Like everything at Muni, parts procurement is subjugated to the whims of the budget. "Every year around March or April they tell you, 'We're out of money,'" according to one longtime maintenance supervisor. "So then you're only going to buy the most important parts. People officially talk, and say, 'This is how we're gonna do it.' But nobody writes that down on a memo." The supervisor's contention, echoed by many other Muni employees, was essentially confirmed by Haley. Muni's system automatically spits out a notice to reorder parts when a designated minimum threshold is breached. But, when dwindling finances are deemed more problematic than dwindling parts supplies, Haley admits that Muni simply disables this automated reminder and doesn't order the parts.
As of May 23, in fact, Muni had allowed some 2,200 individual parts to slip past their re-order point — a list stretching to 40 pages. Just tallying parts directly related to vehicle repair, 771 are listed as having a "quantity on hand" of "zero." Whether key parts will be in stock when they're needed — the epitome of what an automated, bar-coded system provides — is a crapshoot.
Joe Eskenazi (top), Christopher MacKechnie / publictransport.about.com (bottom).
The plastic has been atop Coach No. 5427 since early 2011; below, a properly maintained bus.
Courtesy of Dorian Maxwell
Internal Muni documents reveal that when drivers complain about bumpy rides from lumpy or bald tires like this, the tires are placed on the rear axles, where drivers cannot feel them.
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Muni has created meticulously detailed procedures about which parts to change out of its vehicles at certain mileage intervals. A preventive maintenance (PM) session comes every 6,000 miles for 40-foot electric buses like Coach 5427. At the 24,000-mile PM, for example, mechanics must change out seven components. But there's a decent chance not all of those parts will be available. "Every day this happens. Every day! If I go to the window to get the parts, I get five out of seven or seven out of 10," says Guzman. "But all of those parts are critical to the preventive maintenance process."
The result is something Haley calls "an incomplete PM." If a part can't be replaced, it may only be cleaned up and put back into the vehicle. "This is a process I'd like to get away from," says the transit boss. "But it reflects the reality of what we're doing."
This is deeply problematic. A part like a traction motor brush left unreplaced after a 24,000-mile PM will not be inspected again until the 48,000-mile PM. Traction motor brushes, however, aren't designed to last that long. The likelihood of in-service failure — a breakdown with the best-case scenario of everyone angrily exiting the bus and tweeting #MuniFail — is high. Muni's current approach toward preventive maintenance makes a mockery of the concept.
In fact, continues Guzman, if a mechanic doesn't feel like replacing a part like a traction motor brush — a dirty, time-consuming job — he simply may not do it. "If you see there's still a little life on the brushes, you can let it go. Put a check mark by it. Tell your supervisor the brushes look good. He'll take your word for it." Problem solved — in the short-term. One week later, the part may well die — and take the entire motor with it. A traction motor brush is valued at $18. A traction motor is worth around $60,000. "This is something I have seen quite often," Guzman says. "There is no accountability."
That extends, in its starkest form, to the grimly named practice of "cannibalization." Any vehicle lying around the garage for an extended period of time begins to tempt mechanics under heavy pressure from supervisors to patch together a bus or train and make pullout. Signs reading "Do Not Cannibalize" may be posted on laid-up vehicles, but it is uncertain how effective this is.
"There are 11 light-rail vehicles that are, for lack of a better term, wrecked," notes Haley. "Over the years, they probably wouldn't be in that category. But people took advantage of vehicle frame damage we couldn't repair and took all the parts out of them in desperation." These trains went from merely being laid up with banged-up bodies to desiccated husks — and a total loss.
Haley stressed that cannibalization is "no longer tolerated." Whether it's still being practiced anyway, he is uncertain. Asked if this indicates a larger problem within the agency, he nods. "It does. We continue to work on this."
On April 21, 2010, at a shade before 11 a.m., attorney Scott Whitsitt strolled out of his office near Mission and Beale streets. He paused to allow a 14-Mission bus to pass him before setting foot in the street — directly in the path of another 14-Mission. Witnesses heard him shriek, "Oh God, no!" before being struck by the second bus, pinned against the back of the first, and then run over. Whitsitt was 49.
His husband's wrongful death suit against the city alleges Kimberly Faye Johnson, the driver of Coach No. 7054, not only "mistook the brake pedal for the accelerator pedal," but was "busy unwrapping a candy bar with both hands" immediately before her fatal mistake. A Muni source adds that accident investigators even located the wrapper on the floor of the vehicle.
There was more to discover within Coach 7054, however. While unmentioned in the wrongful death suit, Muni's Department of Quality Assurance found "a review of the Preventive Maintenance and Defects/Repair records 60 days prior to the incident date shows a history of 15+ defects to the Brake and Propulsion System." The bus was demonstrating "a pattern of vehicle malfunction as recently as two days before the incident." Whether Coach 7054 would have stopped if its driver hadn't allegedly been unwrapping a candy bar before hitting the wrong pedal may never be known. The accident report reveals, "Extensive damage ... makes Brake Function Testing impossible at this time."
