4 ms·
I think BART is the perfect storm of commuter railroads that aren't going to recover. San Francisco is tech heavy, and tech still seems pretty work-from-home h
by jrockway 3y ago
I think BART is the perfect storm of commuter railroads that aren't going to recover. San Francisco is tech heavy, and tech still seems pretty work-from-home heavy. A problem I always wondered about is whether or not BART was the right system for San Francisco, as it seems a lot of the big companies are out in the suburbs and never had public transportation. I walked from the Mountain View train station to the Googleplex once. Nobody does that twice. (These companies have their own transportation networks, which is kind of a shame for visitors.)
I don't know what other cities look like. I've ridden the subway in New York on and off throughout and past the pandemic. This week was the first week that seemed normal to me. I don't commute, but have ridden the subway at commuting times, and it's definitely a little more chill than it used to be. (Easy to get a seat! But the train does eventually fill up as you get farther into Manhattan.) Looking at the commuter railroads, which I think is the fairest comparison to BART, they seem to be 50% of their all-time peak capacity. Not ideal, and I'm not convinced that 50% of the New York metro will be allowed to work from home forever.
It will be interesting to see what congestion pricing does to people that used transit before the pandemic that drive now. When I worked in Manhattan, I had a friend that drove every day. He showed me the spreadsheet that he used to decide between a monthly pass on MNR versus driving, driving was ever so slightly cheaper. With a $20 a day charge to drive into the city coming in the next couple years, that might be the edge that the railroads need to make it a financially viable decision.
I always thought we should make mass transit free and see how the numbers do. If 400,000 people drive into the city every day, and 2,000,000 people take the train, it's clear where the tax dollars should go. But I think as soon as you charge someone that first $1 to take the bus, pretty much everyone decided "fuck it, I'll just drive". The costs are a little more insidious, wear and tear on your vehicle, gas once a week, etc. People count that as free. (For example, do you ever turn on electrical appliances without thinking about the cost of electricity? That's driving.)
- cyberlurker 3y agoI had high hopes for NYC when they hired the new MTA guy before Covid. But then he got pushed out by Cuomo and it seems like he was prevented from carrying out the reforms needed to fix the subway properly. I highly doubt the state, which controls the budget, will ever make the subway free. I am doubtful they will even pony up the cash to perform the maintenance the system truly needs.
- jrockway 3y agoYeah, Andy Byford. He was great. He ended up going back to London and opening up Crossrail which is an amazing system.
- ghaff 3y ago>pretty much everyone decided "fuck it, I'll just drive". Of course, there's also the option of "fuck it, I'll just stay home."
- prawn 3y ago"I walked from the Mountain View train station to the Googleplex once. Nobody does that twice." Why's that? Long, boring, no footpaths, dangerous?
- GrifMD 3y agoI looked it up out curiosity, it's over 2 miles along a major road that crosses a major freeway. There is a suburban route that has a dedicated bike lane crossing of the freeway (101). Yikes.
- prawn 3y agoThis sounds exactly like the sort of walk my wife and I end up doing when abroad. "Doesn't look that far on the map. Let's just walk it, get our steps up. It'll be fun!" End up choking on fumes the entire way...
- wnissen 3y agoSuburban pedestrian infrastructure in all of California is bad. Maybe not Florida bad, but pretty bad. Intersections are set up for vehicles, pedestrians have to wait a long time and cars are going to be zipping around the corner without looking to see if anyone is in the crosswalk. Motor fumes, risk of collision, and it takes forever. I love to walk in urban and wilderness settings, but it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that people walking in the suburbs can't afford an alternative.
- aledalgrande 3y agoIt's an absolute random walk in residential streets and across a highway in a land not built to walk. So probably all of that.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoIt's ~an hour long walk.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago> I don't know what other cities look like. Vancouver's downtown has a lot more residential than most cities and it seems to have fared much better that SF and other places. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/translink-ridership-rebound-2022-1.6827116 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/translink-ri... Though even here, we can see that transit recovery is slowest in the downtown area and strongest in other parts of the region. I'd agree with your analysis that this is a tech and wfh related problem where SF is particularly hurt hard. In the area of this regional map of strongest recovery are the warehouses where working people need to be on site to do work.
- aledalgrande 3y agoThere is also to say that riding in Vancouver is much nicer than in SF.