I did everything right this morning. I got up at 8 a.m., got on the train by 9 a.m., confident that I’ll be able to make it to the office by 9:45 at the latest. Then, of course, Muni Metro decided to suffer a meltdown of massive proportions. We were held up forever at the West Portal stop, and by the time we reached Castro, we were forced to get out and move on to another train which was in front of us. The driver said there was a some kind of system shutdown all the way from the Civic Center to the Embarcadero, and he’ll have to let us all off at the Van Ness stop. Joy.

So as the masses emerged from the Van Ness subway, it was evident that many people didn’t know what else to do. A lot of people just started walking along Market, while others were smart enough to grab the nearest bus. I joined the latter, and grabbed the 9 all the way to 4th Street, transferred to the 45, and finally arrived at my destination. By the time I entered the office, it was already 10:45. That’s right, it was a 1 hour and 45 minute commute. It could’ve been a lot worse I guess.

UPDATE: Turns out, the big MUNI stall was caused by a bomb scare at the Embarcadero station. My husband told me that when he was on his way to work around 9:30, MUNI Metro was closed all the way from Church to the Embarcadero, so he had to get out at Forest Hill station. He said he got on the 43, transferred to the 6, and then walked the rest of the way to work.

According to the husband as well, the “suspicious package” mentioned in the article was a box that apparently contained a bunch of wires. Not sure if this is accurate though.