How To Ride the MUNI Bus (San Francisco)

This a beginner's guide to taking the MUNI bus in San Francisco.

Everyone thinks of cable cars when you say "San Francisco", but the reality is, your best bet for getting around the peninsula is probably the mighty bus.

To do this Instructable, you will need:
-Money for a ticket

Taking public transportation is an item on Neighbors Project's Neighbors Checklist.

Check out more stuff by me, Casey, at my website: www.telephoneandsoup.com

Step 1: Get Directions and Schedules

1. Find your stop.

Step outside your building and look around. SF MUNI says there's a 90% chance there's a stop within two blocks of where you are standing. If you can't find one just by looking around, check out a map online at www.sfmuni.com or call 311 and a friendly operator will help you out.

2. Figure out where you want to go.

You can go about this in a few ways. You can get old fashioned and look at a map and figure out which brightly colored lines go to where you want to go; you can go to www.511.org and use their handy Trip Planner program and let the robots do it for you; or you can call 311 and have a real, live person get paid to figure it out for you.

Make sure to check bus times before you go hastily throwing on mismatched clothes and running out the door. You might spend half an hour waiting on the corner with your uncombed hair blowing in the mighty San Francisco breeze. Bookmark www.nextmuni.com on your computer, or if you haven't paid those pesky internet bills call 311 and they'll tell you just how fast you have to run to catch that ride. If you're already out and about, plenty or stops have electronic screens that show you when the next buses are arriving. Though keep in mind that the NextMUNI displays don't always conform to the laws of time; three minutes may sometimes mean five, and "arriving" may even sometimes mean "this vehicle doesn't actually exist".

Comments

[Derin]

here they use buttons for the stop and you cant ask the driver because a)he is in a cabin b)he already knows you will get off will post a picture of the inside when i board it

[Derin]

I wish our transportation was like in EU or USA.

[Derin]

and another difference...not in my city but in a close city they have a system called AKBIL to ride the bus without paying..you "refill" it at any train station

[GorillazMiko]

Haha! Nice Instructable, look at that guy in the first picture... he's like staring at the camera!

[joejoerowley]

Nice Instructable! Could of used a while back. I figured it out eventually though.

[convex]

Awesome instrructable. Someone needs to do a bart and caltrain ones, and hopefully that good.

[neighborsproject]

There's actually already one in the Neighbors Project group on how to ride BART. Check it out!

[convex]

Nice! thanks, the Bart instructable is pretty good as well. Caltrain anyone?!