Construction glitch near new S.F. arena stalls Muni riders

Construction crews widening a Mission Bay platform to accommodate predicted crowds for the Golden State Warriors’ new arena in San Francisco hit a snafu over the weekend, prompting Muni to replace its trains with shuttle buses to the irritation of some commuters Tuesday.

Stronger than expected rainfall last weekend slowed down workers, who also had to navigate an abandoned duct bank and remove large rocks found in the soil during excavation, Muni spokesman Paul Rose said.

“The concrete isn’t solidifying as fast as we had hoped, so we’re continuing the bus shuttles throughout the day,” Rose said.

Monday’s and Tuesday’s service interruptions prompted rider complaints about buses missing stops and long delays as shuttles stacked up on Third Street. Light-rail service

was expected to resume Wednesday, officials said, but more commuting headaches could lie ahead. Muni plans to replace the T-Third line with shuttle buses for much of January and the entire month of February as workers finish the UCSF Mission Bay platform.

Martinez resident Rachel Kraus waited Monday morning at the Powell station for the T-Third, which she planned to take to her job at ThirdLove, a fashion retailer based in San Francisco. But the train that arrived was a KIngleside that deposited Kraus at the Embarcadero Station without information about the shuttle swap, she said.

“There were no signs anywhere telling us where to go,” Kraus said. “Muni workers were just yelling at us to go to Market and Spear.”

Kraus said she is not familiar with the area because she lives in the East Bay, and she didn’t have time to search for the detour. She ended up hailing an Uber to get to work on Monday and Tuesday.

Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents District 10, home to the southern half of the TThird line, criticized Muni’s shuttle problems Tuesday.

“They need to get larger shuttles or run the smaller shuttles more frequently. Bayview residents depend on the MTA, and issues like this exacerbate our community’s dependency on cars,” Cohen said in a statement.