MUNI – 25 Treasure Island

I wish these was an option for zero stars. This bus line is constantly late or doesn’t show up at all. Busses supposed to arrive at night pass by without picking up passengers for a two hour Waite. Drivers let people play loud music in the back. I’ve seen a driver get off and go to the store at the Islam gate entrance on route after waiting two hrs for a bus. It consistently shows up late or in the mornings they speed 10 min early then stop at the bridge (making petrol miss the bus and those on it has to waste time sitting there instead of getting off in the city early).

I have to wonder if the 108 has gotten better since many of these reviews were written. I have never seen a fight on the 108, although I believe that they could happen depending on the time of day you ride it. Mostly I see the same people taking their kids to school or going to work/​classes.
The bus is rarely on time. When I want to go to the main land I just sit at the stop since it is the only way to make sure that I catch the bus. I am lucky that my stop is fairly early so I my self rarely have to face issues of the bus being over crowded, but I have seen it happen in the morning, and particularly when there is a event on the island. Another problem is that the MUNI drivers sometimes fall asleep at the Transbay so the next driver will arrive and wake them, I think this too has become less of a issue but it has certainly happened more then once. You can usually tell when it has happened because a bus will come, then 30 seconds later another one will come. Some of the drivers are very nice, and others… I once saw a driver take off from a stop while a 10 year old kid ran after it asking the driver to stop while his brother begged the driver to let the kid on. The kid was about 10 seconds late getting to the door of the bus and that is why the driver left him.
Other times they will refuse to stop. Or they will stop, and then leave before you have a chance to get off the bus. I have noticed the back doors are difficult to open on the 108 but if you ask the driver to wait for you to get them open they will tell you to just get off at the next stop, god knows that you are cutting into their valuable time sitting around at the Transbay.
It is nice that it runs 24 hours.

Nice to know that there is a route taking passengers between San Francisco and Treasure Island. I like how this route has service 24/​7, so that’s an added convenience. When I am on the 108, it’s easy to see the views of San Francisco from the Bay Bridge.
It would be very nice if we can see an increase in the frequency for this route.

I used to ride this bus back in the day when I lived on the island (not an art student nor am I the free housing)
I am one of the ones that has been in a fight on the bus cause some guy didnt want me to sit next to him and I did. He ended up sucker punching me a few stops later and I had to punch his face a few times while his gf/​baby mama tried pulling me off him. Bus driver tried to kick me off, said he was gonna call the cops. I said cool. Please do… but he didnt :(
Other than that it was late a bunch of times.
Got off the island before it went to total hell.

Lets start off Treasure Island is a s-​hole, and filled with the low income welfare users, but this review is for the 108.
It is a convenient line if you need to get to the island. It comes about every 20mins., runs 24hrs. a day, but it gets packed with people trying to get home. The boarding site keeps moving, but it will have a long line waiting to board so, if your looking to use it, try to get there early. It’s one bus, and makes a circle through Treasure Island, and returns to the Transbay Terminal (temporary one).

This has been my lifeline to the city since I moved to San Francisco, and more specifically Yerba Buena Island, a little over a week ago. First off, this is a 24 hour ride which already puts it on my good side. On the return trip there’s a free shuttle that drives me up the hill and drops me off right in front of my place. This is what the Mayans called «customer service.»
Some other fun facts about this bus:
* You might just get the whole bus to yourself in the middle of the night.
* Perchance there will be a 9-​year-​old chubby white boy who sings aloud the chorus to Justin Bieber’s «Baby» to a packed bus all the way into the city.
* You very much could have the opportunity of hearing quasi-​homeless junkies talk amongst themselves about how no one’s gonna tell them what to do.
* For every degenerate you’ll encounter, you might also come across a really cute art student trying to look like a hipster.
This is a unique bus route and a good way to get into town. It drops you off at the temporary transbay terminal at Howard & Beale, which is a few blocks from the Embarcadero BART zone. Everyone gets off at the same spot and the bus turns back around to take people back to the island. Simple and efficient.

Aw… that’s sad. I kinda think this bus route is underrated. Yeah, its not as frequent as most MUNI buses, but it is fairly on schedule, isn’t it? I guess I’ve never had to ride this bus to get anywhere on time. I’ve only ever taken it to visit Treasure Island, for leisure, so I was never watching the clock. I felt like it got me there in decent time. I don’t ride this route very often so maybe this isn’t the best review, but I like the quick ride to Treasure Island. The wait for the bus back is kinda lengthy. No biggie though. The best part about this ride is the view of the Bay while on the Bay Bridge. When driving across the Bay Bridge, our cars are usually too low to see anything, but the height of the seats on the bus allow us to see it all.
P. S. I’ve added this to my «Earth, Wind, and Water» list which features gorgeous, must-​see sites in the Bay Area that don’t cost a thing. Standard MUNI rates apply on this route (present cost: $ 2 with a 90-​minute transfer for unlimited MUNI rides). It’s on the list cuz it takes us somewhere pretty and free. The end.

Now that the transbay terminal is closed I no longer have to smell pee pee at my bus stop. This bus used to be hella ghetto but there seems to be less drama now.

Ghet-​to to the m-​a-​x. If you want to be surrounded by druggie stoner job corps students who are rude up the wazoo, plus other smelly people who have odd tattoos and ill-​fitting clothing, you will love love LOVE the 108.

OK, I know I’m guilty of giving a lot of Muni lines ratings that seem too high (30-​Stockton, anyone?), but there is a method to my rational way of thinking, and it is thus:
I don’t rate Muni lines the same way I rate, say, restaurants. Restaurants can get stars dinged for just about anything, even if they have no control over it. (Restaurants are not people, of course; I personify them because it’s a lot simpler than referring to the restaurant owners or managers or controlling partners or silent partners or whatever.) I’ll remorselessly and gladly bleed a restaurant some stars for being located in a stupid neighborhood, but I can’t do the same for Muni lines.
Muni lines were created for the people, and as such, they must serve the people wherever they are. The 108-​Treasure Island more than fulfills this purpose. Yes, it doesn’t come often enough, but it does serve the entirety of Treasure Island well, and its extension and owl routes actually hit up a few places in mainland San Francisco rather than just dropping everyone off at one place. Am I right?
So it’s better than it used to be. I dislike the fact that it’s named after an island rather than the main thoroughfare over which it passes (108-​Bay Bridge?), but it could be much worse.

I love this bus. BUT… I ride it only a short distance from the TransBay Terminal to CalTrain. Once the crowd exits at TBT a few of us get on and express to 4^th and King. It’s great! Yesterday I had the whole bus to myself. :)
Bummer…but when baseball begins and we have to take King it could be bad.

Horrible, of course. Once my roommate saw two guys jump another guy on the bus and fight from one end of the bus to the other and back.

I have nightmares of riding this bus, and I’m so glad I no longer need to do so. It’s a shame that people you are forced to share the bus with mar such an awesome view of the bay with their ghetto-​fabulous, entitled attitudes. I have seen more fights on this MUNI line than the 14 Mission late on a Friday night, and although I don’t blame the drivers for not directly intervening in physical altercations, a call to the cops for the protection of the other passengers might be in order.

Warning… Warning…The 108 Sucks and I mean it sucks worse than the 38, the 31 and the 30 combined — which is saying something.
It sucks in the main for 2 reasons. The first is the way MUNI runs it and the second is the condition of the community it serves. While the second reason might seem better placed on the review for TI, it is unfortunately a huge factor in the 108 experience.
I’ve ridden this bus for more than 6 years. I rode it before it was an Owl. I rode it before so much of the island was given over to Section 8 and Rehabilitation Programs. The 108 was not so bad back in the beginning but now, well lets start with MUNI.
This bus is NEVER on schedule in the morning. It does not matter how many times you complain to the 673-​MUNI number or mention it to the driver — they don’t care. You see, if the drivers run «fast» or «hot», they get more time to sit on their arses back at the terminal before they have to make another run.
The scenario in the mornings runs something like this: The first bus you try to catch should be at your stop by 9:16 but it is 5 minutes early. You hear it blow by your stop from your house in the morning, at 9:10 or 9:11, just as you are setting down your coffee cup and heading towards the door for your 1 minute jaunt to the bus stop. It blows by the stop because there is no one waiting at it, because well, it is 5 minutes early. So you’ve missed it but you figure you had better leave the house now, 20 minutes early for the next one because God alone knows when it might show up.
The next bus does not stop because by the time it has reached your stop it is overfull with all the people who missed the earlier bus and all the people who were waiting on this bus and all these lucky crowded folk got on at a stop far earlier than your stop.
To top this off… the bus that is supposed to follow this one does not show at all.
By now you know your only chance is to walk to the front gate to get on the fourth bus at the first stop. For those of you keeping track, you are now an hour late for work.
Now we get to reason number 2 for the Heinousness of the 108.
When a bus you can get on finally does show up and stop you are surrounded by nastiness, leavened with the odd art student. The art students are great. They are interesting, bright, and both mostly clean and harmless. The rest of the bus though, mein Gott… You have the unwashed, the loud, the dangerous, the abusive and the ignorant, awful, and ill mannered. These fall into two major categories — first the job corps kids and second the Section 8 folk. The job corps kids are stuck on the island for like 1 month until they wash out of job corps — the attrition rate is close to 90% — they are the ones along with the Section 8 folk who don’t wait in line at the terminal with everyone else. God knows their fat dumb asses are far more deserving of a seat, entitled even to a seat — than those who have worked all day and waited in the fucking queue, they are the also the ones who tend to come back to job corps at night after having gotten shit-​faced and spend the ride puking — out the window, on the floor, down the stairs. You see, once you are on the 108 and headed over the bridge you are pretty much stuck on it. It can’t stop to let some miserable kid off to puke. Then you have the predominantly Section 8 Folk. These are the denizens who tag the seat you’re sitting in while you’re in it, deal, brawl and beat their little baby children (thereby securing the future of the next generation) all on the bus in front of you. It is horrifying to watch a 14 year old mother beat her 2 year old baby and be too afraid to say anything. The last guy who said something got jacked up and is lucky he still has a face left. While it is acceptable among the ghetto-​ized community to watch a 14 year old beat her 2 year old, it is not acceptable for someone outside the community to try to get her to stop. Then you have the drug rehab programs and the womens center programs, you have the Christian charity programs and the homeless relocation programs, you also have more state placed pedophiles and violent offenders being «main-​streamed» back into the community than is right given the size of the island. Did I mention that somewhere in this ramping up of placement programs on the island they closed the police station that patrolled it?
And please, don’t expect the bus drivers to stand up and do anything about this mayhem. They’re not stupid and quite a few of them have been jumped themselves.
Yeah — so it’s bad enough having to share an island with this zoo of miscreants but being trapped (if you are lucky enough to make it on the bus in the first place) with them is more than most people can stand — myself included.

It honestly could be worse. Once you get on the bus, if you’re lucky enough to get a seat (it gets really crowded in peak hours), you’ll hae a spectacular view of the bay while crossing the Bay Bridge.
You admittedly get some odd ducks (students, rehabbing druggies/​criminals, senior citizens, rehabbed seniors, drug dealers, etc.), but it isn’t all that bad… at least until the one driver decided it was a good idea to randomly skip stops. I was late to work several times because of that guy. Ugh. All in all, I don’t hate it. It’s so convenient and relatively quick to get downtown. I just don’t like the lack of consistency. It’s almost always on time, but sometimes that’s due to (as stated above) drivers skipping stops, or not having to stop at all due to being early (and nobody waiting at said stop).
Side note: I will never forget the dude that always rants to himself about the «OVERCROWDED BUS,» and «EVERYBODY GOING TO WORK.» It is such a riot watching the people around him who’ve never seen his public display before. Poor guy, he really should take an earlier bus, when it’s not so crowded.

I lived in TI and this bus does not follow its schedule! I was late for class, for work, etc. Crowd is mixed, it’s pretty obvious that people who take this bus are surviving citizens, starving students, etc.

Yes there is a 108 MUNI bus line and I am one of those souls who is living on Treasure Island.
Upside: Great view of the City and is quiet.
Downside: The bus ride to and from home. Half the bus is ultra ghetto and the other half are art students. I feel like this bus ride is a big social experiment. Cramming all the ghetto and art students in one bus for about 15 mins when most of the ghetto people get off. Leaving the normal people and art students behind. I seen girls getting in each other faces, guys trying to start fights. But thank goodness it is a short bus ride. The only MUNI bus that runs 24 hours.