5 ms·

SF needs more public transportation as much as it needs housing :(

by kajecounterhack 3y ago

nocoiner 3y ago
With that tax base, is there any reason BART couldn’t be expanded and enhanced?
- doublespanner 3y ago
  In my experience, the motivation for rapid growth in an area comes from an opposite direction to improving services in an area.
- farzinadil 3y ago
  BART is struggling to fund it's operations currently as ridership is down significantly from per-pandemic. Bart is already constructing a 5 mile extension into downtown San Jose and Santa Clara. But BART should not prioritize any more extensions after that. It is better for BART to focus on transit oriented development (TOD). There are many good opportunities for TOD. Currently. too many stations are surrounded by low density housing and surface parking lots. Also, it is better for BART to use money to improve operations as frequency is abysmal on weekends and nighttime. Better to use money on expanding service and building TOD before any further extensions.
  - epicureanideal 3y ago
    Get the smelly mentally ill and drug using people off of Bart and I’ll use it more.
    - farzinadil 3y ago
      I think the best way to do that is installing better fare gates that prevent fare evasion. Seems reasonable to believe anti-social people on BART causing trouble are fare evaders and a crack down on fare evasion would keep them off the system.
      - epicureanideal 3y ago
        I’ve seen some supposed attempts to crack down on fare evasion but the people doing the enforcement seem to be intentionally misapplying it to say, old folks and working professionals who have only $2 on their clipper card and who are likely going to refill it when they arrive at their destination (which used to be totally normal), hitting them with $75 citations. Meanwhile the homeless and mentally unstable remain..
newshackr 3y ago
Usually it is possible to invest with this when you know there will be population and therefore revenue growth.
farzinadil 3y ago
The public transit needs more ridership. Hasn't recovered as well as other cities from pre-2020 and is very low currently. Ridership would increase with transit oriented development (TOD). A lot of good opportunities for TOD around BART and Caltrain stations.
xnx 3y ago
SF is getting the most modern public transportation system in the world via Waymo and (kind of) Cruise.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Taxis are not a sustainable public transportation system; they're supplemental, at best.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    On the other hand a self-driving bus route that comes much more frequently than any existing Muni line would be nice and cuts down on the main cost, which is operator labor.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      I can't claim to understand Muni's problems, but it occurs to me that an train is a much simpler problem (technically speaking) to solve than a self-driving bus. The former doesn't have to flow in and out of unstructured traffic, has only one degree of freedom, has well-deployed reference systems, etc. Maybe one day we'll have fully automated buses without any operators at all, but for the time being my understanding is that even self-driving cars still need a tender. The kind of bus volume (and corresponding idle drivers) you'd need to make up for a train's worth of commuters probably takes a heavy cut into any operator labor savings.
      - xnx 3y ago
        Waymo does have a support team, but it is not 1:1 with its vehicles. Trains a transportation system from a different era when there were peak commute times. They run at a fraction of their capacity now.
        woodruffw 3y ago
        The trains seem busy enough here in NYC (too busy: they need to run more of them). I'm not aware of a city on Earth that's been able to obtain the kind of simultaneous density and livability that places like NYC have without mass transit. Comparatively dense cities without mass transit (like Manila) are choked in traffic; changing that traffic to electric traffic will make the air cleaner (good!) but will not address the latter problem.
chrischen 3y ago
SF public transit is actually decent. It was just a little pricey especially if you had to combine BART with Muni. And some people had a bad view of it as dangerous.
jltsiren 3y ago
New housing is pretty much the only valid reason to build public transit. Good transit is expensive. The people who already live in the area are not willing to pay enough to justify the investment. They have already figured out their lives without the transit. If you want transit, you have to build it primarily for new residents. And the costs should be covered by increased land value, usually either by taxing the land, selling it, or developing it. Trying to cover investment costs with fares just destroys the value of the investment.

SF needs more public transportation as much as it needs housing :(

nocoiner 3y ago

With that tax base, is there any reason BART couldn’t be expanded and enhanced?

doublespanner 3y ago
In my experience, the motivation for rapid growth in an area comes from an opposite direction to improving services in an area.
farzinadil 3y ago
BART is struggling to fund it's operations currently as ridership is down significantly from per-pandemic. Bart is already constructing a 5 mile extension into downtown San Jose and Santa Clara. But BART should not prioritize any more extensions after that. It is better for BART to focus on transit oriented development (TOD). There are many good opportunities for TOD. Currently. too many stations are surrounded by low density housing and surface parking lots. Also, it is better for BART to use money to improve operations as frequency is abysmal on weekends and nighttime. Better to use money on expanding service and building TOD before any further extensions.
- epicureanideal 3y ago
  Get the smelly mentally ill and drug using people off of Bart and I’ll use it more.
  - farzinadil 3y ago
    I think the best way to do that is installing better fare gates that prevent fare evasion. Seems reasonable to believe anti-social people on BART causing trouble are fare evaders and a crack down on fare evasion would keep them off the system.
    - epicureanideal 3y ago
      I’ve seen some supposed attempts to crack down on fare evasion but the people doing the enforcement seem to be intentionally misapplying it to say, old folks and working professionals who have only $2 on their clipper card and who are likely going to refill it when they arrive at their destination (which used to be totally normal), hitting them with $75 citations. Meanwhile the homeless and mentally unstable remain..

newshackr 3y ago

Usually it is possible to invest with this when you know there will be population and therefore revenue growth.

farzinadil 3y ago

The public transit needs more ridership. Hasn't recovered as well as other cities from pre-2020 and is very low currently. Ridership would increase with transit oriented development (TOD). A lot of good opportunities for TOD around BART and Caltrain stations.

xnx 3y ago

SF is getting the most modern public transportation system in the world via Waymo and (kind of) Cruise.

woodruffw 3y ago
Taxis are not a sustainable public transportation system; they're supplemental, at best.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  On the other hand a self-driving bus route that comes much more frequently than any existing Muni line would be nice and cuts down on the main cost, which is operator labor.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I can't claim to understand Muni's problems, but it occurs to me that an train is a much simpler problem (technically speaking) to solve than a self-driving bus. The former doesn't have to flow in and out of unstructured traffic, has only one degree of freedom, has well-deployed reference systems, etc. Maybe one day we'll have fully automated buses without any operators at all, but for the time being my understanding is that even self-driving cars still need a tender. The kind of bus volume (and corresponding idle drivers) you'd need to make up for a train's worth of commuters probably takes a heavy cut into any operator labor savings.
    - xnx 3y ago
      Waymo does have a support team, but it is not 1:1 with its vehicles. Trains a transportation system from a different era when there were peak commute times. They run at a fraction of their capacity now.
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        The trains seem busy enough here in NYC (too busy: they need to run more of them). I'm not aware of a city on Earth that's been able to obtain the kind of simultaneous density and livability that places like NYC have without mass transit. Comparatively dense cities without mass transit (like Manila) are choked in traffic; changing that traffic to electric traffic will make the air cleaner (good!) but will not address the latter problem.

chrischen 3y ago

SF public transit is actually decent. It was just a little pricey especially if you had to combine BART with Muni. And some people had a bad view of it as dangerous.

jltsiren 3y ago

New housing is pretty much the only valid reason to build public transit. Good transit is expensive. The people who already live in the area are not willing to pay enough to justify the investment. They have already figured out their lives without the transit. If you want transit, you have to build it primarily for new residents. And the costs should be covered by increased land value, usually either by taxing the land, selling it, or developing it. Trying to cover investment costs with fares just destroys the value of the investment.