10 ms·

Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

80 points by capkutay 12y ago

ar7hur 12y ago
Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the parties! (second degree comment)
JohnDoe365 12y ago
Because the taxi lobby, supported by the oil lobby, has a firm grip on municipal government?
sssilver 12y ago
> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? You should try Dallas.
- edward 12y ago
  But at least you can park in Dallas, right? In SF public transport is poor and if you drive it is impossible to park and the hills make cycling and walking places hard work.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  The difference is that SF is dense and liberal - two things that tend to encourage good transit. High density means low cost to service, and a liberal populace means they're more willing to go for "big government" solutions to moving people around. Compare v. Dallas.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  What do you mean by this? I know this could quickly turn into, "well, at least we aren't x", but Dallas has decent rail service compared to a lot of areas. 15 years ago the DART rail was just getting started. Now you can take the red line up to Plano, the blue to Rowlett, the green to Carrolton, and the orange to DFW. Since 2010 the green has been expanded to hit areas like Fair Park and Deep Ellum. You can even take the slower TRE to Fort Worth. Is it perfect? No. But there's been pretty rapid expansion and considering how spread out Dallas is and the fiscal conservatism here, it is not too bad. Austin (albeit much smaller) does not even have a rail system and Houston's is nascent. I'm not too knowledgeable about the situation outside the state, but I'm guessing Dallas has one of the better rail systems in the South.
- Nicholas_C 12y ago
  I have heard good things from people who take the DART from Plano/Richardson to Dallas for work. What are your complaints? Lack of frequency/coverage?
- ulfw 12y ago
  At least Dallas is automobile-optimized. SF is shitty in terms of public transport but I'd argue even more shitty for driving because of high traffic, odd routings, stopping at every intersection for a stop sign or traffic light and worst of all complete lack of parking. I fondly remembering looking for well over an hour in a 10 by 10 block radius for a spot to join a party one Saturday night in a residential area around Japantown, only to excuse myself and give up and drove back to Mountain View.
gdne 12y ago
Because most of the transportation operates on public streets (busses and muni). This forces them to deal with traffic and pedestrian crowds, which make them no better than driving. If SF had a real subway system, things would probably be different.
- al_gore 12y ago
  The Green Line in Boston runs down a protected center path in the road for a significant portion. Is there a reason that SF can't carve out those lanes for exclusive Muni use?
  - nerfhammer 12y ago
    There's actually one case where they're trying to do this: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-come-into-focus/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-c...
- bowlofpetunias 12y ago
  Plenty of cities don't have a subway but do have decent public transport that rarely gets stuck in traffic. Separate bus and rail lanes help. SF, like most US cities, reserves ridiculously wide roads for car traffic.
gooserock 12y ago
This is a great overview of the history of SF's mass transit systems, but honestly, it's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Was it better when the streetcars ran everywhere? Of course. But compared to cities like Boston or Dallas or Atlanta, SF's Muni and BART are amazing, though Caltrain is admittedly the weakest link of the system.
- andys627 12y ago
  It really is terrible. What you're saying is like saying having 5 pennies is amazing compared to having 1 penny.
  - closetnerd 12y ago
    Agreed. The "americans should feel great about where they live because, hey, at least its not as bad as Sudan" argument.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- al_gore 12y ago
  I think the MBTA is better than Muni + BART, the percentage of proper heavy rail rapid transit is much higher in Boston (just the meh Green Line, compared to every meh Muni line).
wavesounds 12y ago
The whole Bay Area really needs leadership that is serious about investing in growth, both in transportation infrastructure and housing. It's frustrating that a world class city is consistently held back by NIMBYism that stops progress.
suprgeek 12y ago
Coming to SF and Expecting world beating infrastructure is a very naive expectation to begin with. Keep in mind the kind of politics (and hence policies) that SF is known for. It is not know for ruthless efficiency and well oiled policies, it is instead the "WORST run big city in the US" http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-ci... Do not expect things to get better either unfortunately.
- dba7dba 12y ago
  And one of its ex-mayor, Gavin Newsom, is aiming to be the next Governor of CA. sigh...
- samstave 12y ago
  Yeah well, we also have our city council people arrested for gun smuggling to terrorists in the Philippines...
  - dba7dba 12y ago
    WHAT? I didn't know that! I knew of Calif. state senator (dem known as gun-control advocate) getting busted for gun-running and money laundering. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/calif-state-senator-arrested-for-alleged-gun-running-was-gun-control-advocate/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/ca...
    - spikels 12y ago
      He was on the SF city council until he was term-limited out.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    The odd part of that was he was pushing for gun control laws pretty heavily. I guess if you get all guns banned then your gun smuggling business will be more profitable.
- gcr 12y ago
jowiar 12y ago
One major challenge in the Bay Area often boils down to the lack of a government with the authority to collect taxes and impetus to spend them on Bay Area infrastructure. You either need three city governments and a pile of local ones to get on the same page, or persuade a state government that is not particularly keen on Bay Area spending and hamstrung by ballot initiatives.
- al_gore 12y ago
  This is true, but there's no reason that San Francisco itself couldn't have proper rapid transit instead of street cars. Even just removing cars from those streets and creating dedicated lanes (these exist in some places, of course) would be a huge help.
  - koenigdavidmj 12y ago
    The streetcars that remain mostly are still there for the Market Street Subway and the Sunset Tunnel. In other words, they are demonstrably better than an equivalent bus route in as-the-row-flies distance.
dba7dba 12y ago
> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? You should try Los Angeles. Btw, decades ago, Los Angeles had a perfectly good commuter line system (aka Red Cars which was electric trolley car) that went EVERYWHERE including right on the beach. The bike lane on the famous Venice beach was actually where the rail used to be. One pic I saw showed the rail didn't run to the beach at a perpendicular angle. The rail ran parallel to the beach for some distance. Check this article: http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los-angeles http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los-angeles In 1920s, Los Angeles had the most extensive interurban railway system in the world, comprising 1,164 directional miles of track which, at its height, moved over 100 million passengers a year. In 1920s. The rails however went into decline. No, not just decline. The rails were purposefully ripped up, mostly at the behest of the tire/auto/oil lobby. And the land that could've been kept around for possible use again as public transportation was paved over and forgotten. Now it costs a billion just to build a few miles of subway that goes no where. Buying land is expensive due to real estate cost. Tunneling underground is expensive because of earthquake fears. And of course because it's so expensive, the 'rails' don't actually get to go where they need to. They are talking about building a rail extension to LAX (main airport at LA) but the rails probably will stop a few miles from airport and passengers will have to switch from rail to shuttle bus. Part of reason is building cost (not cheap real estate and soft underground soil near LAX) and another reason is taxi/shuttle lobbies. And don't forget there's not much rail in LA anyways. It's a madness. Update: I know everybody hates LA but really nobody can beat LA. Who rips up 1000+ miles of perfectly good commuter rail line for no good reason? Nobody can beat LA in the field of short-sightedness.
- armandososa 12y ago
  Hah! you should all come to Mexico some day.
  - dba7dba 12y ago
    No. At least you guys didn't have 1000+ miles of rail 9 decades ago that got ripped up for no good reason.
  - protomyth 12y ago
100k 12y ago
Anyone interested in this topic should check out the book "Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco". It's a great look at the history of San Francisco's transit network and the political battles that continue to shape it (usually for the worse). http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-Francisco/dp/1558499997 http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-Francis...
kylec 12y ago
As someone who doesn't live in the SF bay area, the sheer number of transportation systems confuses and puzzles me. Caltrain, BART, Muni, SamTrans, Golden Gate Transit, etc. Why aren't these systems unified under a single system map and timetable? In the Boston area we have the MBTA, in New York there's the MTA. Why does San Francisco need 5+?
- clauretano 12y ago
  In New York you have MTA Metro North, PATH, MTA Subway, MTA Select Bus Service, NJ Transit, etc. Plus things like JFK AirTrain, Amtrak. It's not confusing though --different names for different things. commuter rail vs intra-city transportation. Metro North doesn't share ticketing with the subway even though they're both MTA
  - m0th87 12y ago
    NYC and SF aren't comparable at all since NYC is so much larger. But even then, NYC is more well-organized. The majority of the services you mentioned move commuters between NYC and surrounding areas, so it makes sense that they don't fall under MTA. SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), and there's more than one train service within the city alone. EDIT: Bear in mind it wasn't always this way, and NYC went through a painful process to unify its transportation services - something SF might have to do at some point. Competing train companies (IRT and BMT) were nationalized and folded into the city's separate system (IND). That's why you see numbered vs lettered trains. Those trains have entirely different systems - even the tracks have different widths.
    - waqf 12y ago
      > tracks have different widths To be clear, the tunnels have different dimensions, but the actual track gauges are the same (standard gauge … unlike BART).
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > But even then, NYC is more well-organized. NYC is a single political entity and the primary metropolitan region of the state in which the city is located. The former is true of the City and County of San Francisco -- but that's, by itself, not even a particular big city -- but not the 9-county Bay Area which is smaller, in population, than NYC despite having more than 20 times the land area. And the latter isn't true of SF at all.) > SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), and there's more than one train service within the city alone. San Francisco's bus and train service are both labelled "Muni". BART also has stops in San Francisco but is a separate multicounty agency (the Bay Area Rapid Transit District) of which SF happens to be a member, it isn't SF's.
al_gore 12y ago
The common argument against overnight service in non-New York cities is "only two tracks! no time to do maintenance!": http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight This seems to just completely ignore the existence of the 14th Street-Canarsie and Crosstown lines (L and G services), both of which are dual tracked, yet provide 24/7 service most of the time. The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately).
- rayiner 12y ago
  > The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately). When I worked in NYC, it always amazed me that people 100 years ago had the foresight to build a 4-track system to allow for express trains. A century later...
  - al_gore 12y ago
    100 years ago, you could use cut and cover without enraging a bunch of UES rich people. Oh well.
  - T-hawk 12y ago
    Thank the invisible hand of capitalism for that one. The NYC subway started as multiple private companies, who had to compete to offer customers good service, which included express trains. A century later, transportation is de facto a centrally planned command economy, with no competition to create any incentives towards quality service.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      Most of the NYC subway was built under a series of four contracts. Generally, these contracts involved the city designing and building (or contracting to build) the lines, and leasing to the IRT and BRT for operation. The four-track design dates to the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioner's original plan for the IRT. The IND was always built and operated by the city.
- harryh 12y ago
meerita 12y ago
Best cities I've been that has the most decent public transportation ever: Barcelona and Berlin. Period. The rest of the cities it feels like a Mad Max movie.
- Apocryphon 12y ago
  Even New York?
  - meerita 12y ago
    Never been there. But from what I've seen from my buddies traveling there, there's no comparison. Public transport in Barcelona is really awesome.
ginko 12y ago
It is? I had little problems getting around SF when I was there. Especially the bus network is quite good.
mempko 12y ago
Glad I live in Chicago, which has comparatively (for USA) awesome public transport.
- bluetidepro 12y ago
  I completely agree. I moved to Chicago about a year ago, and have been very happy with how great their public trans is!
  - knite 12y ago
    I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and find that San Francisco is significantly easier to get around in. The public transit is worse, but the city itself is smaller, and Uber/Lyft/etc rates are low due to competition, which effectively means personalized pickup/drop-off throughout most of the city is <$10. For an individual, that's often worth it. For a group of 2-3, when compared against the sum of their total public transit costs, it's almost always worth it.
    - Cymen 12y ago
      I think most people are interested in public transportation to commute to work. I know I am and Uber/Lyft doesn't really help that situation.
cloudwizard 12y ago
SF transit is poor partially because they have managed to make car movement so miserable that people feel compelled to use transit. By making all the alternatives worse, you can seem decent. Compared to cities outside the US, it is a mess.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Because car use in Europe is more convenient? I don't get the argument, cars are even more expensive to use in much of Europe than even NYC.
marincounty 12y ago
You should try Marin County Transit--you could walk faster. When I worked on SF--I quickly bought three beater bikes and chained them up. They were so crappy no one stole them. I chained them in strategic spots around town and used them. This was 10 years ago, maybe the thieves have gotten desperate?
- hollerith 12y ago
  Huh? I consider Marin County's buses vastly superior to SF's. I am really confused by your statement! With the exception of one route (the 35 serving the Canal Area, which has very heavy passenger loads), if I show up at a bus stop in Marin County 5 minutes before the time indicated in the schedule and wait for 10 minutes, the probability that the bus will fail to come some time in those 10 minutes is less than 1 percent. On non-rainy days, the probability goes down to about 0.2 percent. In contrast, when I lived in SF in the late 80s and early 90s, the probability was about 50% (and higher than that in the Mission District). There was no sense in consulting the timetable: the best strategy was to go to a bus stop that has buses that go where I want and wait an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes it would take 3 hours for a bus to come, then 3 or 4 buses would show up in a 3-minute interval. This during non-commute hour when the (useless) official timetable has the buses coming at regular intervals. Marin County resident since 1995; car-less most of that time. When the traffic along a route is uncongested, Marin Transit buses will wait at some stops so as to avoid leaving any stop before the time printed in the schedule. Most of these waits are only a few minutes. Are these waits at bus stops what you refer to with your "you could walk faster"? Well, if so, it still seems to me like the best way to do it, since the bus's not going as fast as it could at times of less traffic congestion than usual is made up for by the rider's having to wait less time at the stop. And except for the ones on Route 35 and Route 17 (the ones without upholstered seats, that is) the buses are much more comfortable than Muni's buses.
jrockway 12y ago
Here's the thing about the bay area, and California in general: everyone that lives there says "not in my backyard" to every infrastructure project ever. Nobody wants more infrastructure. Why is the N so slow? Because it stops every block and runs in traffic. It's a smoother bus, not heavy rail. California firmly embraced the automobile, and that's the state it will be in for a long time.
- raldi 12y ago
  People say "not in my backyard" everywhere. What makes Californian special is that we empower individuals to obstruct their neighbors too easily. Here, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
  - jrockway 12y ago
    That's what I sort of meant to touch on. Everywhere else in the country, the NIMBYs are usually ignored. (In New York it's like: "I don't want a bike lane on a 4 lane one-way street through a quiet neighborhood!" "You're dumb, we're building it anyway.")
spike021 12y ago
Strange. I honestly wouldn't say it's bad at all. I can easily get from downtown SF to SoMa, Stonestown Galleria, Chinatown, the Cannery Area/Pier 39, Golden Gate Park, etc using just a handful of Muni buses/lightrails and probably no more than 2 transfers. That's just using Muni. For the rest of the Bay Area, I travel from San Jose to the northern Peninsula very often via some combination of Caltrain, Bart, and Valley Transport Authority. Sure it's slower than it could be, but it's hardly inconvenient or bad. Not sure what the real issue is here after reading the article. However, I found the facts about unused tunnels (like the one in Fort Mason) pretty fascinating. There are some areas that could be better and more directly connected.
- closetnerd 12y ago
  Dude seriously? San Francisco is a couple of miles wide and yet it take as long to get from one side to the other using public transportation as it does for me to drive 10 times the distance.
  - spike021 12y ago
    Yeah, seriously. I'm not really sure how you can compare public transportation and driving a car in San Francisco.
    - closetnerd 12y ago
      It's because I wasn't comparing public transportation to driving in San Francisco. Just driving on a regular highway. Given that railway systems don't need to deal with traffic, there really isn't any excuse for it to slower than driving ever. Even with multiple stops.
joaorj 12y ago
because no one disrupted it yet.
interg12 12y ago
Thank republicans who block infrastructure spending every chance they get.
- spikels 12y ago
  Wrong! There are very few Republicans in the Bay Area and none in SF city goverment.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    There are a lot of republicans in the Bay Area, they just seem to be the very wealthy kind (and are more moderate). Source: I used to hang out at the San Carlos Starbucks and a group of old guys would come in everyday to praise Bush (they were really cool, however, one was a B29 pilot in W2).
  - justinzollars 12y ago
    Good point.
bubbleRefuge 12y ago
Lets get real. The infrastructure problem in this country has to get solved at the federal level. Since we know here on HN that the federal government is an issuer of currency[1] and state and local government are users of the currency, like households and business, the only entity that can fund the massive infrastructure is said Federal Government. And, unlike China, all federal spending is underwritten by legislation. With the political climate being what it is, the only way this happens is another major recession (which may be on the horizon) or some kind of 3rd party grass roots movement. Depressing indeed. [1] http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-perspective.html http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-pe...
- closetnerd 12y ago
  I think federal level is definitely at fault but it shouldn't be. We should have more understanding of our local governments, more insight and voting power. We put so much authority and responsibility at the federal level that by the time the system reaches to the local governments its just a mindfuck of bureaucracies that no one can deal with.
  - bubbleRefuge 12y ago
    Agreed that spending decisions should be more localized but funding has to be federal. They own the money spreadsheet.
Apocryphon 12y ago
If they had the incentive to, could the tech giants of Silicon Valley work together to lobby local governments to get their act together to improve public transportation? Seems like it would be a more long-term solution than private corporate shuttles.
closetnerd 12y ago
I love the argument that "because there're even worse public transportation systems, its okay for the SF transportation system to be shit". But hey, as long as were busy dealing with our shit transportation system it means we have less time to complain about the other shit the government is slipping up on.
jorde 12y ago
Can someone explain why on earth do busses and Muni trains need to stop on every single block? I get that this is convenient and there's probably some disability law behind it but it makes public transportation even slower in SF.
- ripter 12y ago
  weird, the MUNI busses I take do not stop at every single block. They stop for lights, but they the stops are typically several blocks apart.
- sjf 12y ago
  This is normal for any city I've lived in (London, UK and Dublin, IE). Doesn't make it any less annoying though. I noticed in London that the expected travel time by bus was reliably 2x walking speed and 1/2 driving speed.
pdx6 12y ago
Public transportation is bad within San Francisco for historical reasons. In the late 1940's, the voters passed an initiative to save the streetcars, but what happened was that Muni used revenue bonds to purchases buses in a sweetheart deal with the motorbus companies. As a result, the there was a voter backlash, and Muni lost the ability to issue revenue bonds. Since the agency was now cash strapped, without a modern way to raise money, it could only do so through the general fund and fares. Being a public agency, it also became under the whim of the political motivations of whoever was mayor or in the board of supervisors. To help modernize the system, Muni put a parcel bond measure on the 1967 ballot. It failed. In the 70's, Muni wanted to exit the streetcar business completely. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system was to replace Muni, and run nearly where all the light rail goes today. Again, politics and public backlash killed a planned system, and we have the strange Bart/Muni/Caltrain/SamTrans/Golden Gate/AC Transit fragmentation you see today. To further complicate things, all of these agencies battle each other for state and federal grants. Things are changing. Under 2007's Prop A, the voters granted the SFMTA, or Muni as it was called before Prop K, to issue revenue bonds once again. At the end of this year, there will be a bond measure, which at no expense to parcel tax payers, will begin to reverse the nearly 80 years of deferred maintenance across the agency's infrastructure. Further, a ballot measure to increase the VLF (vehicle license fee) will be on the ballot, which will create a sustained revenue source to purchase new vehicles over time. There is still billions of dollars of deferred maintenance and a legacy of poor planning, but with the boom and growth in the city, we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city. Not too far from now, we'll have electric Caltrain. Is it too little too late? Certainly, but you can call and write your public representatives and let them know if they don't do anything, you'll vote them out for sure.
- closetnerd 12y ago
  I'm really skeptical about "we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city". Specially if I have the New York public system to look forward to. Its not exactly a success.
  - pdx6 12y ago
    I think you have every right to be skeptical. The track record for our city employees and elected officials is abysmal. It is up to us, as voters, to maximize pressure on our political leaders and dole out consequence for failure. I've outlined the tools we are using today to move forward, and I am still optimistic we will move to a world class transportation system in time.
discardorama 12y ago
There are multiple reasons, not just one. Each of them, like drops in a bucket, contributed to fill the bucket. As has been alluded by the OP, till the 1940s SF actually had competing train operators. They would advertise their performance ("shortest time to inner sunset!"), for example, and riders voted with their dollars. Then all but 1 got consolidated/wiped-out, and we ended up with the MUNI (aka SFMTA). The problem is: as a monopoly, and a government-subsidised one to boot, they have absolutely no incentive to improve service. Regardless of how badly they fail, they know that the public can do A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. nothing! In 1999, the voters gave more resources to SFMTA, in return asking for a modest 85% on-time performance. 15 years later, we're still waiting for it[1]. I am not an anti-union guy, and I strongly believe that unions have been a huge boon to society as a whole. But even I feel that the various MUNI unions are an impediment to performance. The slightest change in working conditions must be approved by the union. And if you piss off the union people, there's hell to pay[2]. The MUNI drivers, with barely any qualifications other than having a drivers license, make as much as starting teachers in SF _excluding_ overtime. At one time, they got language into the City's Charter (basically, the constitution of the City) that they would be guaranteed to be at least the second-highest-paid operators in the country! Thankfully, this was repealed in 2012. And let's not get started about BART. Their latest bargaining debacle with the unions[3] shows how inept the management is. But the bigger question is: why are these agencies not accountable? The answer to that is: elections. Elections for the posts of politicians who are supposed to provide oversight are heavily influenced by the unions, who are a massive voting bloc. Every politician seeks out the unions' endorsement, and would not dare oppose them if s/he stands any chance of being re-elected. It's the fox guarding the chicken coop. The solution, IMHO, is privatization (and again: I'm no libertarian or "small ogvernment" nut). But I see the service I get at the local grocery store by employees making minimal wage, and compare with the shitty attitude from the overpaid MUNI employees, and wonder if privatization is the answer? [1] http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest-for-85-on-time-performance-computers-are-displacing-eyes-on-the-s http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest-... [2] http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-the-bus-and-waiting-and-waiting/ http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-th... [3] http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra-costa-times-editorial-bart-directors-have-no http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra...
mapgrep 12y ago
There is some great history here but I wish he were not so dismissive of BART. I complain about it all the time -- yes trains get delayed sometimes -- but in the big scheme of things BART is simply magnificent. There's nothing quite like it in the country -- a high speed inter-city under-water under-ground train system. New York has the LIRR to Long Island and the Acela to DC, but it's got nothing on BART. Yes, BART "fails" to reach the North and South bay, because those areas withdrew from the project in the early 1960s. But it links the peninsula down to Milbrae, including SFO, and all of the East Bay into San Francisco. Soon Oakland airport via direct rail, too. And yes, intra-city transit in SF needs fixing. The Muni Metro points the way. But as long as companies like Twitter are being handed tax breaks that's not going to happen. Subways require a lot of capital and maintenance. (You may notice NYC has an income tax.)
- jostmey 12y ago
  What is so sad is that your are right. BART is a wonderful way to get around when you compare it against the mass transit options of other cities in the US. And yet there is so much room for improvement with BART. I just want to throw this in: Dallas has some of the worst mass transit options. Many of the trains won't even run on Sunday. And every time you cross the street you feel like you are about to run down by some oversized, overpowered vehicle that could hold a dozen people but only holds one.
  - aaron-lebo 12y ago
    What is up with the Dallas hate in this thread? It doesn't have public transit comparable to Chicago, New York, or even San Francisco, but it is a much younger city than those and has much different dynamics both historically (was really built out in the 50s and 60s with suburbs in mind) and politically (fiscal conservatives are huge here). I typed pretty much the following paragraph in another comment, so forgive me for being annoying but I want to stress it: Despite that, and despite that the DART rail to to the best of my knowledge didn't exist 20 years ago, you can take the rail to the far northwestern suburbs (Carrolton), the far northern suburbs (Plano), the northeastern suburbs (Rowlett), the west (DFW airport), and all of the lines reach into different parts of South Dallas and connect areas like Oak Cliff, Fair Park, Deep Ellum. The TRE connects Irving and Fort Worth. Buses cover a much wider area. The trains do run a less frequent weekend service, but they still run to every single one of those areas. Considering the political culture here and the fact that DART loses money I'd say that is a damn miracle. You can make the comments you want about the car culture here, but that is true for any suburban city in America. People will say the same thing about LA drivers. I wish Dallas was better but it is doing damn well for itself.
mblakele 12y ago
Low density. Without enough population density it's impossible for transit to be economically viable. Tokyo has it. London has it. NYC has it. SF is... simply not dense enough to support a good transit infrastructure.
- mercutio2 12y ago
  Huh? SF's population density is 17k per square mile. Only 60% as dense as all of NYC, but still extremely dense. If you meant the SF Bay Area, then yes, it's not dense at all. SF itself could afford a much better transit system, and, as the article mentions, the situation may actually improve in the next decade or so!
  - mblakele 12y ago
    So you have 60% of X. If you need X, you have to subsidize the difference. Where does that money come from? Anyway 60% is probably too high, because it's misleading to compare SF alone with NYC. You might better compare SF with Manhattan, or better still compare the greater Bay Area with greater NYC. Having used transit pretty extensively in both areas, I also think NYC is less balkanized. If we could reduce the number of different agencies running transit through the greater Bay Area, I think there would be less waste and less misplacement of resources. Today there are multiple agencies even within SF proper.

80 points by capkutay 12y ago

ar7hur 12y ago

Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the parties! (second degree comment)

JohnDoe365 12y ago

Because the taxi lobby, supported by the oil lobby, has a firm grip on municipal government?

sssilver 12y ago

> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? You should try Dallas.

edward 12y ago
But at least you can park in Dallas, right? In SF public transport is poor and if you drive it is impossible to park and the hills make cycling and walking places hard work.
Pxtl 12y ago
The difference is that SF is dense and liberal - two things that tend to encourage good transit. High density means low cost to service, and a liberal populace means they're more willing to go for "big government" solutions to moving people around. Compare v. Dallas.
aaron-lebo 12y ago
What do you mean by this? I know this could quickly turn into, "well, at least we aren't x", but Dallas has decent rail service compared to a lot of areas. 15 years ago the DART rail was just getting started. Now you can take the red line up to Plano, the blue to Rowlett, the green to Carrolton, and the orange to DFW. Since 2010 the green has been expanded to hit areas like Fair Park and Deep Ellum. You can even take the slower TRE to Fort Worth. Is it perfect? No. But there's been pretty rapid expansion and considering how spread out Dallas is and the fiscal conservatism here, it is not too bad. Austin (albeit much smaller) does not even have a rail system and Houston's is nascent. I'm not too knowledgeable about the situation outside the state, but I'm guessing Dallas has one of the better rail systems in the South.
Nicholas_C 12y ago
I have heard good things from people who take the DART from Plano/Richardson to Dallas for work. What are your complaints? Lack of frequency/coverage?
ulfw 12y ago
At least Dallas is automobile-optimized. SF is shitty in terms of public transport but I'd argue even more shitty for driving because of high traffic, odd routings, stopping at every intersection for a stop sign or traffic light and worst of all complete lack of parking. I fondly remembering looking for well over an hour in a 10 by 10 block radius for a spot to join a party one Saturday night in a residential area around Japantown, only to excuse myself and give up and drove back to Mountain View.

gdne 12y ago

Because most of the transportation operates on public streets (busses and muni). This forces them to deal with traffic and pedestrian crowds, which make them no better than driving. If SF had a real subway system, things would probably be different.

al_gore 12y ago
The Green Line in Boston runs down a protected center path in the road for a significant portion. Is there a reason that SF can't carve out those lanes for exclusive Muni use?
- nerfhammer 12y ago
  There's actually one case where they're trying to do this: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-come-into-focus/ http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-c...
bowlofpetunias 12y ago
Plenty of cities don't have a subway but do have decent public transport that rarely gets stuck in traffic. Separate bus and rail lanes help. SF, like most US cities, reserves ridiculously wide roads for car traffic.

gooserock 12y ago

This is a great overview of the history of SF's mass transit systems, but honestly, it's really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Was it better when the streetcars ran everywhere? Of course. But compared to cities like Boston or Dallas or Atlanta, SF's Muni and BART are amazing, though Caltrain is admittedly the weakest link of the system.

andys627 12y ago
It really is terrible. What you're saying is like saying having 5 pennies is amazing compared to having 1 penny.
- closetnerd 12y ago
  Agreed. The "americans should feel great about where they live because, hey, at least its not as bad as Sudan" argument.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
al_gore 12y ago
I think the MBTA is better than Muni + BART, the percentage of proper heavy rail rapid transit is much higher in Boston (just the meh Green Line, compared to every meh Muni line).

wavesounds 12y ago

The whole Bay Area really needs leadership that is serious about investing in growth, both in transportation infrastructure and housing. It's frustrating that a world class city is consistently held back by NIMBYism that stops progress.

suprgeek 12y ago

Coming to SF and Expecting world beating infrastructure is a very naive expectation to begin with. Keep in mind the kind of politics (and hence policies) that SF is known for. It is not know for ruthless efficiency and well oiled policies, it is instead the "WORST run big city in the US" http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s/ http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-ci... Do not expect things to get better either unfortunately.

dba7dba 12y ago
And one of its ex-mayor, Gavin Newsom, is aiming to be the next Governor of CA. sigh...
samstave 12y ago
Yeah well, we also have our city council people arrested for gun smuggling to terrorists in the Philippines...
- dba7dba 12y ago
  WHAT? I didn't know that! I knew of Calif. state senator (dem known as gun-control advocate) getting busted for gun-running and money laundering. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/calif-state-senator-arrested-for-alleged-gun-running-was-gun-control-advocate/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/ca...
  - spikels 12y ago
    He was on the SF city council until he was term-limited out.
- protomyth 12y ago
  The odd part of that was he was pushing for gun control laws pretty heavily. I guess if you get all guns banned then your gun smuggling business will be more profitable.
gcr 12y ago

jowiar 12y ago

One major challenge in the Bay Area often boils down to the lack of a government with the authority to collect taxes and impetus to spend them on Bay Area infrastructure. You either need three city governments and a pile of local ones to get on the same page, or persuade a state government that is not particularly keen on Bay Area spending and hamstrung by ballot initiatives.

al_gore 12y ago
This is true, but there's no reason that San Francisco itself couldn't have proper rapid transit instead of street cars. Even just removing cars from those streets and creating dedicated lanes (these exist in some places, of course) would be a huge help.
- koenigdavidmj 12y ago
  The streetcars that remain mostly are still there for the Market Street Subway and the Sunset Tunnel. In other words, they are demonstrably better than an equivalent bus route in as-the-row-flies distance.

dba7dba 12y ago

> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? You should try Los Angeles. Btw, decades ago, Los Angeles had a perfectly good commuter line system (aka Red Cars which was electric trolley car) that went EVERYWHERE including right on the beach. The bike lane on the famous Venice beach was actually where the rail used to be. One pic I saw showed the rail didn't run to the beach at a perpendicular angle. The rail ran parallel to the beach for some distance. Check this article: http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los-angeles http://www.travelmatters.org/about/los-angeles In 1920s, Los Angeles had the most extensive interurban railway system in the world, comprising 1,164 directional miles of track which, at its height, moved over 100 million passengers a year. In 1920s. The rails however went into decline. No, not just decline. The rails were purposefully ripped up, mostly at the behest of the tire/auto/oil lobby. And the land that could've been kept around for possible use again as public transportation was paved over and forgotten. Now it costs a billion just to build a few miles of subway that goes no where. Buying land is expensive due to real estate cost. Tunneling underground is expensive because of earthquake fears. And of course because it's so expensive, the 'rails' don't actually get to go where they need to. They are talking about building a rail extension to LAX (main airport at LA) but the rails probably will stop a few miles from airport and passengers will have to switch from rail to shuttle bus. Part of reason is building cost (not cheap real estate and soft underground soil near LAX) and another reason is taxi/shuttle lobbies. And don't forget there's not much rail in LA anyways. It's a madness. Update: I know everybody hates LA but really nobody can beat LA. Who rips up 1000+ miles of perfectly good commuter rail line for no good reason? Nobody can beat LA in the field of short-sightedness.

armandososa 12y ago
Hah! you should all come to Mexico some day.
- dba7dba 12y ago
  No. At least you guys didn't have 1000+ miles of rail 9 decades ago that got ripped up for no good reason.
- protomyth 12y ago

100k 12y ago

Anyone interested in this topic should check out the book "Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco". It's a great look at the history of San Francisco's transit network and the political battles that continue to shape it (usually for the worse). http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-Francisco/dp/1558499997 http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-Francis...

kylec 12y ago

As someone who doesn't live in the SF bay area, the sheer number of transportation systems confuses and puzzles me. Caltrain, BART, Muni, SamTrans, Golden Gate Transit, etc. Why aren't these systems unified under a single system map and timetable? In the Boston area we have the MBTA, in New York there's the MTA. Why does San Francisco need 5+?

clauretano 12y ago
In New York you have MTA Metro North, PATH, MTA Subway, MTA Select Bus Service, NJ Transit, etc. Plus things like JFK AirTrain, Amtrak. It's not confusing though --different names for different things. commuter rail vs intra-city transportation. Metro North doesn't share ticketing with the subway even though they're both MTA
- m0th87 12y ago
  NYC and SF aren't comparable at all since NYC is so much larger. But even then, NYC is more well-organized. The majority of the services you mentioned move commuters between NYC and surrounding areas, so it makes sense that they don't fall under MTA. SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), and there's more than one train service within the city alone. EDIT: Bear in mind it wasn't always this way, and NYC went through a painful process to unify its transportation services - something SF might have to do at some point. Competing train companies (IRT and BMT) were nationalized and folded into the city's separate system (IND). That's why you see numbered vs lettered trains. Those trains have entirely different systems - even the tracks have different widths.
  - waqf 12y ago
    > tracks have different widths To be clear, the tunnels have different dimensions, but the actual track gauges are the same (standard gauge … unlike BART).
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > But even then, NYC is more well-organized. NYC is a single political entity and the primary metropolitan region of the state in which the city is located. The former is true of the City and County of San Francisco -- but that's, by itself, not even a particular big city -- but not the 9-county Bay Area which is smaller, in population, than NYC despite having more than 20 times the land area. And the latter isn't true of SF at all.) > SF separates its bus system from its train system (at least in labeling), and there's more than one train service within the city alone. San Francisco's bus and train service are both labelled "Muni". BART also has stops in San Francisco but is a separate multicounty agency (the Bay Area Rapid Transit District) of which SF happens to be a member, it isn't SF's.

al_gore 12y ago

The common argument against overnight service in non-New York cities is "only two tracks! no time to do maintenance!": http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight This seems to just completely ignore the existence of the 14th Street-Canarsie and Crosstown lines (L and G services), both of which are dual tracked, yet provide 24/7 service most of the time. The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately).

rayiner 12y ago
> The Second Avenue Subway will also be dual tracked (unfortunately). When I worked in NYC, it always amazed me that people 100 years ago had the foresight to build a 4-track system to allow for express trains. A century later...
- al_gore 12y ago
  100 years ago, you could use cut and cover without enraging a bunch of UES rich people. Oh well.
- T-hawk 12y ago
  Thank the invisible hand of capitalism for that one. The NYC subway started as multiple private companies, who had to compete to offer customers good service, which included express trains. A century later, transportation is de facto a centrally planned command economy, with no competition to create any incentives towards quality service.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Most of the NYC subway was built under a series of four contracts. Generally, these contracts involved the city designing and building (or contracting to build) the lines, and leasing to the IRT and BRT for operation. The four-track design dates to the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioner's original plan for the IRT. The IND was always built and operated by the city.
harryh 12y ago

meerita 12y ago

Best cities I've been that has the most decent public transportation ever: Barcelona and Berlin. Period. The rest of the cities it feels like a Mad Max movie.

Apocryphon 12y ago
Even New York?
- meerita 12y ago
  Never been there. But from what I've seen from my buddies traveling there, there's no comparison. Public transport in Barcelona is really awesome.

ginko 12y ago

It is? I had little problems getting around SF when I was there. Especially the bus network is quite good.

mempko 12y ago

Glad I live in Chicago, which has comparatively (for USA) awesome public transport.

bluetidepro 12y ago
I completely agree. I moved to Chicago about a year ago, and have been very happy with how great their public trans is!
- knite 12y ago
  I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and find that San Francisco is significantly easier to get around in. The public transit is worse, but the city itself is smaller, and Uber/Lyft/etc rates are low due to competition, which effectively means personalized pickup/drop-off throughout most of the city is <$10. For an individual, that's often worth it. For a group of 2-3, when compared against the sum of their total public transit costs, it's almost always worth it.
  - Cymen 12y ago
    I think most people are interested in public transportation to commute to work. I know I am and Uber/Lyft doesn't really help that situation.

cloudwizard 12y ago

SF transit is poor partially because they have managed to make car movement so miserable that people feel compelled to use transit. By making all the alternatives worse, you can seem decent. Compared to cities outside the US, it is a mess.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Because car use in Europe is more convenient? I don't get the argument, cars are even more expensive to use in much of Europe than even NYC.

marincounty 12y ago

You should try Marin County Transit--you could walk faster. When I worked on SF--I quickly bought three beater bikes and chained them up. They were so crappy no one stole them. I chained them in strategic spots around town and used them. This was 10 years ago, maybe the thieves have gotten desperate?

hollerith 12y ago
Huh? I consider Marin County's buses vastly superior to SF's. I am really confused by your statement! With the exception of one route (the 35 serving the Canal Area, which has very heavy passenger loads), if I show up at a bus stop in Marin County 5 minutes before the time indicated in the schedule and wait for 10 minutes, the probability that the bus will fail to come some time in those 10 minutes is less than 1 percent. On non-rainy days, the probability goes down to about 0.2 percent. In contrast, when I lived in SF in the late 80s and early 90s, the probability was about 50% (and higher than that in the Mission District). There was no sense in consulting the timetable: the best strategy was to go to a bus stop that has buses that go where I want and wait an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes it would take 3 hours for a bus to come, then 3 or 4 buses would show up in a 3-minute interval. This during non-commute hour when the (useless) official timetable has the buses coming at regular intervals. Marin County resident since 1995; car-less most of that time. When the traffic along a route is uncongested, Marin Transit buses will wait at some stops so as to avoid leaving any stop before the time printed in the schedule. Most of these waits are only a few minutes. Are these waits at bus stops what you refer to with your "you could walk faster"? Well, if so, it still seems to me like the best way to do it, since the bus's not going as fast as it could at times of less traffic congestion than usual is made up for by the rider's having to wait less time at the stop. And except for the ones on Route 35 and Route 17 (the ones without upholstered seats, that is) the buses are much more comfortable than Muni's buses.

jrockway 12y ago

Here's the thing about the bay area, and California in general: everyone that lives there says "not in my backyard" to every infrastructure project ever. Nobody wants more infrastructure. Why is the N so slow? Because it stops every block and runs in traffic. It's a smoother bus, not heavy rail. California firmly embraced the automobile, and that's the state it will be in for a long time.

raldi 12y ago
People say "not in my backyard" everywhere. What makes Californian special is that we empower individuals to obstruct their neighbors too easily. Here, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
- jrockway 12y ago
  That's what I sort of meant to touch on. Everywhere else in the country, the NIMBYs are usually ignored. (In New York it's like: "I don't want a bike lane on a 4 lane one-way street through a quiet neighborhood!" "You're dumb, we're building it anyway.")

spike021 12y ago

Strange. I honestly wouldn't say it's bad at all. I can easily get from downtown SF to SoMa, Stonestown Galleria, Chinatown, the Cannery Area/Pier 39, Golden Gate Park, etc using just a handful of Muni buses/lightrails and probably no more than 2 transfers. That's just using Muni. For the rest of the Bay Area, I travel from San Jose to the northern Peninsula very often via some combination of Caltrain, Bart, and Valley Transport Authority. Sure it's slower than it could be, but it's hardly inconvenient or bad. Not sure what the real issue is here after reading the article. However, I found the facts about unused tunnels (like the one in Fort Mason) pretty fascinating. There are some areas that could be better and more directly connected.

closetnerd 12y ago
Dude seriously? San Francisco is a couple of miles wide and yet it take as long to get from one side to the other using public transportation as it does for me to drive 10 times the distance.
- spike021 12y ago
  Yeah, seriously. I'm not really sure how you can compare public transportation and driving a car in San Francisco.
  - closetnerd 12y ago
    It's because I wasn't comparing public transportation to driving in San Francisco. Just driving on a regular highway. Given that railway systems don't need to deal with traffic, there really isn't any excuse for it to slower than driving ever. Even with multiple stops.

joaorj 12y ago

because no one disrupted it yet.

interg12 12y ago

Thank republicans who block infrastructure spending every chance they get.

spikels 12y ago
Wrong! There are very few Republicans in the Bay Area and none in SF city goverment.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  There are a lot of republicans in the Bay Area, they just seem to be the very wealthy kind (and are more moderate). Source: I used to hang out at the San Carlos Starbucks and a group of old guys would come in everyday to praise Bush (they were really cool, however, one was a B29 pilot in W2).
- justinzollars 12y ago
  Good point.

bubbleRefuge 12y ago

Lets get real. The infrastructure problem in this country has to get solved at the federal level. Since we know here on HN that the federal government is an issuer of currency[1] and state and local government are users of the currency, like households and business, the only entity that can fund the massive infrastructure is said Federal Government. And, unlike China, all federal spending is underwritten by legislation. With the political climate being what it is, the only way this happens is another major recession (which may be on the horizon) or some kind of 3rd party grass roots movement. Depressing indeed. [1] http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-perspective.html http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-pe...

closetnerd 12y ago
I think federal level is definitely at fault but it shouldn't be. We should have more understanding of our local governments, more insight and voting power. We put so much authority and responsibility at the federal level that by the time the system reaches to the local governments its just a mindfuck of bureaucracies that no one can deal with.
- bubbleRefuge 12y ago
  Agreed that spending decisions should be more localized but funding has to be federal. They own the money spreadsheet.

Apocryphon 12y ago

If they had the incentive to, could the tech giants of Silicon Valley work together to lobby local governments to get their act together to improve public transportation? Seems like it would be a more long-term solution than private corporate shuttles.

closetnerd 12y ago

I love the argument that "because there're even worse public transportation systems, its okay for the SF transportation system to be shit". But hey, as long as were busy dealing with our shit transportation system it means we have less time to complain about the other shit the government is slipping up on.

jorde 12y ago

Can someone explain why on earth do busses and Muni trains need to stop on every single block? I get that this is convenient and there's probably some disability law behind it but it makes public transportation even slower in SF.

ripter 12y ago
weird, the MUNI busses I take do not stop at every single block. They stop for lights, but they the stops are typically several blocks apart.
sjf 12y ago
This is normal for any city I've lived in (London, UK and Dublin, IE). Doesn't make it any less annoying though. I noticed in London that the expected travel time by bus was reliably 2x walking speed and 1/2 driving speed.

pdx6 12y ago

Public transportation is bad within San Francisco for historical reasons. In the late 1940's, the voters passed an initiative to save the streetcars, but what happened was that Muni used revenue bonds to purchases buses in a sweetheart deal with the motorbus companies. As a result, the there was a voter backlash, and Muni lost the ability to issue revenue bonds. Since the agency was now cash strapped, without a modern way to raise money, it could only do so through the general fund and fares. Being a public agency, it also became under the whim of the political motivations of whoever was mayor or in the board of supervisors. To help modernize the system, Muni put a parcel bond measure on the 1967 ballot. It failed. In the 70's, Muni wanted to exit the streetcar business completely. The Bay Area Rapid Transit system was to replace Muni, and run nearly where all the light rail goes today. Again, politics and public backlash killed a planned system, and we have the strange Bart/Muni/Caltrain/SamTrans/Golden Gate/AC Transit fragmentation you see today. To further complicate things, all of these agencies battle each other for state and federal grants. Things are changing. Under 2007's Prop A, the voters granted the SFMTA, or Muni as it was called before Prop K, to issue revenue bonds once again. At the end of this year, there will be a bond measure, which at no expense to parcel tax payers, will begin to reverse the nearly 80 years of deferred maintenance across the agency's infrastructure. Further, a ballot measure to increase the VLF (vehicle license fee) will be on the ballot, which will create a sustained revenue source to purchase new vehicles over time. There is still billions of dollars of deferred maintenance and a legacy of poor planning, but with the boom and growth in the city, we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city. Not too far from now, we'll have electric Caltrain. Is it too little too late? Certainly, but you can call and write your public representatives and let them know if they don't do anything, you'll vote them out for sure.

closetnerd 12y ago
I'm really skeptical about "we'll see our public transportation system improve, at least in the city". Specially if I have the New York public system to look forward to. Its not exactly a success.
- pdx6 12y ago
  I think you have every right to be skeptical. The track record for our city employees and elected officials is abysmal. It is up to us, as voters, to maximize pressure on our political leaders and dole out consequence for failure. I've outlined the tools we are using today to move forward, and I am still optimistic we will move to a world class transportation system in time.

discardorama 12y ago

There are multiple reasons, not just one. Each of them, like drops in a bucket, contributed to fill the bucket. As has been alluded by the OP, till the 1940s SF actually had competing train operators. They would advertise their performance ("shortest time to inner sunset!"), for example, and riders voted with their dollars. Then all but 1 got consolidated/wiped-out, and we ended up with the MUNI (aka SFMTA). The problem is: as a monopoly, and a government-subsidised one to boot, they have absolutely no incentive to improve service. Regardless of how badly they fail, they know that the public can do A.B.S.O.L.U.T.E.L.Y. nothing! In 1999, the voters gave more resources to SFMTA, in return asking for a modest 85% on-time performance. 15 years later, we're still waiting for it[1]. I am not an anti-union guy, and I strongly believe that unions have been a huge boon to society as a whole. But even I feel that the various MUNI unions are an impediment to performance. The slightest change in working conditions must be approved by the union. And if you piss off the union people, there's hell to pay[2]. The MUNI drivers, with barely any qualifications other than having a drivers license, make as much as starting teachers in SF _excluding_ overtime. At one time, they got language into the City's Charter (basically, the constitution of the City) that they would be guaranteed to be at least the second-highest-paid operators in the country! Thankfully, this was repealed in 2012. And let's not get started about BART. Their latest bargaining debacle with the unions[3] shows how inept the management is. But the bigger question is: why are these agencies not accountable? The answer to that is: elections. Elections for the posts of politicians who are supposed to provide oversight are heavily influenced by the unions, who are a massive voting bloc. Every politician seeks out the unions' endorsement, and would not dare oppose them if s/he stands any chance of being re-elected. It's the fox guarding the chicken coop. The solution, IMHO, is privatization (and again: I'm no libertarian or "small ogvernment" nut). But I see the service I get at the local grocery store by employees making minimal wage, and compare with the shitty attitude from the overpaid MUNI employees, and wonder if privatization is the answer? [1] http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest-for-85-on-time-performance-computers-are-displacing-eyes-on-the-s http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest-... [2] http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-the-bus-and-waiting-and-waiting/ http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-th... [3] http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra-costa-times-editorial-bart-directors-have-no http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra...

mapgrep 12y ago

There is some great history here but I wish he were not so dismissive of BART. I complain about it all the time -- yes trains get delayed sometimes -- but in the big scheme of things BART is simply magnificent. There's nothing quite like it in the country -- a high speed inter-city under-water under-ground train system. New York has the LIRR to Long Island and the Acela to DC, but it's got nothing on BART. Yes, BART "fails" to reach the North and South bay, because those areas withdrew from the project in the early 1960s. But it links the peninsula down to Milbrae, including SFO, and all of the East Bay into San Francisco. Soon Oakland airport via direct rail, too. And yes, intra-city transit in SF needs fixing. The Muni Metro points the way. But as long as companies like Twitter are being handed tax breaks that's not going to happen. Subways require a lot of capital and maintenance. (You may notice NYC has an income tax.)

jostmey 12y ago
What is so sad is that your are right. BART is a wonderful way to get around when you compare it against the mass transit options of other cities in the US. And yet there is so much room for improvement with BART. I just want to throw this in: Dallas has some of the worst mass transit options. Many of the trains won't even run on Sunday. And every time you cross the street you feel like you are about to run down by some oversized, overpowered vehicle that could hold a dozen people but only holds one.
- aaron-lebo 12y ago
  What is up with the Dallas hate in this thread? It doesn't have public transit comparable to Chicago, New York, or even San Francisco, but it is a much younger city than those and has much different dynamics both historically (was really built out in the 50s and 60s with suburbs in mind) and politically (fiscal conservatives are huge here). I typed pretty much the following paragraph in another comment, so forgive me for being annoying but I want to stress it: Despite that, and despite that the DART rail to to the best of my knowledge didn't exist 20 years ago, you can take the rail to the far northwestern suburbs (Carrolton), the far northern suburbs (Plano), the northeastern suburbs (Rowlett), the west (DFW airport), and all of the lines reach into different parts of South Dallas and connect areas like Oak Cliff, Fair Park, Deep Ellum. The TRE connects Irving and Fort Worth. Buses cover a much wider area. The trains do run a less frequent weekend service, but they still run to every single one of those areas. Considering the political culture here and the fact that DART loses money I'd say that is a damn miracle. You can make the comments you want about the car culture here, but that is true for any suburban city in America. People will say the same thing about LA drivers. I wish Dallas was better but it is doing damn well for itself.

mblakele 12y ago

Low density. Without enough population density it's impossible for transit to be economically viable. Tokyo has it. London has it. NYC has it. SF is... simply not dense enough to support a good transit infrastructure.

mercutio2 12y ago
Huh? SF's population density is 17k per square mile. Only 60% as dense as all of NYC, but still extremely dense. If you meant the SF Bay Area, then yes, it's not dense at all. SF itself could afford a much better transit system, and, as the article mentions, the situation may actually improve in the next decade or so!
- mblakele 12y ago
  So you have 60% of X. If you need X, you have to subsidize the difference. Where does that money come from? Anyway 60% is probably too high, because it's misleading to compare SF alone with NYC. You might better compare SF with Manhattan, or better still compare the greater Bay Area with greater NYC. Having used transit pretty extensively in both areas, I also think NYC is less balkanized. If we could reduce the number of different agencies running transit through the greater Bay Area, I think there would be less waste and less misplacement of resources. Today there are multiple agencies even within SF proper.