How to drive Muni or BART

I’m on the train right now, and the woman operating the Muni has repeated the following sentence six times in a row, “There is a delay and the train will not be moving. We are waiting for a situation on the tracks inside the subway tunnel to be resolved. When the situation is resolved, this train will start running. Sorry for the delay.” Through my headphones I heard the repetitious loudspeaker voice (complete with German accent!) and naturally I became alarmed. I turned the volume down to catch the last few repetitions of this overly obvious narration of what was happening. What do they think, that if they don’t constantly remind us that we are at a dead standstill that one of the passengers will leap from their seat and whip an AK-47 out and start shooting up the place? This happens frequently, when there’s a delay on BART or Muni. The drivers suddenly turn into auctioneer –style emcees, providing nonstop information in repetitive chants.

Here are some Muni driver quotes, word for word:

“There is a delay for inbound and outbound trains. We are going to pause now. I’m opening the doors so that anyone who does not want to wait through the delay can get off the train. You can catch the F train on Market street one block down if you don’t feel like waiting. But if you do feel like waiting, then that’s okay too.”

“Okay, I see a train moving. We’re going to move up a little.”

[pause]

“We do have one train in front of us. Then we can move up closer. I am waiting for the trains to move. Okay….we’re still waiting. We should be moving in a couple of minutes….if not, we’ll still delay.”

[pause]

“Ooooh, okay, this one is moving, we’re next in line. Okaydoooo, uh.”

[pause]

“Well it was too good to be true.”

[pause]

“We still have that train in front of us. I thought for a second ‘oh good’ but we are still waiting here. So we will pull up as soon as he goes, and we’ll see what happens.”

[pause]

“We don’t always have to wait that long, but sometimes we do.”

Finally, our train moved through the tunnel. I wonder if that driver secretly wishes for delays so that she can practice her emcee skills. These people have no idea how much power they have over the passengers. I doubt this woman realized that she turned a 20 minute delay into an hour-long comedy show. Once I got off and made it safely to the escalator, I looked down into the front of the train to see what this woman looked like and as I was checking her out, she looked up at me, smiled and waved goodbye. Moments like this are why I don’t own a car.

On the other hand..one time, I was riding BART home from my job in Berkeley and just before we entered the Transbay tube, the train stopped. The over-informative driver pulled the same gig, providing way too much detail and over-apologizing for the delay. Only, this time he crossed the line and provided his speculation of what happened, “Okay folks, there’s some smoke visible inside the tunnel so we’re coming to a complete stop. It looks like there could have been an earthquake.” WHAT? You don’t say things like that! Especially not to people who are trapped inside of a train about to approach a tunnel in the middle of terrorist season. Blame it on a blown fuse, if you must!

So, given my experiences riding around this city, this is how I envision page one from the BART and/or Muni training manual:

1) During delays, explain as much details as you can to passengers over the microphone.
2) Use a kooky voice or try out your best German or Indian accent.
3) Profusely apologize for the slightest delay and then thank the
passengers for waiting, as if they had a choice.
4) As the train inches along, constantly remark on the "progress" you’ve made
5) Remind passengers of the upcoming stop at least a dozen times.
6) If at all possible, throw in the possibility of a terrorist attack or
earthquake.