After years of taking public transit in San Francisco, I’ve developed a highly specialized skill: the ability to identify buses at a thousand paces.

Some of the distinctions are simple enough. If I see overhead poles, I know it isn’t a route that uses a diesel bus. On Market Street, I know which lines stop at major intersections and which stop mid-block. And it goes without saying that at night, I need to see MUNI’s distinct pattern of yellow lights on the front before I waste any time on some pretender bus headed to a casino in Reno. After that, though, evidence becomes more scant and busspotting experience takes over.

I lived near Mission and 16th Street for more than a dozen years, which is where I honed my busspotting expertise. I learned to recognize the difference between the 14 and 49 based solely on the vague outlines of the numbers. As a busspotting authority, I can tell which direction a bus is heading just by the twang of the overhead lines (and therefore whether or not to run to catch it).

The biggest busspotting test in that neighborhood, though, comes with the #22 and #33 as they travel on 16th Street from Potrero Hill. Both run on overhead lines. Each route has two digits—repeating digits with similar contours and angles, for that extra challenge. And now that the buses have been upgraded to digital displays, neither uses the old black-and-white roller sign on the front. Thanks to my years of training, though, I’ve mastered the ability to read the subtle indications of a possible left turn, which comes a mere two blocks before Mission. If I see it inching over, I know it’s the 33. If it chugs along undeterred, we’ve got a 22.

Now that the NextBus displays are finally spreading their way across the city, my elite busspotting skills are becoming obsolete. I don’t really mind, though—relinquishing that small sense of triumph is a small price to pay for knowing I can grab coffee before my bus shows up.

Your response: