Dear Muni,
When I got onto the M train at around 3:45, I was hoping for a normal ride, but things immediately took a turn for the...awkward. As the doors were closing, one of the doors was noticeably resistant and failed to shut properly. In response, the driver, a small, elderly woman with frizzy orange hair yelled at the nearby teenagers for, "leaning on the doors and breaking them, you rotten kids!" The teenagers were not leaning on the doors.
After two failed attempts at opening and closing the doors, the driver put her key into a lock that seemed to stop the doors from operating altogether. Afterward, she again tried to close the doors, only this time one of them remained completely open, and we began to move. In an already overcrowded and therefore unsafe situation, the fact that the door was wide open as the train moved was cause for alarm. We rallied one of the "rotten teenagers" to push the big red button and alarm the driver that she was moving the train with an open door. As the "rotten teen" was notifying the driver, the train came to a sudden halt, slamming the door and sending a few passengers on a trip they didn't pay $2 for.
As a result of this door-closing attempt, the power (both lights and ventilation) were immediately turned off and the crowded train that was just put in harms way with an open door in a moving vehicle was now stuck underground in the dark...and it was getting sweaty. We were stuck there for however long it took, (roughly 4.5 'toro y moi' songs) until another MUNI operator came and did 10 seconds worth of maintenance on the door. The minimal maintenance, on top of her door-closing method and tolerance for the youth of America, made me question how qualified this conductor was.
The lights and air came back on and we slowly made our way to the next stop, where the operator claimed, "They are too many of you on this train, we need one person to get off." I was half an hour late to a very important meeting...and balmy from the time spent in the underground sauna.
I'm not one to complain very often, in fact I apologize for whomever has to read this, but I have to get this stuff off my chest. If I'm paying $15 more a month in comparison to what I was paying only a year ago - I would appreciate an improvement on the conditions of the trains as well as the people that operate them.
In the past few months, I have had to get off the M train on my way to a meeting or class and walk or wait for another train almost half of the time.... and I have said nothing.
Yesterday was the straw that broke the camel's back... also I lost my bookmark in the dark..so....
Thank you for your time.
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