5 trains, 5 hours, and only 5 miles - Part 1

Let me preface by saying, I am a huge advocate of public transport – I love the ease, I find it less stressful, I love that I listen to music and read a book and people watch all on my way somewhere else.

In all fairness this story is 50% my fault and 50% San Francisco Muni’s fault. One fateful Friday, my new landlord sent me a text saying “I’m at the apartment can you come over?” And when the landlord calls, you hop. So I hoped up from my desk, on the opposite side of the city, with plans of taking the N and thought I'd be there in 45 minutes. I knew I had a conference call at 2:00 pm, so would have to rush.

The N Judah picks up maybe 25 feet from my current apartment and drops off 100 yards from my new apartment. And a mere $2 will buy you a round trip if you come back in four hours. What's not to love about that?

So I walk to the platform, watch the T train go by and wait for the next N train to come. I get on the phone with my sister, who is simply hilarious, and start chatting. A train pulls up and I hop on, still distractedly talking. We said goodbye as we went underground. I pull out my book and start reading. About 15 minutes later, I realize that we have been underground a lot longer than normal – I look up to double check and Oh NO! I’m on the T, and have gone 4 stops beyond the last place to transfer back to the N.

I hop off at the next stop, run around the station and wait for the next train to come to take me back to Van Ness, so I can transfer to my train line. A train comes four minutes later, but the doors won’t open. We are waiting to get on, passengers are waiting to get off, and the Muni staff is running up and down the platform trying to figure out what is wrong.

After seven minutes they manually open all the doors to let people out. Then the Muni manager tells me to get in… I asked “what about the doors?” He replied, “get in” so I did. What could I do? Waiting for the next wouldn’t do me any good, it was stuck behind this one.

For the next four stops we spent up to 10 minutes with the Muni guys running up and down the platforms, opening and closing the doors. Finally, I get to Van Ness, then on to the N, on to my stop and up to my landlord.  See part 2 for how I got home...