7 ms·

I used to live in Oakland, and am really sad to see continued failures of BART. They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a lo

I used to live in Oakland, and am really sad to see continued failures of BART. They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a long (but no traffic) ride possible from Oakland to San Jose. A key challenge for BART is that they depend a lot more on ticket sales than subsidies, and as a result, have been hit much harder with lower ridership.

ryanmcbride 1y ago
I'd say the BART administrators overpaying themselves is the bigger moneysink. Not to mention the spending 73M dollars to overhaul the gates to stop fare evaders, when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  The problem is that the Bay Area needs a single transit agency. All the agencies fighting each other for funding doesn’t help. It’s a much easier task to levy a minuscule tax on the entire region that pays for free public transit. If BART wants to do that at the moment, they can’t.
  - trollbridge 1y ago
    I live in an area with a county-wide transit sales tax, and it just seems to result in them running a lot of empty buses around and building (and eventually abandoning) transit centres. Full price is $1.50 (which if paying cash means fiddling around with coins) except for the 50+ mile express routes which are $2.50.
    - darth_avocado 1y ago
      Well you could be in the Bay Area where you’d have 27 agencies, that still run a lot of empty routes and build useless and expensive transit centers, and then charge way more than what you have.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    The MTC is that organization for the Bay Area.
    - darth_avocado 1y ago
      Bay Area has 27 transit agencies and MTC has limited control over them beyond dictating how the state funds are allocated. Thats not what I’m talking about. What I’m suggesting is that the 27 agencies be one agency operationally and get funded as such. You’ll have much better outcomes.
      - jeffbee 1y ago
        MTC is not just concerned with allocating state funds, though. They administer RM2 and RM3 and the AB1107 sales tax, and they put on a trench coat to act at BATA collecting and using bridge tolls.
        darth_avocado 1y ago
        But unless MTC is concerned with the operations, you cannot have decent outcomes. If BART has an over reliance on fare but MUNI doesn’t, a single agency would be better able to balance the budget. Similarly if one agency is spending more of the state funding on creating new routes while other is spending more on creating more frequent service on existing routes, MTC won’t be able to direct what needs to happen. If BART is running more often, but the bus I take to the BART station just cut service, I’m not taking BART anymore. Point of a single agency is not just to collect taxes. It is to make sure there are better outcomes, so that when you do need more taxes to fund public transit, you don’t get the pushback from the public.
        jeffbee 1y ago
        I guess I just don't believe in your thesis that larger scale leads to better outcomes. Wouldn't we just end up with Caltrans Lite Edition, spending all the money on car junk? BART already has this problem, with two elected directors who are more likely the chew off their own legs than to ever ride BART.
  - hedora 1y ago
    They also need to get the roads, busses and ferries on board with this plan. The goal (by law) should be twofold: 1) increase the number of people with a 90th percentile commute under 15, 30 and 60 minutes. (i.e., improve quality of life and encourage economic growth) 2) sharply reduce the average CO2-equivalent emissions of each commuter. The current statewide policy (by law) is to reduce commute miles. In practice, this means intentionally sabotaging commute corridors, which slows economic growth (fewer available workers and fewer reachable jobs) reduces quality of life and increases CO2 emissions (due to repeated idling and hard acceleration).
- SllX 1y ago
  > when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents. Absolutely not.
  - scarmig 1y ago
    I think there should be options for low income residents to ride for free or heavily discounted rates (which exists now). But it's all about implementation: simply letting anyone jump on turns the system into a madhouse. Making sure everyone pays (even if through a government issued pass) and works with the system helps balance equity considerations with maintaining safety and cleanliness.
    - SllX 1y ago
      BART has several discounts: https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts Discounts are fine. Free riding isn’t.
      - edoceo 1y ago
        Why is free public transport bad? Could get even more folk out of their cars, or expand employment opportunities.
        omnimus 1y ago
        Because socialism.
        SllX 1y ago
        I answered more thoroughly in response to your sibling comment.
        bethekidyouwant 1y ago
        Because the tube will be filled with the unwashed masses
        ianburrell 1y ago
        The price is not the barrier for most people using transit. The service reliability and availability is more important. Would you rather pay fare for frequent bus or wait around for free fares?
- tekno45 1y ago
  bart doesn't get to decide its free.
- jedberg 1y ago
  > when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents. There was a study done on this. It turns out that the median income of someone riding under the Bay Bridge in BART is higher than someone driving a car across it. In other words the wealthier people are using BART. So if you made it free, you'd be subsidizing the wealthy.
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    That’s a very wrong conclusion to draw from the study. If median income of someone riding the bart is higher than someone driving, it could also mean that they drive because it is cheaper to do so. If you make it free, they would probably ride BART too, making it more accessible and equitable.
    - jedberg 1y ago
      The study was more in depth than that. It found that BART goes to more places that wealthy people go (financial district, SOMA, etc) than where poorer people need to go.
      - s1artibartfast 1y ago
        That makes perfect sense. Poor people are attracted to cheaper real estate (residential and commercially). Real estate is cheaper because it is less accessible and convenient. One area is concentrated and the other is decentralized.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    Please forgive me for the ignorance, but is there some significance of “under the bay bridge” for this study, or did they just pick it arbitrarily? It seems like picking a point arbitrarily like that could introduce some skews.
    - Me1000 1y ago
      I'm pretty sure it's just being used as a turn of phrase here. Under the bridge means commuters are riding BART, over the bridge means they're driving.
xlbuttplug2 1y ago
> sad to see continued failures of BART I think this is overstated, at least from an operations point of view. My mom has been using BART to commute to work for over a year and I can't recall many incidents like this.
yawnxyz 1y ago
ever since I paid $8 for jumping in and out of a BART station b/c I meant to go into a Muni station... I lost all respect for them.
- xlbuttplug2 1y ago
  I too learned that the hard way when dropping a family member off. I naively assumed it wouldn't charge me if I tapped out at the same station 10 minutes later.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    London Underground has nice clear policies around this, both about what you'll be charged https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster/pay-as-you-go/touching-in-and-out#on-this-page-5 https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets... And about refunds (typically you'd get an automatic refund for a one-off event) https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/touched-in-and-out-at-same-station https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/touched-in... I always have high levels of respect for companies with such clarity
  - crote 1y ago
    In The Netherlands you get a full refund if you tap out at the same station within 20 minutes. If you travel with NS (National Railways), you even have 60 minutes to tap out. Having someone pay just to wave off someone is incredibly customer-hostile. Besides, how many people are even committing fraud like that?
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      A parallel comment suggests it might be an “excursion fair.” Although it is not really the intended use of a train, some reasons an individual might ride the train might be sight-seeing, or because they are homeless and want somewhere warm to hang out. In that case, IMO it isn’t really a fraud attempt to get off on the same stop you got in, it is just unexpected use of the system.
- 1y ago
jerlam 1y ago
As an occasional BART rider, the changes they've made since the pandemic have been in the right direction. I'm mostly indifferent to the new trains and payment cards, but they've increased the frequency so that missing a train doesn't mean you can be waiting for over 30 minutes, which can be longer than your entire trip. The main problem which BART cannot fix is that the trains usually don't go to where you want to go.
- sagarm 1y ago
  BART can fix that by building dense mixed use -- office, commercial, and residential -- around their stops.
  - jyounker 1y ago
    BART can't do that. The cities can do that.
    - somanyphotons 1y ago
      I think that's part of the problem, bart stations should be the centerpiece of a really dense (micro)neighbourhood
      - lotsoweiners 1y ago
        Lol. That sounds like you’re saying “well the neighborhood sure is shit but at least we’ve got good public transit”.
        immibis 1y ago
        have you ever lived in one of these places? Big cities in Europe are made entirely of them. They're pretty cool.
  - pj_mukh 1y ago
    They are doing that in East Bay [1] on BART owned land. They had been blocked so far by the most virulent NIMBY trash leading to some of the most scathing coverage [2]. Most have been unblocked and are under construction. The one still being blocked is Ashby BART because of (say it with me folks), a "HIsToriC flEa MARkeT" (that mostly sells stolen goods)[3]. [1]: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/magazine/housing-berkeley-yimby-fight.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/magazine/housing-berkeley... [3]: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/09/17/berkeley-ashby-bart-air-rights-affordable-housing https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/09/17/berkeley-ashby-bart-...
dyauspitr 1y ago
It’s not frequent though.
andbberger 1y ago
BART's doing great. good headways, same schedule all day everyday. name another american transit agency doing a takt
schoen 1y ago
> They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a long (but no traffic) ride possible from Oakland to San Jose. They're still working on this, with four more stations planned beyond Berryessa (Little Portugal, Downtown San José, Diridon, and Santa Clara), plus an additional infill station on the Berryessa line. I think that would be really cool. Unfortunately it looks like this new extension won't be that competitive with Caltrain as a way to get to San Jose from San Francisco. Maybe at non-express times. Also, it looks like it won't be complete until 2040!?
- pm90 1y ago
  i mean yeah if you’re in SF caltrain is super convenient, so its fine. Getting from oakland to south bay without a car was hell though. This line would make it so much better. Plus: Oakland is actually building homes for people while SF remains laughably behind on building quotas.
  - hedora 1y ago
    Try the transbay bus. Depending on station location, it’s often faster than the bart. Also, it doesn’t smell like piss, and I’ve never witnessed an assault on it.
- pj_mukh 1y ago
  Otherwise known as the Worst Transit Project in the US [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k
- hedora 1y ago
  Amtrak still has service on that corridor. Apparently it was a convenient way to get to SF back in the day (via ferry). Of course most of Silicon Valley is closer to the San Francisco - Santa Cruz line, making the ferry service redundant. It’s too bad they ripped all this stuff out, and will never rebuild it!
maldev 1y ago
I don't see how it ever comes back. You used to have business people and engineers riding the train. But with Covid the enforcement policies got really bad and the trains and atmosphere are so trashy now. It's far easier for the aforementioned group to just hire an Uber than deal with the crime and trashiness that's plaguing the system now.
- kpennell 1y ago
  I ride the system all the time and I don't think it's trashy. Also there are the new gates all over that block people from jumping in as easily and that has been cut down quite a bit. I think it's tough for Bart to probably come back still because people don't need to be in downtown SF as much as they used to because a lot of people work from home now, but yeah I just don't think it's fair to say that the system is some trashy system. I think it's mostly pretty nice.
  - hedora 1y ago
    Good to hear. I heard they reopened the bathrooms (they closed them system wide in response to 9/11). If true, I’m guessing that helps a lot.
Hilift 1y ago
BART is unfortunately doomed. It had been running on federal aid, and with a deficit. Ridership is down 60% from 2019 (50 million vs 118 million). Now with San Francisco and Oakland in a long, slow downturn, it is unlikely to improve.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  Have you ever read what people said about NYC in the 1970s ?

ryanmcbride 1y ago

I'd say the BART administrators overpaying themselves is the bigger moneysink. Not to mention the spending 73M dollars to overhaul the gates to stop fare evaders, when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents.

darth_avocado 1y ago
The problem is that the Bay Area needs a single transit agency. All the agencies fighting each other for funding doesn’t help. It’s a much easier task to levy a minuscule tax on the entire region that pays for free public transit. If BART wants to do that at the moment, they can’t.
- trollbridge 1y ago
  I live in an area with a county-wide transit sales tax, and it just seems to result in them running a lot of empty buses around and building (and eventually abandoning) transit centres. Full price is $1.50 (which if paying cash means fiddling around with coins) except for the 50+ mile express routes which are $2.50.
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    Well you could be in the Bay Area where you’d have 27 agencies, that still run a lot of empty routes and build useless and expensive transit centers, and then charge way more than what you have.
- jeffbee 1y ago
  The MTC is that organization for the Bay Area.
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    Bay Area has 27 transit agencies and MTC has limited control over them beyond dictating how the state funds are allocated. Thats not what I’m talking about. What I’m suggesting is that the 27 agencies be one agency operationally and get funded as such. You’ll have much better outcomes.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      MTC is not just concerned with allocating state funds, though. They administer RM2 and RM3 and the AB1107 sales tax, and they put on a trench coat to act at BATA collecting and using bridge tolls.
      - darth_avocado 1y ago
        But unless MTC is concerned with the operations, you cannot have decent outcomes. If BART has an over reliance on fare but MUNI doesn’t, a single agency would be better able to balance the budget. Similarly if one agency is spending more of the state funding on creating new routes while other is spending more on creating more frequent service on existing routes, MTC won’t be able to direct what needs to happen. If BART is running more often, but the bus I take to the BART station just cut service, I’m not taking BART anymore. Point of a single agency is not just to collect taxes. It is to make sure there are better outcomes, so that when you do need more taxes to fund public transit, you don’t get the pushback from the public.
        jeffbee 1y ago
        I guess I just don't believe in your thesis that larger scale leads to better outcomes. Wouldn't we just end up with Caltrans Lite Edition, spending all the money on car junk? BART already has this problem, with two elected directors who are more likely the chew off their own legs than to ever ride BART.
- hedora 1y ago
  They also need to get the roads, busses and ferries on board with this plan. The goal (by law) should be twofold: 1) increase the number of people with a 90th percentile commute under 15, 30 and 60 minutes. (i.e., improve quality of life and encourage economic growth) 2) sharply reduce the average CO2-equivalent emissions of each commuter. The current statewide policy (by law) is to reduce commute miles. In practice, this means intentionally sabotaging commute corridors, which slows economic growth (fewer available workers and fewer reachable jobs) reduces quality of life and increases CO2 emissions (due to repeated idling and hard acceleration).
SllX 1y ago
> when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents. Absolutely not.
- scarmig 1y ago
  I think there should be options for low income residents to ride for free or heavily discounted rates (which exists now). But it's all about implementation: simply letting anyone jump on turns the system into a madhouse. Making sure everyone pays (even if through a government issued pass) and works with the system helps balance equity considerations with maintaining safety and cleanliness.
  - SllX 1y ago
    BART has several discounts: https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts Discounts are fine. Free riding isn’t.
    - edoceo 1y ago
      Why is free public transport bad? Could get even more folk out of their cars, or expand employment opportunities.
      - omnimus 1y ago
        Because socialism.
      - SllX 1y ago
        I answered more thoroughly in response to your sibling comment.
      - bethekidyouwant 1y ago
        Because the tube will be filled with the unwashed masses
      - ianburrell 1y ago
        The price is not the barrier for most people using transit. The service reliability and availability is more important. Would you rather pay fare for frequent bus or wait around for free fares?
tekno45 1y ago
bart doesn't get to decide its free.
jedberg 1y ago
> when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents. There was a study done on this. It turns out that the median income of someone riding under the Bay Bridge in BART is higher than someone driving a car across it. In other words the wealthier people are using BART. So if you made it free, you'd be subsidizing the wealthy.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  That’s a very wrong conclusion to draw from the study. If median income of someone riding the bart is higher than someone driving, it could also mean that they drive because it is cheaper to do so. If you make it free, they would probably ride BART too, making it more accessible and equitable.
  - jedberg 1y ago
    The study was more in depth than that. It found that BART goes to more places that wealthy people go (financial district, SOMA, etc) than where poorer people need to go.
    - s1artibartfast 1y ago
      That makes perfect sense. Poor people are attracted to cheaper real estate (residential and commercially). Real estate is cheaper because it is less accessible and convenient. One area is concentrated and the other is decentralized.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Please forgive me for the ignorance, but is there some significance of “under the bay bridge” for this study, or did they just pick it arbitrarily? It seems like picking a point arbitrarily like that could introduce some skews.
  - Me1000 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's just being used as a turn of phrase here. Under the bridge means commuters are riding BART, over the bridge means they're driving.

xlbuttplug2 1y ago

> sad to see continued failures of BART I think this is overstated, at least from an operations point of view. My mom has been using BART to commute to work for over a year and I can't recall many incidents like this.

yawnxyz 1y ago

ever since I paid $8 for jumping in and out of a BART station b/c I meant to go into a Muni station... I lost all respect for them.

xlbuttplug2 1y ago
I too learned that the hard way when dropping a family member off. I naively assumed it wouldn't charge me if I tapped out at the same station 10 minutes later.
- ta1243 1y ago
  London Underground has nice clear policies around this, both about what you'll be charged https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster/pay-as-you-go/touching-in-and-out#on-this-page-5 https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets... And about refunds (typically you'd get an automatic refund for a one-off event) https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/touched-in-and-out-at-same-station https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/touched-in... I always have high levels of respect for companies with such clarity
- crote 1y ago
  In The Netherlands you get a full refund if you tap out at the same station within 20 minutes. If you travel with NS (National Railways), you even have 60 minutes to tap out. Having someone pay just to wave off someone is incredibly customer-hostile. Besides, how many people are even committing fraud like that?
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    A parallel comment suggests it might be an “excursion fair.” Although it is not really the intended use of a train, some reasons an individual might ride the train might be sight-seeing, or because they are homeless and want somewhere warm to hang out. In that case, IMO it isn’t really a fraud attempt to get off on the same stop you got in, it is just unexpected use of the system.
1y ago

jerlam 1y ago

As an occasional BART rider, the changes they've made since the pandemic have been in the right direction. I'm mostly indifferent to the new trains and payment cards, but they've increased the frequency so that missing a train doesn't mean you can be waiting for over 30 minutes, which can be longer than your entire trip. The main problem which BART cannot fix is that the trains usually don't go to where you want to go.

sagarm 1y ago
BART can fix that by building dense mixed use -- office, commercial, and residential -- around their stops.
- jyounker 1y ago
  BART can't do that. The cities can do that.
  - somanyphotons 1y ago
    I think that's part of the problem, bart stations should be the centerpiece of a really dense (micro)neighbourhood
    - lotsoweiners 1y ago
      Lol. That sounds like you’re saying “well the neighborhood sure is shit but at least we’ve got good public transit”.
      - immibis 1y ago
        have you ever lived in one of these places? Big cities in Europe are made entirely of them. They're pretty cool.
- pj_mukh 1y ago
  They are doing that in East Bay [1] on BART owned land. They had been blocked so far by the most virulent NIMBY trash leading to some of the most scathing coverage [2]. Most have been unblocked and are under construction. The one still being blocked is Ashby BART because of (say it with me folks), a "HIsToriC flEa MARkeT" (that mostly sells stolen goods)[3]. [1]: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/magazine/housing-berkeley-yimby-fight.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/magazine/housing-berkeley... [3]: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/09/17/berkeley-ashby-bart-air-rights-affordable-housing https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/09/17/berkeley-ashby-bart-...

dyauspitr 1y ago

It’s not frequent though.

andbberger 1y ago

BART's doing great. good headways, same schedule all day everyday. name another american transit agency doing a takt

schoen 1y ago

> They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a long (but no traffic) ride possible from Oakland to San Jose. They're still working on this, with four more stations planned beyond Berryessa (Little Portugal, Downtown San José, Diridon, and Santa Clara), plus an additional infill station on the Berryessa line. I think that would be really cool. Unfortunately it looks like this new extension won't be that competitive with Caltrain as a way to get to San Jose from San Francisco. Maybe at non-express times. Also, it looks like it won't be complete until 2040!?

pm90 1y ago
i mean yeah if you’re in SF caltrain is super convenient, so its fine. Getting from oakland to south bay without a car was hell though. This line would make it so much better. Plus: Oakland is actually building homes for people while SF remains laughably behind on building quotas.
- hedora 1y ago
  Try the transbay bus. Depending on station location, it’s often faster than the bart. Also, it doesn’t smell like piss, and I’ve never witnessed an assault on it.
pj_mukh 1y ago
Otherwise known as the Worst Transit Project in the US [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k
hedora 1y ago
Amtrak still has service on that corridor. Apparently it was a convenient way to get to SF back in the day (via ferry). Of course most of Silicon Valley is closer to the San Francisco - Santa Cruz line, making the ferry service redundant. It’s too bad they ripped all this stuff out, and will never rebuild it!

maldev 1y ago

I don't see how it ever comes back. You used to have business people and engineers riding the train. But with Covid the enforcement policies got really bad and the trains and atmosphere are so trashy now. It's far easier for the aforementioned group to just hire an Uber than deal with the crime and trashiness that's plaguing the system now.

kpennell 1y ago
I ride the system all the time and I don't think it's trashy. Also there are the new gates all over that block people from jumping in as easily and that has been cut down quite a bit. I think it's tough for Bart to probably come back still because people don't need to be in downtown SF as much as they used to because a lot of people work from home now, but yeah I just don't think it's fair to say that the system is some trashy system. I think it's mostly pretty nice.
- hedora 1y ago
  Good to hear. I heard they reopened the bathrooms (they closed them system wide in response to 9/11). If true, I’m guessing that helps a lot.

Hilift 1y ago

BART is unfortunately doomed. It had been running on federal aid, and with a deficit. Ridership is down 60% from 2019 (50 million vs 118 million). Now with San Francisco and Oakland in a long, slow downturn, it is unlikely to improve.

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
Have you ever read what people said about NYC in the 1970s ?