4 ms·

I challenge you to find a place 50 miles outside of the center of any major metropolitan area that lives up to your transit expectations. If you travel the equ

by dpifke 17y ago

I challenge you to find a place 50 miles outside of the center of any major metropolitan area that lives up to your transit expectations. If you travel the equivalent of San Francisco-San Jose from Portland, you'd be in Salem and would be complaining about the Greyhound. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+jose+to+san+francisco&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=55.543096,54.492188&ie=UTF8&z=10 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=salem+oregon+to+portland,+or&sll=45.523875,-122.670399&sspn=3.109569,3.405762&ie=UTF8&z=10 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... For all the complaining people do about MUNI, I live in the city and need my car maybe once a month.

donw 17y ago
I'm going to be fair and say that Japan really spoiled me on public transit.
- davidw 17y ago
  Having lived in the Bay Area and Italy, I'd give the win to Italy's public transportation hands down. Trains aren't great, and are sometimes late, but there are enough of them that unless there's a major problem, you don't have to worry too much about missing one because another will come along soon. Also, the system is somewhat rational: trains for longer distance trips, busses for cities, and around the countryside. The train station and bus stations are always connected so that even in a city you don't know, it doesn't take long to figure things out and get where you need to go. The Bay Area is a complete mish-mash of systems. The first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they see it is "why doesn't BART go all around the bay?!".
  - transit100 17y ago
    There is a map in the San Jose Diridon Caltrain station, placed right next to the door across from the ramps. After some searching I found someone who took a photo of it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1489675763/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1489675763/ It is a very interesting map because it contains the lines of most of the transit authorities in the Bay Area(apparently not all because transit.511.org has more). There are so many that they have to reuse similar colors for a few of them. There are agencies that you probably have never heard of on that map. That is a scary thing and indicates the true scale of the transit problem - so many overlapping interests, no central authority. And looking at the transit agencies alone doesn't even give us perspective on how many other bureaucracies are getting in the way.
  - evgen 17y ago
    Yes, the various organizational overlaps, competing interest groups, and projects that had bigger plans than they did bankrolls makes the whole system less functional that it needs to be. Up until quite recently if I had wanted to take public transit from my home (south bay) to the Berkeley I would have needed to take VTA light rail to the San Jose caltrain station, Caltrain to SF (4th & King), SF MUNI to a BART station, and then BART to Berkeley; with the Caltrain/BART connection at SFO I can at least cut the MUNI step out of the process but it is still faster and cheaper to just hop in my car and drive there...
nvoorhies 17y ago
Palo Alto is much less than 50 miles from San Jose.

by dpifke 17y ago

donw 17y ago

I'm going to be fair and say that Japan really spoiled me on public transit.

davidw 17y ago
Having lived in the Bay Area and Italy, I'd give the win to Italy's public transportation hands down. Trains aren't great, and are sometimes late, but there are enough of them that unless there's a major problem, you don't have to worry too much about missing one because another will come along soon. Also, the system is somewhat rational: trains for longer distance trips, busses for cities, and around the countryside. The train station and bus stations are always connected so that even in a city you don't know, it doesn't take long to figure things out and get where you need to go. The Bay Area is a complete mish-mash of systems. The first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they see it is "why doesn't BART go all around the bay?!".
- transit100 17y ago
  There is a map in the San Jose Diridon Caltrain station, placed right next to the door across from the ramps. After some searching I found someone who took a photo of it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1489675763/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1489675763/ It is a very interesting map because it contains the lines of most of the transit authorities in the Bay Area(apparently not all because transit.511.org has more). There are so many that they have to reuse similar colors for a few of them. There are agencies that you probably have never heard of on that map. That is a scary thing and indicates the true scale of the transit problem - so many overlapping interests, no central authority. And looking at the transit agencies alone doesn't even give us perspective on how many other bureaucracies are getting in the way.
- evgen 17y ago
  Yes, the various organizational overlaps, competing interest groups, and projects that had bigger plans than they did bankrolls makes the whole system less functional that it needs to be. Up until quite recently if I had wanted to take public transit from my home (south bay) to the Berkeley I would have needed to take VTA light rail to the San Jose caltrain station, Caltrain to SF (4th & King), SF MUNI to a BART station, and then BART to Berkeley; with the Caltrain/BART connection at SFO I can at least cut the MUNI step out of the process but it is still faster and cheaper to just hop in my car and drive there...

nvoorhies 17y ago

Palo Alto is much less than 50 miles from San Jose.