muni speed and eliminating service.

The recently dropped 28L stop at Noriega St was a connector for the the 71 bus. Now the 28L doesn't stop for nearly a mile (Judah to Quintara), skipping most of the Sunset.

Meanwhile, nearby the N-Judah stops twice in one block.

Reliability is more important than speed. People are more a lot more satisfied with a commute that's reliably 30 minutes than one that's sometimes 20 minutes and sometimes 40, because you always have to assume it'll take the longest time if you don't want to be late.

Removing stops may help with this.