Muni waiting for culture vultures

Culture cruise: Muni’s new bus is intended to take passengers to museums in The City, but in its first month of operation, it’s not being used as much as anticipated.

Those new bright-yellow Muni buses stopping at San Francisco’s hottest cultural spots are catching people’s eyes, but not picking up the anticipated number of riders.

Put into service Sept. 20, the 74X express bus transports riders between SoMa’s museum district, Union Square and the museum concourse in Golden Gate Park. The bus has a catchy name, Culture Bus, and its own Web site.

It drops sightseers off at The City’s most prized institutions: the Asian Art Museum, California Academy of Sciences and the SFMOMA.

The line — supported by Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Visitors and Convention Bureau and the cultural institutions it links — attempts to build on San Francisco’s No. 1 industry: tourism.

“We have not seen an immediate impact,” said Katie Patterson, spokeswoman for the Contemporary Jewish Museum. “However, we are big fans of the program and we are confident that it will take off, and that we will see an impact soon.”

The $1.6 million, yearlong pilot operation has five daily buses arriving at stops every 20 minutes. Adults are required to pay $7 to ride the bus, but commuters with a regular Muni pass pay $3.

For the operation to make sense financially, the bus line needs to attract at least 168,000 riders per year. At the current rate, the transit agency would be about 40,000 riders short of its goal.

Between Sept. 27 — the official launch of the service that coincided with the opening of the California Academy of Sciences — and Tuesday, buses had carried 6,215 riders. On the weekend of the academy’s opening, when ridership would see a spike, 800 riders took the Culture Bus on Saturday and 300 on Sunday.

On Sunday, The Examiner took a ride on a virtually empty Culture Bus. Despite long lines outside the academy and free admission to museums at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, only two riders were on the outgoing trip and three rode on the return trip.

The riders, all from the Bay Area, praised the bus for being on time and clean. But for many confused tourists, the prospect of paying extra cash for the bus discouraged them from getting on.

Beverly Mikolon, gallery director for The Artists Alley, about one block from a Culture Bus stop, said The City needs to do more outreach.

“The average person doesn’t know about it yet,” said Mikolon, who suggested advertisements a few blocks away from the route.
But longtime Telegraph Hill activist Anne Halste praised the new bus.

“Once it gets established and people know where to get on and off it, I’m sure it will be very popular,” Halsted said. “And I think it will pay for itself.”

Greg Dewar, who blogs daily about Muni on the N-Judah Chronicles, said based on his observations most of the Culture Buses “run pretty empty.”

Muni spokesman Judson True said it’s too early to make a judgment on performance.

“The Culture Bus has been in service for less than a month,” he said, “but we are pleased with the increasing visibility and we expect it to become a key cultural connector over time.”

jsabatini@sfexaminer.com

Examiner Staff Writer Brent Begin contributed to this report.

Clean, uncrowded Culture Bus attractive to some

The Culture Bus may not be very popular, but for a few visitors riding Sunday afternoon the emptiness of the shiny new vehicle was the best part.

With the aroma of the driver’s garlicky lunch still in the air, the Culture Bus departed from Howard and New Montgomery streets. One driver, one reporter and two visitors from the East Bay were the only occupants for about 30 minutes.

Celeste Ingram came from Oakland for the second time in less than a week to visit the new California Academy of Sciences. Both times she took the Culture Bus, and she’s still a fan.

“I think more people will ride this after they hear about it,” Ingram said. “It’s comfortable. You don’t have a million people getting on and off, like the 44.”

Unfortunately, she said, the driver for this trip didn’t announce the sights — Asian Art Museum, SFMOMA, Union Square — like her first driver.

At a bus stop on Market Street near Union Square, two sets of camera-toting, fanny-pack-wearing tourists step on the bus only to learn their three-day Muni passes only cover half the cost. Instead of paying the extra $3, the tourists walked away in confusion.

Leanna Yip came from Alameda to spend the day at Golden Gate Park. She planned to get on the bright-yellow bus to take in the scenes, and to avoid a crowded regular bus.

“Well, I figured the bus was new so I thought it would be cleaner,” Yip said. “I was right.”

-Examiner Staff Writer Brent Begin

Ticket to ride

Muni’s new service connecting people with museums in The City:

Bus: 74X Culture
Cost: $1.6 million per year
Runs: 8:40 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. daily
Frequency: 20 minutes
Cost: $7 per day for adults; $5 for seniors, youth and disabled; $3 with Muni pass

Some museums/cultural sites on the route:

• de Young Museum (www.famsf.org/deyoung)
• California Academy of Sciences (www.calacademy.org)
• Conservatory of Flowers (www.conservatoryofflowers.org)
• Museum of the African Diaspora (www.moadsf.org)
• Museum of Craft and Folk Art (www.mocfa.org)
• Contemporary Jewish Museum (www.thecjm.org)
• SFMOMA (www.sfmoma.org)
• SF Camerawork (www.sfcamerawork.org)
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (www.ybca.org)
• Zeum (www.zeum.org)
• Asian Art Museum (www.asianart.org)
• City Hall (www.sfgov.org)

Source: Municipal Transportation Agency