The Dao of Doug 3: the Trolleybus of Happy Destiny

By Douglas Meriwether

I am continually inspired by those who: take the bus to work; to play; to get around this exciting city: Students, businesswomen, and tourists: all walks and wheels who enter and exit the bus towards their next destination. Here is the answer to the request I get often, “Driver Doug you should write a book!” Get inside the Trolleybus of Happy Destiny and open a page, a chapter, and see what life is like behind the wheel as a Transit Operator in the City that Knows How: San Francisco!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765236178

Douglas Meriwether

Douglas GriggsTransit Operator at [e-mail], "Finding Zen in San Francisco Transit" at Balboa PressSeptember 2016 - Present (2 months)Re-created 206 page 55,000 word book with 12 illustrations, highlighting being a transit operator in SanFrancisco as a new updated edition from first publication in January of 2013.The Dao of Doug 2: The Art of Driving a Bus: Keeping Zen in San Francisco Transit: A Line Trainer's Guide. Balboa Press: 186 pages, copyright January 21, 2015 Continues exposition about issues in San Francisco Transit. Chapters include Island versus Curb stops on Market Street, reducing transfer cost, Scheduling and Range Sheets, Tips on passing air brake test and choosing a run. One key to a smooth ride: knowing that it is not a bus, but a person driving a bus.Keeping Zen in San Francisco TransitMembers:Douglas Griggs, Jackie Cohen, John Jeffrey McGinnis, Mark ArellanesBroadcastingAnnouncer, KBIA-FM - National Public Radio, Columbia, MO 1980 - 1985 Part-time positions hosting shows for the Curators of the University of Missouri. 100,000 watt NPR affiliate with the Journalism School at UMCAll Things Considered - NPR delayed broadcast with three segment format clock and two local pitches to local newsroom.Last Radio Show - Late night jazz show. Programmed and selected music, timed airplay lengths, delivered weather an ad-libbed introductions.Adventures in Good Music - with NPR host, Karl Haas, Accent on Music; World of Music - Segued and back-announced classical albums, announced weather, community billboards, PSA's, Pitched to newsroom live, on the hour with :30 and :60 dead-roll themed music beds.Created audio voice overs for PSA's, telephone greeting message systems, radio ID's, character voices.Extensive editing of Hourly seminars for non-profits and 12 step recovery programs.ProjectsSpecialties: Commissioned Officer 1982 Officer Candidate School, Marine Corps Development and Education Command, Quantico, VA 1981 BA University of Missouri - Econ minor Dean's Honor RollSkills & ExpertisePublic Speaking Public Relations EditingSocial Media Customer Service BudgetsStrategic Planning TrainingMicrosoft Word Event Planning Creative Writing Marketing Copywriting TeachingMarketing Strategy Copy EditingEvent Management Fundraising Facebook Community Outreach ManagementPhotography NonprofitsSocial Media Marketing Social Networking BroadcastTransit Operations TransportationEducationUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaBA English, Econ English, 1979 - 1981 Grade: Dean's Honor RollActivities and Societies: Marching MizzouWashington University in St. LouisAssociate of Arts (A.A.), Concurrent with Broadcast Center, Clayton, MO, 1977 - 1979Activities and Societies: Kappa Sigma FraternityInterestsmountain bike riding, photography, swimming, movie going, day hikesCertificationsClass B California Driver's License with Airbrake Endorsement and VTTCalifornia Department of Motor Vehicles

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Douglas Meriwether.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

844-682-1282

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use

of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical

problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The

intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you

in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any

of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right,

the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3618-5 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3616-1 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3617-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921794

Balboa Press rev. date:  11/09/2022

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Dedication

Dedicated to all those who take mass transit on a

regular basis, those who have encouraged me to write

my story, and the hundreds of family and friends who

know someone who drives a bus for a living.

The views herein do not necessarily reflect those of the SFMTA.

Contents

Alpha Dog

Rider Alert

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

A Rose by Any Name

Tree Trimming

Great Expectations

Summertime in the City

Kitty-Corner

One-Armed Bandit

Past Halfway

The Sisters of Charity

Sakude!

Retarder Control

Bus Bunching

Bikes Pass on the Left

Tagging the Coach

Drug Roll

Flu Shot

The Complaint Department

Leading Green

Quid Pro Quo

Driverless Cars

Night Park

Better Safe than Sorry (Friday the Thirteenth)

Pudding Pants

Transmitter Ball

Twenty Questions

Ferry Plaza

The Weird Curve

The Fulton 500

Let It Settle

Scuff Left

Game Boy

Timed Transfers

The New Fare Box

The New Radio System

Helter-Skelter Shelter: Rear Door Boarding

Powerless on Post

Taxi Patterns

Hitting Hard

Water Truck

Litterbugs

Recycling Day on the Bus

Muni Bathrooms

Compulsive Honking Syndrome

Lane Closed

Gate Hopper

Stop Request: Old Dog, New Tricks

Behind the Yellow Line

Rollover

Blind Spot

Vision Zero

SF Railway Museum and Gift Shop

Alamo Square

Breakdown

Why Be a Driver?

End of the Line

The Dao of Doug: Finding Zen in San Francisco Transit: A Bus Driver’s Perspective (Dao 1) Glossary 1

The Dao of Doug 2: Keeping Zen in San Francisco: A Line Trainer’s Guide Glossary 2

About the Author

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Alpha Dog

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People watching is the greatest benefit of being a transit operator in Baghdad by the Bay. Friends and family always ask about the great benefits that a civil service worker must have. I usually mention the post office as having the best-defined contribution plan or pension. But in the day-to-day flow of ants moving to and from the anthill—the skyscrapers built on the bones of boats in the Bay downtown—it isn’t a column of numbers in the year-to-date tab on a paycheck that is a job perk of being a bus driver in the arteries flowing from the heart of San Francisco. The benefit is not being stuck inside an office.

It is feeling as though you are on the outside. Yet when the fog is freezing the bones and the wind is whipping through your layers, the bus is like a shelter from the elements. To comfort those at the mercy of the weather, it becomes important to stop close to the alpha dog in the queue on the sidewalk so all can enter the bus as soon possible without blockage at the gate.

Visitors are easy to spot as the alpha dog always holds all the transit passports in their hand for all of the group. They usually follow at the end of the queue. When a large family passes by the fare box without paying, the alpha comes up the steps at the end with the fares. Sometimes a large group passes, and there is no alpha with no fare! To keep my ambassadorial role as a representative of the city, I don’t say anything. When I do, they usually have their fare buried in the back of their backpacks. This is another example of how we fail the city. No one assumes responsibility to inform them on how to ride, where to stand, or how to validate their passes.

A fare only becomes valid once the month and the day or days are scratched off on the passport sheet, which is not unlike a lottery scratch ticket. Fortunately, the 21 Hayes is a great bus line that permits the time to teach visitors. Other arterial lines are not such. Rear-door boarding is allowed and little time for conversation is allowed between the rider and the driver. Crosstown buses are best for enlightenment and understanding.

Many times the person asking the questions is in front and the ticket holder is at the rear. I can usually tell who they are. If they are asking a question I don’t understand, I ask them where they are going. If they can’t answer this, I switch over to intuitive mode and say yes and ask them to step up. When this fails, I beckon them with my hand.

When this fails, it’s because I have put too much expectation and hesitation in my voice, and I have to let it go. A simple nod is all I need. Then if it turns out they are going the wrong way, there is usually a better transfer point down the line that will get them on the right bus with less confusion. I need to remember when I was new to the city and did not know inbound from outbound because tall hills or the fog make it impossible to know which way is downtown or east versus west.

Talking to just one person, the alpha dog as zen master, is best to keep the herd in line!

Rider Alert

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Nothing is more disconcerting than seeing people waiting for a streetcar that isn’t coming. Especially in the afternoon when the fog is rolling in and visitors are caught in shorts and without jackets. If you plan to visit San Francisco between the Fourth of July and Labor Day, prepare for early spring/winter conditions. Even though century mark temps are only a few miles away from San Fran’s city limits, maritime conditions prevail in the city. Mark Twain said, The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco. This applies to July and August in the city. If you are dying of the heat back east and in our Central Valley, then do come and enjoy our natural air-conditioning! I am familiar with the challenge of packing in hot weather back home, going to sunny California, but not here between the ocean and the bay.

When I do the 21 Hayes, I travel down Market Street and see all the tourists waiting for the streetcar to take them to Fisherman’s Wharf. They pack into the cars like sardines and creep toward the Ferry Plaza. Little do they know, they can take any bus or trolley down the street to Kearny and take an 8 to Chinatown, Coit Tower, and then Pier 39.

Any disruption on the rails can block the track and cause a large queue of intending passengers on the islands on Market Street, particularly at Fifth, Fourth, and Main. At these times, it pays to take a 6, 21, or 31 to Ferry Plaza and transfer to the E Embarcadero streetcar. An express line 8X bus crossing Market at Third to Kearny is a great crosstown shuttle to Pier 39 and helps to clear the islands and get you moving to have fun.

The SFMTA posts Rider Alert signs in red and white or orange to let you know when stops and streets are closed to traffic. It’s important to notice these a day or two before an event. Indeed, many find a never-again attitude about transit because of a lack of communication about rider alerts. This is where an Amber Alert-type message can and should be adapted to our smartphones with GPS technology developed by Uber and driverless car coding.

Rather than stymie new creative GPS tech, Muni should work with Uber to track not only their own rideshare cars but also the buses. This would open up bus stops to rideshare pickups when no buses are arriving or departing. Minutes go by when it is safe to use a bus zone, and this priceless curbside real estate can be easily shared with GPS tech. So too could the large tour bus shuttles be included with this zone sharing. The key here is that transit is being administered as a unified body of vehicles, not separate entities fighting and blocking one another.

As a governmental body, our transit department just had another resignation, now bringing the vacant manager positions to eight. Coordination is lost. Creative, new ideas are vacant because self-preservation mode is on and no bigger picture can be established, much less horizon goals of integration as a whole.

Eventually, rider alerts could be all done electronically from an application rather than to have to manually park a vehicle and go out and attach a laminated alert sign to a bus shelter. The labor to then go ahead and remove all the signs would be a thing of the past. Remember that with a sense of community, anyone lacking a smartphone could be instructed by those nearby who do have a transit app on their phones. I ask all the time when I am at a shelter with others who are on their phones.

When rider alerts, next bus arriving times, and trip template suggestions all match to real-time GPS and bus timetables, interactive GPS systems can suggest changes to avoid congestion and blocking at transit stops. This is really an exciting time to be in a manager position to integrate stoplights, trip tracking, and headway adjustments between Uber, driverless tech, and transit schedules. Transit Metro Control (TMC) needs not be in the dark about conditions and buses. It can see what Uber customers see, inclusive of buses, including the Silicon Valley shuttles.

Being in the zen means asking others about rider alerts and next bus arriving times when I am without the phone or application to be in the know. The same goes for tourists on the islands waiting to go to the wharf!

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The Squeaky Wheel

Gets the Grease

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The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as the saying goes. Most of us doubt we can make a difference. In rare instances, however, one person can effect change on a large scale. In the following four cases, one change is created by one passenger being persistent, and another change is created by the mayor using political capital to meet his own need. The other two examples are rare cases when city supervisors step in to make transit change. More often than not, nothing happens.

Our new trolleys have a redesigned seating area in the front. Seating bays for wheelchairs appear more prominent, and there is a padded paddle with a drop-down handhold allowing for placing a leg in an outstretched position without blocking the aisle and risking a hit from a passing passenger. A passenger can stand erect without sitting and be protected from getting hit in the aisle. I have asked passengers and operators if they have ever used or seen anyone use this device. No one has.

But I know who got this piece of equipment added. She also did it without any call to engineers, capital equipment procurement, planning, or project management! She made a passenger service request over and over and over every time she boarded a crowded 14 Line Mission bus, usually in the crunch zone at Thirteenth Street, and was unable to rest her leg in an outstretched position by the flip-up seats. Log after log, statistic after statistic, her call volume, over time, made it appear that this was a seat mobility adjustment that needed to be made to the flip-up seat area. I was able to contain her anger most of the time, but I had to get her off my bus once by threatening to call the police! She had become so angry she would threaten a wheelchair user in the pop-up area.

Placing this leg pad on all new trolleys shows how just one person can affect a multimillion-dollar order for equipment by persistence and perseverance. This pad is used as a seat back when facing the rear of the coach in a walker