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Can BART overcrowding be addressed in part by improving BART itself? It'd be one thing if it were already moving such large numbers of people that it'd be infea

Can BART overcrowding be addressed in part by improving BART itself? It'd be one thing if it were already moving such large numbers of people that it'd be infeasible to expect higher capacity, but its current ridership isn't even all that high. The Chicago "L", for example, has a similar number of track-miles (though more stations), but moves twice as many people on an average day. How is BART moving half as many and yet overcrowded? Wikipedia says that current headways fall short of the original plan, which seems like it could be part of the problem: > In the 1970s, BART had envisioned frequent local service, with headways as short as two minutes between trains and six minutes intra-line on the (quadruple-interlined) section in San Francisco. However, headways have fallen short of the original plans, presently three minutes between trains, and 15 minutes intra-line in San Francisco.

OkGoDoIt 9y ago
Yeah, especially coming back from China where you don’t have to worry upon missing a train since the next one will be there in a couple minutes. BART trains come extremely infrequently, it’s especially annoying when you just missed the train and you’d almost rather get out of the station and walk/Uber but you’ve already paid. What is the reason for this? Do they not have enough trains? Is it a safety issue? Do they not have enough conductors/drivers/personal? Is it an engineering problem, a money problem, something else? Seems like increasing train frequency would alleviate a lot of the stress on the system and be relatively inexpensive.
- abalone 9y ago
  According to BART it's due to insufficient train cars and outdated control systems. They say they're working on it.[1] Reading between the lines it sounds like there is a money problem constraining it, and then we get to the controversial issue of how they manage costs. [1] https://www.bart.gov/guide/faq#frequent_trains https://www.bart.gov/guide/faq#frequent_trains
readams 9y ago
BART is run in a hilariously inefficient way and most of its budget is wasted.

OkGoDoIt 9y ago

Yeah, especially coming back from China where you don’t have to worry upon missing a train since the next one will be there in a couple minutes. BART trains come extremely infrequently, it’s especially annoying when you just missed the train and you’d almost rather get out of the station and walk/Uber but you’ve already paid. What is the reason for this? Do they not have enough trains? Is it a safety issue? Do they not have enough conductors/drivers/personal? Is it an engineering problem, a money problem, something else? Seems like increasing train frequency would alleviate a lot of the stress on the system and be relatively inexpensive.

abalone 9y ago
According to BART it's due to insufficient train cars and outdated control systems. They say they're working on it.[1] Reading between the lines it sounds like there is a money problem constraining it, and then we get to the controversial issue of how they manage costs. [1] https://www.bart.gov/guide/faq#frequent_trains https://www.bart.gov/guide/faq#frequent_trains

readams 9y ago

BART is run in a hilariously inefficient way and most of its budget is wasted.