Tag Archives: Muni Manners

Miss(es) Manners for transit types

The SF Muni ladies, who’ve been doing their part to reduce bus fouls in the Bay since ’08, have compiled some of their most popular (or perhaps I should say, most necessary) bus and train behavior recommendations into a book: Muni Manners: An Etiquette Guide for the Mass Transit Savvy. The blurb:

Picking up where Miss Manners leaves off, Muni Manners brings a modern spin to transit etiquette and covers a range of infractions affecting riders – everything from personal space to personal hygiene.

Talk about a required ride read!

The Muni Manners book is self-published and not available at the library (they really should stock some at those cool library vending machine thingies at the BART stations in Contra Costa County), but it might be worth the investment to purchase a few copies. You can keep one for your personal transit geek reference library and carry the others in your bus chick bag–to hand out to the frequent foulers you encounter on your rides.

More on transit etiquette

Today, some self-described “SF Muni Ladies” hipped me to their new blog, Muni Manners: An etiquette guide for the transit savvy.

As loyal riders of San Francisco public transit (for longer than we’d like to admit), we’ve seen our commutes change with the rise of ipods and the fall of public decorum. Picking up where Miss Manners leaves off, this new kind of etiquette guide modernizes what our moms taught us in grade school about riding the Uncle Gus.

Love it! So far, there are only seven “etiquette rules,” but these ladies are on to something. Some recent Muni Lady admonishments:

Etiquette Rule # 7: Keep Your Eyes Open
You Snooze, We Lose

Etiquette Rule # 6: Use Nasal Discretion
Getting Picky

Etiquette Rule #5: Pick Up After Yourself
Every litter bit counts

Perhaps the next step is to enlist some Yokohama-style etiquette police to enforce these.

Muni ladies, I appreciated your rule about boarding the train (or bus, in our case), “Always let exiting passengers leave the train before you board.” The thing is: This is a standard rule of most major transit agencies; most folks just choose not to follow it. A more difficult, etiquette-related question (one I receive a lot and don’t really know the answer to): What’s the protocol for who boards first after everyone has exited? Is it based on who arrived at the station first? Elderly and less-able-bodied first? Some combination of the two?

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Keep up the good work!