CALIBER

A few days ago, I was standing at the front of a vintage bus from Muni’s 1947 fleet. I had been shooting the Dogpatch with Donald Kinney, and near the end of our walk we found ourselves in the Woods Division vehicle repair shop.

I spoke with one of the mechanics and he mentioned that the work crew were none too happy about restoring her back into a functional bus. I told him I thought the bus was a real beauty and wondered why there was push back on bringing her back to life.

It seems the with Muni’s budget shortfall, if a man is shifted to work on the historic fleet, it means one less man on Muni’s more popular and busy lines like the 9, 14, 22, 30, 28, and 71.

For what it’s worth, this bus will cost around $800,000 to fully restore with no date of expected completion.