MUNI – 26 Valencia

The 26 used to be a great alternative (but a little slower) to the M line to get from the Mission district to S.F. State, especially if you lived on Valencia as I did. It used to go all the way up to West Portal so you could actually connect to the M line there.

26-​Valencia, like the 27 Bryant traverse the Mission in areas that need service! I cannot believe they will eliminate this line.
The 14 and 49 are the most disgusting, over used, under-​serviced routes in the city. The buses are NEVER clean and ALWAYS packed.
Start by dedicating 26-​Valencia to Valencia between San Jose Ave and 5^th Downtown M-​F, 6am to 7pm. No service on nights and weekends. On-​time performance would increase along with ridership. The advertise as the Workday Valencia Shuttle for non-​bikers.
Cutting service to the strongest revenue corridor in the Mission is insane!

26– Valencia is mah favorite line every time I leave mah Dolores Heights home and I make good ass timing the 26– Valencia is a block away and a few times I would miss it and 20 minutes it a pretty time for the next one. DO NOT CANCEL THIS LINE. I hate the J– Church or smelly ass 14– Mission and 49– Van Ness– Mission. 14L– Mission Limited is a okay line I guess. It’s too bad that 26 do not terminate at San Francisco State or even at Daly City BART closer to Stonestown Mall or Westlake Shopping Center

The 26 Valencia deserves to have its schedule increased, not to be cancelled! If ridership is low, that’s only because it doesn’t come often enough to be considered in most people’s plans. There is a horizon somewhere around the every-​15 or every-​20-​minutes level, where if a bus comes less often than that, it will be ignored by all except a small core of dedicated commuters.
Look at the foot traffic on Valencia all day long, but especially between 4 and 11pm. It’s HUGE! Practically every evening I see people who are trying to hail cabs on Valencia street corners and failing. Many of them could hop on a 26 if it ran often enough to be relied on.
I can’t stress this enough — if you’re going to have a bus line on a major street like Valencia it must run many times per hour or else you might as well forget it. If people have to check a schedule, that eliminates at least half the potential ridership right from the start.
I love the 26, it’s clean and always has room, and could take a large part of the overload off of the 14 Mission.

DON’T CANCEL THIS LINE!
SAVE OUR BUS!
When I first saw the notices about this line being canceled, I was compelled to call the city. Yes, I would like to complain.
But here’s the problem. I live right on Valencia and am just a few minutes from the 14, the 49 and the 24^th/​Mission BART station. Not to mention several blocks from J.
I would like to take the 26 to work every day because it’s faster. Cleaner. Less crowded. I save the time to the station (it stops in front of my apartment) and the time to work from the station (it stops across the street from work). But I couldn’t justify. I save only 5 minutes, which is not that much of a difference.
Granted, the whoosh of the 26 wakes me up at night sometimes. But it’s a reminder that I am truly living in one of the greatest cities in the world. And that it’s a hybrid bus… that runs… well. That is if the Muni is using the hybrid that day.
Most of the passengers are young professionals in contrast to the usual crowd on the Mission buses.
When I first moved here, I wondered why there was a duplicate bus. But now I wish it won’t disappear. Hey Muni, why not restructure how the 26 runs to take off the load of the 14 and 49!

This is one of the lines I take on a regular basis as it literally stops a few steps away from home although I stopped for awhile that I didn’t noticed the slight route changes they made to it. Notably the outbound line terminates at Balboa Park instead of going all the way to SFSU. The new hybrid buses really remind me of the ones they use in Sacramento Regional Transit. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same model bus.

Cleanest line that runs on Mission in SOMA.
This is my favorite bus line because it picks me up on my block and drops me off at the door of Zeitgeist.
Door to door service to wastedville, population — me

A very classy bus line indeed. Brand new, great-​looking buses, and so quiet (hybrids? Think the Prius of the bus wolrd!) But why oh why must it come so infrequently??? I usually wind up on the 14 or the 49 because I’m too impatient to hold out for the beautiful and fancy 26!

Most 26 Valencias are the new hybrid buses now. They’re kind of weird inside; the ceiling is so high in the front, and the back ¹⁄₃ is elevated about 4 steps up. All the newness and the bright yellow poles make you feel like you’ve shrunk and boarded a Tonka toy.
I usually walk over to Mission and catch a bus within 5 minutes instead of ride the 26 as it’s infrequent. Of course the Mission buses are older, filled with people, all their groceries and laundry carts, and they lack the freshness of the 26 Valencia. I can’t even imagine someone boarding one of the new 26’s with a laundry cart.
The 26 northbound will take you from 30^th and Mission, up to Valencia Street to Market Street. Market to 8^th, 8^th to Mission, Mission to 5^th at the old US Mint. It’s worth it at least once to ride the new bus and sightsee up to the old mint.

20 minutes between buses, during rush hour?! And that’s if the buses are on time. Yikes.
I have tender feelings for this bus though, b/​c it stops right by the house where I grew up. Thanks to the 26, I (and my sister, and our other latchkey friends) could explore the city at a young age, without a driver’s license. It took us to Mitchell’s Ice Cream, to BART, to downtown, and more. I still take the 26 when I come home to visit Dad, but it comes so infrequently… Luckily the J Church and the Mission Street buses aren’t too far away.