An all-too-typical afternoon on the N-Judah

N JudahThe deterioration of service on the N-Judah since the startup of the T-Third is at its most dramatic during the PM commute. This random glimpse via NextMuni speaks volumes about the state of things on the line:

Muni announced a series of steps to deal with the petit mal Metro meltdown, including the rapid hiring of more LRV operators, bringing some LRV operators back on a temporary basis, and the re-engineering of the bottleneck intersection at Fourth and King, and says we should see results in a month or two. The steps seem reasonable, but would it be asking too much that they be undertaken, you know, before service started on the T?

Supposedly, trains are being re-designated at Embarcadero to even out service, but, at about 6:00 p.m. Thursday, after waiting 13 minutes for an outbound N at Van Ness, only to be passed by a crush-loaded N (and a slew of half-empty M-Ocean Views), and to be informed by the helpful folks at 311 that the next N would be in, uh, 26 minutes (and obviously crush-loaded too, after that long a gap) I gave up and took a cab.

And on days when there’s a game at Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T/its-heirs-and-successors Park, well, just forget it.

Is Metro service just as bad on the other lines? What’s your experience? This can’t be unique to the N, can it?

-Daniel M.