Muni – 8 Bayshore

Oldest buses.
Worst drivers.
Least dependability.
This bus line and transit are bullshit.
Anyone who gives this bus more than
two stars is getting paid for it — guaranteed.
One star because… at least it exists?
#forcedoptimism

Since I am a transportation engineer and a transit geek, I give this a 5 because I grew up with transit.
Lemme tell ya where’s my love on the bus. First, you need to wait for this bus at the Chinatown bus stop on Stockton. You will fight with the elderlies to get on the bus (of course the proper etiquette is to let elderlies have priority first, then the bus will get full and you need to wait for the next one… multiply that by at least twice.
Second, everyone speaks Cantonese or Mandarin on the bus. It refreshes my memories of the good old KMB routes in Hong Kong.
Third, $ 2.25 gives you a freeway experience on US 101, and brings you to the Red House Bakery’s piegon experience and Bayshore Caltrain station to take the Caltrain back to SF if needed.
So next time, leave your car, relax from congestion, and open your eyes on the bus!

I really hate cramming into this thing when going to work after a break at In N Out FW. Bus drivers have no respect of for passengers and it is full of PRCs who do low paying jobs, which in reality is not at all. On Saturday’s I feel people pushing up against me, which is down right irritating. It is not as good as high speed services Muni provides

Half of China gets on this bus every Sunday morning on San Bruno Ave; I mean EARLY morning. The inbound 9 becomes a moving sardine can headed to Chinatown. Quite annoying if you gig as a musician.
Otherwise it’s nice to have a bus take you directly downtown.

This is possibly the worst MUNI line in town. Almost every day it’s late because «we’re experiencing longer waiting times» and thanks to the fact that MUNI stubbornly forces THREE lines (8x, 30, 45) to go through Chinatown, riders get the full experience: overcrowded buses, loudness, censurable food smells, and live chickens (yes, live chickens in plastic bags). Avoid it if possible.

We decided to take Bart to the City and rely on public transportation so I googled public transportation in San Francisco and ended up at the SFMTA website. I found the SFMTA website to be overwhelming and user unfriendly. In other words, it was a bureaucratic mess.
We did not have any specific plans of where we would be going or what we would be doing once we arrived in San Francisco and met up with some other people from Detroit so I wrote down several different possible scenarios and hoped that I had written down the correct information.
We ended up walking through the Ferry Building, the financial district, China Town, and past the Italian restaurants on Columbus Street before deciding to go to Fisherman’s Wharf. I quickly glanced at my notes and the route map I had printed and realized we needed to take the 30 bus that just happened to be sitting across the street.
We rushed across the street only to find out the 30 bus went somewhere else. The bus driver was very friendly and helpful and told us we needed to take the 8X bus which was now where we had been standing before we rushed across the street. We hurried back across the street while the 8X bus driver patiently waited. He was also friendly and helpful and I was impressed that neither bus driver was irritated by clueless out of town tourist.
The bus conveniently dropped us near the wharf. The bus driver even made it a point to let us know it was our stop.
I wonder if the people of San Francisco know how lucky they are to have such great public transportation?

I used to take this bus a couple of years ago to head to Bayshore and back to downtown SF. I couldn’t get over how many people got in for free using the back door, and had no conscience about not paying to ride. I wondered if there was a sign above the back door that read, «This door for people who want free passage, who smell bad, who play bad music loudly on their portable radios, and speak bad English.» Did I mention all the people talking loudly right beside you with malodorous breath that could knock you out with the power of its strength? Don’t get me started on the women wearing perfume to cover up the fact that they hadn’t showered that morning. There were an abundance of men and women talking on their cell phones with the elevated voice used to talk to someone clear across the street. Did I mention the smell? I did? Well, it’s worth mentioning again. It was bad. Be forewarned. I forgot to mention the teens having limited knowledge of the English language and knowing only the words f_​_​k, s_​it, mother_​_​_​_​ker, and nig_​er. I give a lot of credit to the bus drivers who have to put up with this every day. How do they do it? Kudos to them. They are the ones that get the one star. A big fat one.

Sure, buses operating this route certainly tends to be crowded. I do like how there are times when I am able to get on an empty bus. Getting a crowded is deemed usual whereas getting an empty bus being unusual.
Four stars just because some of MUNI’s passengers and operators are nice.
BRIEF UPDATE FOR 5÷6÷2013:
The NEW City College terminal for routes 8X, 8BX & 49 is now between the CCSF Bookstore Annex and the SFFD Ocean Ave Station. This idea did alleviate the crowding and hopefully, this will be a relief for passengers riding this route and operators driving this route.
4÷11÷2016:
Frequency of buses on this route has improved and is more consistent than ever. Props for this!

So I hear the San Fran has a great bus system… System what system. This place is cray cray.
The bus drives very fast then makes very abrupt stops. Also the bus doesnt hold that many people and isn’t very wide. They will also close the doors on you.
This bus did get me where I need to go, so two stars

Who knew the 8X-​Bayshore Express was so useful? It’s been around a few years, and
has been telling me to take it to get to House of Nanking, but I’ve always been spooked. I thought, You can take the 9 out of the bus line, but you can’t take the bus line out of the 9.
Wait, that doesn’t make any sense.
I’ve always thought, Don’t judge a bus by its marquee.
Wait, that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to say.
But it doesn’t matter that my thoughts and actions are inextricably linked. What matters is that I thought I was riding a 9 in disguise, but I was really riding a 30 in disguise. Except the pink-​thank-​you-​bag ladies hadn’t gotten the memo, because neither bus was crowded. They were luxuriously empty. Not clean, but empty. And I’ll take an empty dirty bus over a crowded clean bus about 65 percent of the time (99 percent of the time on my way home from work).
Actually, it felt a lot like a 10-​Townsend, but longer.

Today history repeated itself. I road the 8x to school feeling like I’d benefit from an hour of reading rather than the 25 minute drive. I was coming off of an unbalanced holiday weekend filled with everything but work. I couldn’t afford to lose 30 minutes of reading time.
Lazy, I walked the block to the 8x rather than the 3 blocks to the 30x — mistake. For one, the 8x comes less frequently which means more people pack on and get sneaky [30x MORNING drivers don’t play and I like that]. Second, it’s snail slow. Third, people actually push each other on and off. Fourth, riders go hard on nose picking here [something I forgot until I spotted a morning picker– barf]. Lastly, did I mention sneaky?
So, this lil lady boards the bus when I’m half way to my stop — I noticed her because she had a metal cart and two bags. I was going to give her my seat until she started speaking to the lady sitting next to me. Now, I should have known something was up because they both were speaking low and snickering.
Sneaky Lady # 1 started hanging her bag in the accordion part of the bus, right in front of Sneaky Lady #2 (who was sitting next to me). SL #2 got up and walked to the back of the bus while 2 other ladies kept looking at me — I got a weird vibe but had serious reading to do so tried to turn it off — I couldn’t. So now I’m looking around wondering why this lady keeps grinning at me. Something was definitely up — but I couldn’t figure it out until her bag started banging from the inside. I looked at the bag and she looked at me, grinned hard, and gave it one tap.
I thought to myself, that couldn’t be a bird because one tap wouldn’t hush a bird right? That’s a hefty fine too — right so she wouldn’t. And if it was a bird it would be a chicken and chickens don’t really go out like that — right — not in a bag? I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I’m pretty sure that even with their heads chopped off, they run for freedom. So maybe the bag caught some wind in the accordion, I was trip’n, and she was just repositioning? I’d been up since 5am without caffeine and it was possible I was seeing stuff…
Well, a few minutes go by without banging, so thought cool: I was trip’n and wasting time. Well, we go under the tunnel, I start reading again, and then the bag starts bang’n from the inside — really hard this time. These two ladies and the Sneaky 1 keep looking at me — like I was about to do something — I don’t know what though.
So, Sneaky #1 gives it another tap and the bag starts fighting back, I mean banging hard which made me think that something got loose, it was a chicken, and it was gonna get her. Well, if you’re still reading, and want to know what happened next, I can’t tell you because I didn’t stick around to find out. Sorry Daniel B. In my mind it was a chicken, and it was gonna get her… but it could have been something else. I mean, last week, my classmate says a woman was thrown off the #5 for carrying a «service snake.» As my other classmate pointedly reminded us: there is NO such thing as a «service snake.» uht uh
Poor bird — sneaky lady will be eating mad stress hormone for dinner.

The ride is pretty bumpy and the route is real shady. However, it is a bus and it takes you home. Don’t take it during rush hour. There are too many Chinatown goers that pack this line. If you like being like a sardine, go for it.

One of the worst buses in sf! but i have to take it everyday in order to go home :(you can never get any fresh air inside the bus because the windows are always closed, and that is the reason why the bus is so STINK! Most of the passengers are old chinese and they are extremely RUDE! they just bump u off in order to get the seat! Ok yea forget to mention, plz plz wash your hands after touching the bars on this bus because those bars are hella dirty!

This is the bus that gets me to where I want to go and brings me back home safe.(only during daylight hours)

Took this damn bus in the mornings for a month from Bryant & 6^th to Market & Kearny and every time it was packed, even with people standing in the stairwells. No less than a half dozen times did I experience the bus stop only to hear the driver yell out «too full, wait for the next one», which typically was 20 minutes later, which i usually just give up and walk it.
The drivers have *always* been nice, it is the riders that are rude. With no provocation, I have been pushed, elbowed and even purposefully and repeatedly coughed on (to which another rider began yelling at the woman who did so in my honor). The 8X, 8AX and 8BX are moving petri dishes. Perhaps coincidence, but I was sick twice during my month on this bus and healthy since taking an alternate bus (the 10 at Townsend & 6^th).

GOD DAMN I HATE THIS BUS SO MUCH
I ride it home from work every single day. I get on at the very first stop at Pacific and Kearny, and many days the bus is PACKED by the third stop.
People on this bus are generally EXTREMELY rude.
I can’t tell you how many elbows I’ve had to throw to be let off this bus.
MOVE OUT OF THE WAY.
If you can avoid taking this bus I would do so in a heart beat.
MUNI — INFORCE THE NO ENTRANCE THROUGH THE BACK DOOR POLICY (hahah I just heard that repeated in my head) But seriously. It’s a fucking joke.

I’ve been taking buses in SF for some time now, and this is the only bus line that I have ever experienced rowdy high schoolers and violent crackheads. Maybe this is unique to me, who knows. But I make an attempt to avoid. It clears out somewhere around broadway and gets kiiinda scary if its too late after the sun goes down.
And why is it so fucking bumpy?

This bus did a fantastic job of getting me to my bf’s house in North Beach from my job down in SoMa. It’ll probably also speed up my commute from Powell BART once the construction project on 4^th is done, but that’s probably years from now…
A word of advice: don’t take the 8AX or 8BX in the peak directions. They’re how everyone gets to and from Chinatown — huge mistake unless you like standing on a crowded bus amidst 3000 pink plastic bags. And until the aforementioned construction project is done, forget trying to use this line between Market and Harrison in the outbound direction (4^th Street is a disaster).

5 stars for getting me to north beach without having to transfer. –2 stars for being sooooooo bumpy I wish I was wearing a sports bra. For reals yo.

Bring back the 15-​Third Street line and lose this one, MUNI, please?
I will admit that the 9X came in handy with the commute to my last job… instead of taking the 10 and then having to hoof it partially up the CA Street hill, I would take the 9X and have a 2 block downhill walk to the office.
But why oh why did the great minds of MUNI decided to have this line go through Chinatown? Stockton Street is already a traffic nightmare.