So, attempting to get on MUNI this morning, I had a fun experience trying to actually purchase a ticket. To recreate the problem, try buying a ticket to get on MUNI at the Embarcadero station with only a US $10 bill. Turns out, you need to pay for your ticket with coins only.

Ok, so how do you get coins? Well, there's a machine that takes $1 bills and gives you a $1 coin. Has to be the only change machine that doesn't in fact give you "change", at lost not as one might expect, but rather changes your bill into a coin. Oh, and the machine takes $5 bills as well. Great. But I've got a $10. Now what?

Well, let's ask the oh-so-helpful person on the other side of the bulletproof glass talking at me through the loudspeaker. Why they have bulletproof glass when they only accept coins is a mystery, but that seems to be the case. In any event, she tells me I have to go over to the BART change machines which only accept $10 and $20 bills and use those machines which, much to my surprise, actually give out $5 bills in exchange for the $10 and $20 bills. Again, a new twist on the change machine. I've never seen a change machine that takes bills and gives you more bills, just as I had never seen a change machine give you a dollar for a dollar, but, OK.

Great, now I've got a $5 bill. Now what? Ok, go back to the $1/$5 change machine and get 5 $1 coins. Perfect, but, with the BART transfer, I only need $1.25. What do I do now? Well, ask the oh-so-helpful lady, of course. And, of course, she sends me back to the BART change machines. Well, OK, not the BART change machines, but the BART ticket machines, where you put in your dollar coin and then hit cancel and, lo and behold, the machine gives you 4 $.25 pieces for your $1 coin. Amazing.

All of this instead of just being able to buy a card that would automagically charge my credit card when I got on the damn train. Well, I guess such a thing might exist, but you certainly can't buy it at the train station, at least not at Embarcadero. All you have is a BART ticket station with signs all over the place saying NO MUNI TICKETS. So, it's not like a bunch of other people haven't tried to show up there and buy MUNI tickets, but, instead of, oh, you know, figuring out how to sell MUNI tickets, they put up a sign telling you to f**k off and leave you to go talk to the scary people behind the glass in order to figure out how to use three change machines to get the exact (coin) change required for the train.

Look, I'm all for SUPERTRAINS, but perhaps we should start by firing whomever is in charge for the ticket collection at Embarcadero MUNI and then we can work on a decent rail system for the bay area.