MUNI – 1 California

Took this bus a few days ago and I must say it ain’t bad. Sure this bus goes by Chinatown but it is not so rowdy like the number 30 which totally sucks. It makes me mad when a bus gets really crowded. Best time to ride is when this hidden shuttle that goes by Chinatown is in service. I had to take this bus back to where I work and service is quick and easy. All you do is pay and go till you transfer to another bus. I still love the fact that it goes down streets that you rarely go down if you are not a native to SF. I do agree on this route being very «precious» like a luxury car which also #33 is also the same.
Drawback: the frequency of this bus can throw people off so try your best to find this bus if you use it for your commute, if you miss it the worse case scenario is waiting 20+ minutes

I recently moved to San Francisco and was told over and over again about how the public transportation here would be fantastic. Apparently, everyone was lying. Really, it boils down to this: Between Presidio and its terminal at Clay & Drumm. this bus runs about 4 MPH. This crawl down Sac/​Clay is sweaty, nauseating, and insanely crowded with grumpy people. The overhead power system is innovative but unreliable.
Leg spread, entitlement to window-​shutting, passive aggression, «BACK DOOR!», frightening darts through red lights, and worst of all, stalling 2 minutes almost every block makes my blood boil. Standing in a diesel-​powered bus while the 1BX «express» alternative performs the most of the same antics along Bush street is hardly any better.
I cannot help but offer a bare minimum of two stars for this route because it runs a logical and popular route and service runs often and late. In a perfect world, this route would be a subway or at least light rail. But despite $ 2.25 fares, high ridership, and a liberal constituency, MUNI will never have the resources to improve this line.
I’m a huge fan of transit — a transit nerd, in fact. I was very excited to take a bus to work, so it has been disheartening to have such a shitty experience in this SF transit lifestyle.

Driver 4079 is a complete asshole.
Don’t become a bus driver if you’re not a people person. I’m sorry your partner doesn’t give you enough stress release that you have to take it out on innocent people.
Bad attitude and no respect for other bus riders.
Asking if a person can read or not is not only rude but dehumanizing. Learn some respect and manners.
P. S. honking does not make other cars faster nor does it make the bus faster.
EDIT: FUCK YOU JUDE FROM Unilocal SUPPORT! Jude from Unilocal emailed me and «elected to remove» my review. The reason why is because it is not «broadly representative» to the business. Thus proving that Unilocal DOES in fact remove and delete reviews. Muni, Jude from Unilocal,and the whole city of San Francisco can go fuck themselves.

This bus makes way too many stops. Seriously it stops every block. It should not take 40 minutes to go two miles. Do people’s legs not work to the point that they cannot walk a block to the next stop? I thought people in this town were active and in shape. The bus hasn’t crashed and gets me there whole so this is a whiny first world complaint. Seriously, cut out a quarter of the stops and everyone’s commute would be shorter and we’d all smile more.

Took this last night after having dinner up the street on Montgomery. It was about 8:45p and I has just missed the previous bus by half a block! Luckily the next bus was due to arrive in about 6 mins. Thank you 1 California for not making me wait 20 mins for the next bus since it’s no longer commute hours! I easily found a seat and took the line all way to the end. Fast and painless. I was the last one off the bus! Now if only I could have convinced the bus driver to drop me off on Fulton instead! That walk up the hill in high heeled boots is NOT fun!

«Finding a good bus driver can be as important as fining a good musician.»
Reba McEntire
Growing up in SF, the «1» was, and still is, the main bus-​line to take you from the Embarcadero to the Outer Richmond/​Seacliff and back. I do recommend it to people, from time to time, because of the straight line the route takes through the City. You even have the «A» and «B» Express lines during rush hour to get you to work or home faster. Still, I tell everyone, ride it at your own risk and bring lots of sanitizing wipes to clean your seats and handrails!
So, why only 2 stars? The DRIVERS!
In all fairness, most of them are great.
Unfortunately some of them are not, in a freaking DANGEROUS way. When they are running late they have no problemo charging red lights or cutting drivers off in order to make their time checks. You seriously have to look both ways and wait several seconds on California Street at stop signs or when the light turns green before, either walking or driving across, since there might be a late running «1 Californiazilla» on the damn warpath, charging down the bloody road! I will NEVER, EVER forget the day, about a decade ago, when I was jogging along California street and a speeding 1 California bus collided with a large fire engine that had its sirens on in front of my eyes… GEEZ!!!

Some idiot Muni driver on the outbound MUNI-​1 line along California Street has this routine where he/​she/​IT takes up two effin’ lanes for miles along California Street deep into the Laurel Heights district.
Is he/​she/​IT trying to avoid a double-​parked vehicle? No.
Is he/​she/​IT defensively maneuvering this bus to not hit a bike/​pedestrian? No.
I see this constantly near the CPMC-Children’s Hospital area.
It’s a crazy sight as you are driving behind it.
Not a single soul can pass this bus.
I’m assuming that he/​she/​IT lacks the skills, or is scared of shaving off the side-​view mirrors of the parked cars.
He/​she/​IT does pull into one lane to let off the passengers.
how nice… not epic… lotsa fail.

2 stars for being on time, and that’s about it as far as the positives.
Takes forever to get downtown, there are always way too many people crammed against each other like we’re pretending to be at Ruby Skye, and just before you get off at your stop flocks upon flocks of 70 year old locals from chinatown flood the bus a few blocks from the financial district, making exiting this hellhole a sequel to The Great Escape.
I’ll pass for the AX.

This bus line is on time about 90% of the time.
Hardly packed unlike the 38 Geary bus.
The buses are clean and free of misspelled graffiti tags
When its cold out the drivers actually throw on the heater. I’m not going to lie, I never knew that the buses had heaters until I started riding the 1 California.

This is my favorite Muni line, as there is a inbound and southbound stop right by the apartment. The inbound rolls right down into the financial district… however it tends to get packed around Chinatown. From 4 – 7 Mon-​Fri it’s packed with FiDi financial analysts scrambling to get out of downtown.

Just have to say they should have a special bus run for STUDENTS! They are highly annoying and down rude. Poor bus drivers even though they make more money than teachers.

This bus line is great! On time, takes me from downtown to the outer richmond.

Not too bad.
Runs often enough so that even if one bus is full… there is always one only a few minutes away.
Not to mention, it’s only 25 steps from my front door!

Buses on this route come frequently so I don’t think I’ve had any problems. This route can also be very crowded since it does pass by Chinatown.
1 California to Geary and 33^rd Ave

Our bus driver is crazy. Remember the old cranky bus driver back in elementary school who yelled half the time, he was like that. If he wasn’t yelling at passengers to get behind the yellow line, he was honking his horn at somebody. I was lost trying to get to Stockton but I asked a passenger where the stop was (I sure wasn’t going to ask the driver). Plus the bus was packed. There was a bit of an altercation between him and a driver who was blocking the lane. That was interesting especially when the driver got out and banged on the doors. So yeah, that was some introduction to public transportation in SF. Glad I was just visiting.

HILARIOUS! Why does this muni bus have its own Unilocal page? You Unilocalers are crackin me up!
This is the most efficient bus of them all. it is also the most FREQUENT. probably because one of the managers stands at the intersection of presidio and california in the mornings. awesome!
So damn crowded sometimes though –_​–
but I love how it comes so often. Cuts right across town.

Pros: It gets me everywhere. Home to work to divisadero to presidio and I can connect to a bunch of bus lines.
Cons:
I am extremely lucky I live far out enough to reasonably get a seat 95% of the time. I also ride to the end of the line so the commute home is relatively painless.
If you live anywhere beyond Van Ness street and it’s rush hour, good luck getting on the bus. The bus gets packed like sardines and just sails by all the stops until it gets to Mason. This happens for all the buses that somehow fill up around 8 am.
The spacing of the buses make absolutely no sense either: sometimes you wait for 10 minutes only to have 3 buses come in a row. I understand many factors come into play but for people trying to get into work it is absolutely frustrating.

My least favorite line next to 8x — eww — always smells like raw fish and rotting bok choy.

Here are the top seven reasons I loathe each and every time I am forced to ride the MUNI 1 California. I know I could easily come up with an even ten, but these just seem to be the issues that have truly pissed me off over the past few days… please enjoy.
1. I leave my house every morning at 8:30am. Half the time the Muni arrives a few minutes later and I end up 15 minutes early for work, grumpy that those precious minutes could have been spent in bed. The other half of the time, I watch helplessly as back to back buses, filled way beyond capacity, drive right by me unable to pick up any more passengers, and I end up ten minutes late for work. Can they space out the buses more so this doesn’t happen?
2. I am forced to ride a total of three blocks through China town on the normal commute… At the first stop entering this part of town, somewhere around 35 elderly Chinese people shove their way onto the bus, I politely offer up my seat, which one of them always takes… and then I proceed to watch as every single one of them de-​board the bus two blocks later.
3. Hoodlums like to ride this route during rush hour. Yes… hoodlums. I was recently on my ride home around 6:15 and witnessed a young lady get her IPhone stolen right out of her hand while she was texting. We all stared in disbelief as a guy grabbed it from her hands and sprinted out the open door during one of the stops. What did the bus driver do as we all yelled and a gentleman tried to chase the thief? Closed the doors and drove onward.
4. It takes twenty minutes to literally go 6 blocks sometimes.
5. When it rains, forget about these buses actually running on schedule… or at all. During a recent down pour I actually had to catch a taxi home because predicted bus times were listed as more than 45 minutes. How can this be when on a normal day they come every 3 minutes?
6. Is it me or did they select the grumpiest, most foul-​mouthed a-​hole drivers for this particular route?
7. The evening commute on the 1 is essentially a death trap. Tonight, on my way home from the gym around 7:30pm, the driver packed the bus so tight with people he may have even had someone sitting on his lap. As we began to make the trek up the very steep hill at Sacramento and Grant, the electricity just gave out and we sharply shot backwards as the driver slammed on the breaks. We were about 2 seconds away from flying backwards into the Kearny Street traffic and meeting a really unfortunate death. Seriously people, the yellow line is no joke. Stay behind it! If the bus is full, that sucks… wait for the next one, do not shove and push all the rest of the riders farther into this moving metal coffin.
Each morning I walk into my office after my horrific commute and mutter to my co-​workers «Never agaiin. I’m never riding the 1 again.» I have decided walking to work is not only a good healthy alternative but saves my sanity as well. As for the steep uphill trek home each night? I’m stuck with you MUNI 1 California… well, for now that is.

One of the better munis. The AM ride between 8−9AM is absolutely packed if you are travelling east to go downtown. Same holds true when you ride between 5−6PM travelling west. But hey the people are atleast pretty attractive.
Sometimes if I just missed the 1 I walk down Laguna to catch the 2,3,4. My roommate and I have realized the more south you go to catch the muni the less attractive the people are. For example, the 1 has some hotties, the 2,3,4 that runs east/​west on Post has some satisfactory eye candy but the 38 Geary bus… forget about it!
My only beef with the 1 is that during non-​peak hours the buses run less frequent. If I need to head home from downtown after 6PM I usually take the 2,3,4 or the 38 which runs every 10 min.