At 10 a.m. bus driver James Saunders pulls up to the curb at Third and Palou streets opens the door and begins answering questions. Is this the 44? Are you going to Mission? When is the other bus coming? He politely responds if they need to go to the Farmer's Market or San Francisco General Hospital he could drop them off. Nah...they'd rather just wait.
It is the same story every Wednesday says Saunders.
The San Francisco Municipal Railway's 78 Bayview Special Line began as a pilot project addressing the community requests for better access to hospitals and fresh produce vendors. The problem: not enough passengers.
"The people of this community need to know that this line was made for them," Saunders says.
Made because Bayview Hunters Point lacks what most neighborhoods take for granted, decent grocery stores and access to health care. For the 27,000 residents there is only one clinic, one practicing physician, and one major grocery store to meet their needs.
The Southeast Health Center is only used by 12 percent of the population of Bayview according to Bayview Hunters Point Health and Environmental Assessment Task Force. The rest find health care at Kaiser Hospital or private doctor clinics, all two bus transfers away.
The Southeast clinic is not open during the accident-prone weekends leaving residents at the mercy of San Francisco General Hospital. To get there commuters would have to transfer from bus line 19, 44, or 23. The most common of necessities is the hardest to find in Bayview, fresh produce. There is the Super Save, Walgreens, Food Co, and the liquor stores line Third Street all claiming to a corner market but not offering a variety of decent produce.
"Liquor is the number on thing pushed here, not food," says Rev. Kenneth J. Sampson, pastor for the New Home Missionary Baptist Church and former Albertson's manager. He and other residents are tired of having to settle with the warehouse grocery store Food Co. than to travel to the nearest Safeway in Bernal Heights.
"You see, a woman with children would rather just shop at Walgreens than have to take the kids, get on a bus, pay the fare, then travel back with handfuls of bags," says Sampson. "It's just too complicated it takes too much time."
Enter San Francisco's Municipal Railway where their motto is "You asked. We listened." The Bayview Special was their answer. Line 78 was created back in May as a pilot program, if it was successful it would continue but low turnout will most likely lead to its end on December 18, a week before Christmas.
Dorris Vincent of the Municipal Transportation Advisory said the program didn't work as it was intended to. The shuttle was not used properly and there is no sense in keeping it since Muni cannot afford it.
The concept of the Bayview Special is to shuttle people to and from the Civic Center Farmer's Market and San Francisco General Hospital. But those who did ride the bus were using it as a quicker way to downtown. The failure of the shuttle though is attributed to lack of information about it says Vincent and Saunders. Muni officials failed to go into the community and inform the community about the project.
Anthony Ogilvie, 38, and his 18-year old son Anthony Ogilvie, Jr rode the bus for the first time on Dec. 11. They had seen the bus circling Third Street but thought it was a training bus.
"If we don't see it constantly, it doesn't exist," says Ogilvie, Jr. referring to the only once-a-week four-hour service.
The service was not the only problem. The route also didn't circle the Hunters Point hill where the people are in most need of quality services. On Dec. 11, a week before the scheduled ending Muni drivers were at Third Street and Palou trying to get the word out by distributing flyers. Drivers Diane Otis and Ernestine Graham had never even heard of the "Vegetable Run" as bus driver, Saunders likes to call it. Showing the lack of communication between Muni and the community.
"If they knew about this bus it will never be empty," said Ogilvie, Sr.