long live the culture bus

(photo by plug1)

the culture bus is dead!  for those of you not from this neck of the woods, the 74x "culture bus" was a transit line that would take tourists around to the different museum hubs in the city - yerba buena, civic center, and golden gate park.  that wasn't such a bad idea on its own, although there's multiple bus and train  lines that already take more or less the same trip.  the bad idea was to charge people $7 to ride it.  if you have a family of 4, that's $28, which would easily pay round trip cab fare.  it took you a pretty short distance that is more or less walkable, but not out to the legion of honor, the zoo, or other city attractions that are more remote.  also, muni dumped a whole bunch of money into it but didn't put a lot of effort into marketing.  for all of these reasons, the culture bus was a dismal failure, and it was common to see it driving across town with no one on it, even on the weekend.  on my various driving and biking routes to and from work, i cross its path fairly often, and i've never seen a culture bus with more than 4 people on it. 

this was one of gavin's 'big ideas' that he was hoping to launch his sacramento bid on.

meanwhile, the rest of muni's lines continue to be overcrowded and underserved.