5 ms·

That's the MUNI, which is pretty shit, along with the surface street bus system. Caltrain and BART are solid though. The streetcars are pretty but somehow slowe

That's the MUNI, which is pretty shit, along with the surface street bus system. Caltrain and BART are solid though. The streetcars are pretty but somehow slower than biking.

burfog 9y ago
Caltrain and BART would properly be compared to MBTA's commuter rail, which runs for dozens of miles out in every direction from Boston. These are things that are longer range and more expensive, with fewer stops along the way. MUNI is what matches up with the MBTA's T.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  MBTA's commuter rail is more equivalent to Sonoma County Smart Train or maybe Caltrain. Bart may go the distance of communter rail but it's far faster and more frequent, taking half an hour to cross the bay from Berkeley to 16th street mission - at the best of times with quite frequent service in busy times. I've had horrific experiences with MTBA Commuter Rail canceling several trains on the weekend without announcement, literally waiting 3 hour or more at the station more than once.
  - burfog 9y ago
    BART isn't immune to horror. A few years back, I almost planned to take BART from the airport to a hotel on California Street. I'm lucky I chose to rent a car and stay in a car-friendly hotel in South San Francisco instead, because BART stopped entirely due to a strike. That was 4.5 days, costing the region about $73 million per day. It bewilders me that such a mess is tolerated. That properly calls for emergency replacements (possibly National Guard) and for the strikers to be convicted of criminal mischief endangering public safety.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Not really, in actual usage. BART is roughly equivalent to the MBTA's Red Line - it's the workhorse subway system, moves lots of passengers quickly from the highest-density residential areas to the downtown core and then continues on to high-density suburbs. Muni is more like the Green Line - slow, above-ground light rail that services outlying residential areas with some key connections. Caltrain is a commuter rail, but commuter rail in the Bay Area is much different from in the MBTA. For one, it's a straight line down the peninsula; Boston's commuter rail branches out like spokes on a wheel. Two, it hits all of the major suburban downtowns, which are themselves much higher density than the Boston suburbs (Sunnyvale has more people than Cambridge, for example, despite being 40-50 miles from SF). Three, because of this it's always packed and runs much more frequently than MBTA commuter rails. I used to live along the Fitchburg Commuter Rail, which gets about 10,000 passengers/day. Caltrain gets 60,000. Muni is generally considered worthless for daily commuting in the Bay Area, while most of the Boston MBTA stations are considered desirable neighborhoods. By contrast, the MBTA commuter rail is generally considered useless (everyone I know who lived in a town serviced by it would just drive, and usually work along the 128 or 495 belts instead of in the city itself), but Caltrain is considered a very practical means of commuting if you happen to live near one of the peninsula downtowns and work in SoMA, and the reason crummy housing stock in the Mission rents for $3500/month is because you can get to all the cool places either by BART or by BART -> Caltrain transfers.

That's the MUNI, which is pretty shit, along with the surface street bus system. Caltrain and BART are solid though. The streetcars are pretty but somehow slower than biking.

burfog 9y ago

Caltrain and BART would properly be compared to MBTA's commuter rail, which runs for dozens of miles out in every direction from Boston. These are things that are longer range and more expensive, with fewer stops along the way. MUNI is what matches up with the MBTA's T.

joe_the_user 9y ago
MBTA's commuter rail is more equivalent to Sonoma County Smart Train or maybe Caltrain. Bart may go the distance of communter rail but it's far faster and more frequent, taking half an hour to cross the bay from Berkeley to 16th street mission - at the best of times with quite frequent service in busy times. I've had horrific experiences with MTBA Commuter Rail canceling several trains on the weekend without announcement, literally waiting 3 hour or more at the station more than once.
- burfog 9y ago
  BART isn't immune to horror. A few years back, I almost planned to take BART from the airport to a hotel on California Street. I'm lucky I chose to rent a car and stay in a car-friendly hotel in South San Francisco instead, because BART stopped entirely due to a strike. That was 4.5 days, costing the region about $73 million per day. It bewilders me that such a mess is tolerated. That properly calls for emergency replacements (possibly National Guard) and for the strikers to be convicted of criminal mischief endangering public safety.
nostrademons 9y ago
Not really, in actual usage. BART is roughly equivalent to the MBTA's Red Line - it's the workhorse subway system, moves lots of passengers quickly from the highest-density residential areas to the downtown core and then continues on to high-density suburbs. Muni is more like the Green Line - slow, above-ground light rail that services outlying residential areas with some key connections. Caltrain is a commuter rail, but commuter rail in the Bay Area is much different from in the MBTA. For one, it's a straight line down the peninsula; Boston's commuter rail branches out like spokes on a wheel. Two, it hits all of the major suburban downtowns, which are themselves much higher density than the Boston suburbs (Sunnyvale has more people than Cambridge, for example, despite being 40-50 miles from SF). Three, because of this it's always packed and runs much more frequently than MBTA commuter rails. I used to live along the Fitchburg Commuter Rail, which gets about 10,000 passengers/day. Caltrain gets 60,000. Muni is generally considered worthless for daily commuting in the Bay Area, while most of the Boston MBTA stations are considered desirable neighborhoods. By contrast, the MBTA commuter rail is generally considered useless (everyone I know who lived in a town serviced by it would just drive, and usually work along the 128 or 495 belts instead of in the city itself), but Caltrain is considered a very practical means of commuting if you happen to live near one of the peninsula downtowns and work in SoMA, and the reason crummy housing stock in the Mission rents for $3500/month is because you can get to all the cool places either by BART or by BART -> Caltrain transfers.