Anyone who has spent an afternoon in the MUNI Downtown-Outbound subway can attest to the chaos that is MUNI's rush hour light rail service. Heading outbound, if you're at any stop following Montgomery, good luck getting on the first, second, or third train home. Don't even mention the inequity of seeing multiple two-car trains headed outbound - remember, this is rush hour when everyone's trying to get out of downtown! - while the slightest trickle of one-car trains is headed in your direction.
Now, here is my not-so-keen observation. The Downtown-Outbound logjam bulges at Montgomery Station and subsides at Castro Station. I haven't studied this statistically, but the eyeball test says that if MUNI could figure out how to even out these two mass rushes, the afternoon rush hour commute would go oh-so-smoothly.
So, what I propose is that MUNI run a dedicated surface bus line during rush hour that goes directly from Montgomery Station to Castro Station. No stops in between, from one end to the other. The bus-only lane on Mission Street is tailor-made for something like this. Of course, MUNI could create a new express lane, which could act as a "buspool" lane, where cars are excluded during rush hour. If MUNI hasn't already realized the nodes of major activity that are Montgomery and Castro Stations, then it is high time it tracked turnstile activity at their stations during these hours.
I am confident that this solution - and I refuse to believe I am the first to have thought of it - would improve rush hour MUNI riders' experience the world over.
Thoughts?
