For this week’s edition of Information Gladly Given, let’s talk trash. Eating, littering and tagging on Muni leaves behind a mess – for others to see and for others to clean up. Fortunately, there are about 90 busy crew members who work doggedly to clean up the junk, graffiti, dirt and detritus left on Muni vehicles.
Car cleaners fill multiple dumpsters with the trash some Muni riders leave behind. Then they use a variety of vehicle-specific cleaning aids and disinfectants to clean buses, trains and cable cars inside and out. The solutions are specially designed for different types of vehicles to keep them sturdy and safe.
Vehicles are cleaned on a rotating schedule, except when there’s major cleaning to be done, like graffiti removal. If graffiti covers a large area of the vehicle, the paint and body shops work on it on the weekends, when more vehicles can be out of service. If it’s a simple clean-up job, Muni has two mobile graffiti units that can respond on the street to keep service rolling and reduce delays.
Removing graffiti from floors, roofs and the bellows of buses is also time consuming. Bellows are the accordions between trains and articulated buses. This tedious, labor-intensive job requires a hands-on approach and hours of work.
As you may have heard, graffiti is an expensive city-wide problem, costing San Francisco taxpayers at least $19.4 million per year. Next time you see graffiti on a Muni vehicle, please let us know by sending us a message on our text-only Graffiti Hotline, 415.710.4455.
‘Information Gladly Given,’ but talking trash stinks. Let’s all work together to make Muni cleaner and safer, one mess at a time.
Students at Rosa Parks Elementary School learn about the importance of keeping Muni clean. April 30, 2014
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