If you look up at the poles on the ETI Skoda coaches, you’ll see a black duct taped ball near the collector on the left pole. This is where the turn signal transmits to the doughnut on the wires before a switch to toggle the poles to a left, right, or center direction upon a …
Category Archives: Transportation
Pudding Pants
Having left the raucous Receiver’s office at Potrero Division for the quieter Presidio Division, I thought material for my next book would suffer a drought not unlike the one Northern California had been experiencing for the last several years. As I write this chapter, snowpack is 160 per cent of normal, and the folks up …
Safe than Sorry
I hear this phrase a-lot in training or safety meetings. Passengers also use it from time to time when asking for a transfer if clipper tag-in warnings go off when entering the bus. The start of 2017 has the second Friday showing a full round moon and is dated Friday the thirteenth. I write this …
Night Park
When we bring our coach to rest in the yard, we are to log off on our radio and secure our coach. It’s interesting how sloppy we can get in doing this after a long day. I pulled-in last night with rain in the forecast and did not see the tale tell parking lights on …
The Weird Curve
Duboce is not exactly in line with Division, which is not exactly perpendicular to Divisadero, which zigs to become Castro right where Duboce crosses. Is Mission one block away from Market? Of course it is, when we don’t count Minna or Stevenson. Wait, you mean Valencia, don’t you? Valencia is 15 blocks long and ends …
Bikes Pass on the Left
One great billboard on the back of some buses is the illustration showing a bus turned-in at a bus stop with a cyclist behind the bus moving to the left to pass the bus. What a great illustration for a cyclist to see traveling behind a stopped city bus! This message has helped countless times …
Bus Bunching
When a delay occurs on the line, and buses get bunched together, it is important to understand that how the bigger queues of people waiting at a stop can influence whether this delay get worse or better. Wise are the riders on the Geary, Mission, and California lines who know on a regular basis, that …
Retarder Control
One aspect of driving a large vehicle is the larger number of lights and controls on the dash. In a tour bus there is sometimes a retarder control joystick that assists braking. On a city transit bus, the retarder control is built into the service brake. We transit operators can see a retarder light …
Kitty Corner
“Is this the way to Powell Station?” intenders ask as I open the door. I tell them they need to take the bus in the other direction. This question gets asked often at Steiner and Hayes across from the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square. They have arrived at the park from the crosstown 22 Fillmore …
Summertime in the City
The inability to see or read the head sign of a bus, or to know where to stand based upon stalled traffic or double parked vehicles notwithstanding, one detail that usually does not escape notice in our fair city is when our air temperature is not fair. The afternoon fog moves in, the temperature drops …
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 