Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? | Hacker News Reader

Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

alexmedearis.com

80 pointscapkutay110 comments

> 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 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.

Hah! you should all come to Mexico some day.

No. At least you guys didn't have 1000+ miles of rail 9 decades ago that got ripped up for no good reason.

Well, the Twin Cities when I lived there built a light rail that didn't really follow the commuters and killed a couple of people every year because they removed roads to build the tracks but didn't ensure that people wouldn't turn onto the tracks.

Yep, pay now or really pay later. That's why the HSR in CA is going to cost a large fortune, and be a suboptimal solution. Sure, it could have been started before man landed on the moon but Americans don't take trains.

> No, not just decline. The rails were purposefully ripped up, mostly at the behest of the tire/auto/oil lobby.

This is a popular explanation of the fate of the Pacific Electric system, but like anything in history, it seems there were a number of factors that led to it happening.

The original system was designed as a loss-leader by Henry Huntington for his business venture of real estate sales and land development (e.g. electrification). Access to downtown LA from these new suburban developments in a pre-automobile world made them attractive to new buyers. As automobiles became common, three things happened:

1. The need for such a system began to decline as more people could afford their own personal transportation. This led to a decline in ridership, and hence revenue.

2. Because much of the system was at-grade (street-level), the increase in automobile traffic directly impacted service of the streetcars, as they had to share the road with the new influx of cars. This made the system less attractive, further decreasing revenue.

3. This declining revenue stream led to the system being sold to the local government, who inherited the problems above. At the same time, the freeway system was being planned (which at one point envisioned train tracks running down the middle of the freeways!), and this proposed system plus promises of more flexible (and cheaper) service via automobile busses made the system even less attractive to maintain.

So yes, while the system was eventually sold to a group with ties to the oil/auto/tire industries, the local authorities were all too happy to get rid of the system. While today the debate continues over busses (cheaper) vs trains, the real issue IMO is control of the right of ways. IIRC, MTA held on to a few ROWs and was able to use them in the new system's Expo line, among others.

EDIT: LA's MTA still faces this issue of at-grade tracks being impacted by traffic. Because it is cheaper, it is used substantially in both the Blue and Expo lines, and I've heard some arguments that the Expo line isn't much faster than driving because it has to deal with traffic+lights. From a purely financial point of view, some have argued that you get the most bang for your buck with lines like the Orange line: busses on private roadways, so you get the fleet cost of busses but the time benefits of traditional train tracks separated from traffic.

Same thing happened to Athens. In 1920 there was metro but it god abandoned. They finally build decent metro and trams for olympic games in 2006

Actually, as a car-free resident of LA for close to a decade (grad school then work), I'd say LA's public transit system is pretty good, and the major obstacles to making it better are rampant NIMBYism and the Bus Riders' Union (aka the Bus Drivers' Union). The bus system is a well though-out grid (though you do often need to use buses from multiple agencies for historical reasons), with both local and express service on heavily used routes. There are extensive connections between bus and rail service, and connections between rail lines are also generally well-timed, so there isn't much waiting on the platform. There's also a contactless payment system (TAP) that works on almost all transit agencies in LA County.

Frankly, the at-grade Red Line system wouldn't fare any better than buses in today's LA traffic.

LACMTA has been expaning rail and "bus rapid transit" (Orange and Silver lines), but is hamstrung by neighborhood groups who bring frivolous lawsuits that only make the rail service less useful and more expensive. Some recent examples:

1) Residents near Dorsey High School sued LACMTA to stop the Expo Line (some social justice nonsense about how rail transit is for the 1%), which resulted only in millions of extra taxpayer costs and Expo Line trains having to stop before crossing Farmdale Ave (adding several minutes to every trip).

2) Beverly Hills has an enormous traffic problem on Wilshire Blvd., but has tried to stop all of the following: a freeway; signal priority for buses on Wilshire; bus lanes on Wilshire; and a subway extension under Wilshire (some law-and-order nonsense about how rail transit is for the 99%).

3) South San Fernando Valley residents wanted a subway instead of surface rail on what is now the Orange Line, and they lobbied the state legislature to make it illegal to build a surface rail line on the right of way... so they got Bus Rapid Transit, which uses extra-long buses. The infrastructure cost is about half that of rail, but the operating costs are three times as high (because the line is at capacity, and each bus holds 1/3rd as many passengers as a train).

Land acquisition is actually an insignificant cost in building LA rail transit lines because LACMTA already purchased the rights of way they need years ago for peanuts. The Expo Line and Orange Line rights of way were purchased directly from railroads that didn't want them anymore. The proposed Crenshaw Corridor and Gold Line Foothill Extension would mostly use old Southern Pacific rights of way (that LACMTA already owns).

Tunneling is expensive in any city, but how else are you going to fix traffic? There isn't room to expand surface streets, and if you thought it was difficult and expensive to get a light rail or subway built... whoa boy, you don't want to even think about a new freeway.

As for the airport connection: There's already a free shuttle from the Green Line (Aviation Station, I believe) that loops through all the terminals, just like the parking lot shuttles. LACMTA also runs "Flyaway" tour-style buses from LAX and Burbank to a bunch of places around the city, where they connect with other transit lines. The reason the train doesn't stop in the terminals is that the LA airport authority has been saying (for the last 30 years) that they're going to demolish and rebuild the terminals in a year or two.

LA's public transit system (subway, light rail, express buses) has actually improved significantly in the past 10 years (since 2004 - not that long ago), and will be significantly improving in the next 10 years.

for example, the exposition line is now halfway open and will fully connect downtown SM (the beach) to downtown LA in 2015.

this is actually kind of a big deal. lots of people are looking forward to it, especially sports fans (all of LA's teams play downtown).

and, if they manage to extend the purple line to the west (this is the 10 year horizon), the situation will be very different in LA. it will have basically 50% of a train system built. nowhere near complete, but totally useable especially with services like Uber and Lyft.

http://media.metro.net/projects_studies/westside/images/proj...

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.

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.

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.

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-ci...

Do not expect things to get better either unfortunately.

And one of its ex-mayor, Gavin Newsom, is aiming to be the next Governor of CA.

sigh...

Yeah well, we also have our city council people arrested for gun smuggling to terrorists in the Philippines...

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/ca...

He was on the SF city council until he was term-limited out.

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.

Moreso than Detroit?

People unfamiliar with the Bay Area should note however that SF is only a small fraction of the Bay Area. Many of SF's suburbs are fairly-well run.

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+?

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

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.

> tracks have different widths

To be clear, the tunnels have different dimensions, but the actual track gauges are the same (standard gauge … unlike BART).

> 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.

> the 9-county Bay Area which is smaller, in population, than NYC despite having more than 20 times the land area.

LIRR, NJ Transit, Metro-North and the Port Authority easily cover more land than the Bay Area – note that these are all state-run agencies. AFAIK California has never taken an interest in creating its own state level transit agencies? The states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and the city of New York have been able to cooperate perhaps much better than SF and its surrounding counties.

> AFAIK California has never taken an interest in creating its own state level transit agencies?

It has (e.g., through longstanding cooperation with Amtrak, and more recently through the High-Speed Rail Authority), but not of the same style as those centered around New York or Boston, because California doesn't have any metropolitan areas like New York or Boston to support (even like New York or Boston before they had developed their strong coordinated public transit systems.)

California's urban areas are nothing like New York or Boston in density. Sure, the New York-centered services may cover a land area comparable to the Bay Area -- but the reason for an intense transit system in that area is that there are a lot more people there. New York City alone, has more people than the entire 9-county Bay Area has spread out over 7,000 square miles.

And, of course, while New York City is clearly the economically dominant metropolitan area of New York State (and politically dominant in the State, as the City itself has nearly half the State's population) and a considerable center of gravity even for surrounding states, and Boston has a similar role -- that the city itself isn't so much of the state, the metro area is -- in Massachusetts, the Bay Area isn't the dominant region in California, by population, economic power (despite being pretty strong in per capita wealth), or political influence.

What about NJ Transit? It's about the same total area and population as the bay area

What about it? I've never heard it described as a better internal transit system than the Bay Area has, just a better system as part of the multi-authority feeder into the transit system for the New York City metroplex.

If there was an adjacent New York City-scale metroplex into which the Bay Area fed, it would have very different transportation demands and needs -- and likely a very different transit system -- than it does.

Is BART an "internal" transit system and not a feeder system to/from SF?

NJ Transit is not solely a feeder system into NYC (that's what PATH is for), though that's probably most of it: https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf . Is Oakland not analogous to Newark in this system?

And let's not even get started with Tokyo.

The reason is that the Bay Area is far more of a unit than originally, so things grew up independently basically in each county.

San Francisco, the city, has one main municipal system, Muni. Caltrain grew out of commuter rail that's existed for about a century and was originally private I believe.

BART was put together as an East-Bay-centric commuter rail that hoped to kind of unify everyone, but Marin (across the golden gate from SF), Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley/San Jose), and San Mateo County (between Santa Clara and SF) didn't want to pay the taxes required to be part of it.

And then there are other county bus-heavy transit agencies like Samtrans, VTA, AC Transit; it wouldn't make sense for Muni to run these since they're meant to serve other counties.

It's a giant mess, but each one largely sprung up on its own back when it was much less normal for someone to regularly travel all the way between Mountain View and SF.

San Francisco, the city itself, only has Muni and Bart unless you count the one or two express SamTrans buses that run to the busiest transit center (the end-of-the-line Caltrain station I believe). So it's actually relatively simple.

But if you're talking about the Bay Area, then you're talking about a pretty massive region composed of some pretty geographically-isolated subregions. You have the city of San Francisco, then the long peninsula, and then finally San Jose. But then wrapping up the other side of the bay you have several other cities and areas. I'm not sure that it would make sense to combine that.

> 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+?

Likely, because New York and Boston are both larger (in population) and more concentrated metropolises, and are also both the principal metropolitan region of their respective states, which states are also the entities responsible for organizing each metropolises transit authority.

(NYC has, in 305 square miles, a population greater than the 9-county San Francisco Bay Area has in nearly 7,000 square miles, and NYC is close to half of New York State's population by itself, whereas even the whole 9-county Bay Area is around 1/5 of California's population.)

Over the centuries New York gained control over neighboring counties. In SF nothing like that ever happened, so SF itself is tiny and surrounded by the edges of many different large counties that do whatever they want.

Also the Bay Area takes anti-development NIMBYism as a sort of state religion – people actually actively try to block development of mass transit, something that would be unthinkably absurd to someone used to NY.

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.)

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.

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.

Just to put things in perspective with some NYC area vs Bay Area commuter rail/heavy rapid transit systems -

Commuter rail:

  LIRR:           97,090,300 rides/year, 336 miles, 124 stations, 24/7 operation

  Metro-North:    83,326,200 rides/year, 330 miles, 121 stations, ~21.5 hours/day operation

  NJ Transit:     81,942,000 rides/year, 398 miles, 164 stations, ~22.5 hours/day operation

  Caltrain:       16,294,900 rides/year,  77 miles,  32 stations, 19 hrs/weekday & 12 hrs/day weekends

Heavy rapid transit:

  NYC Subway:  2,651,804,600 rides/year, 232 miles, 468 stations, 24/7 operation

  BART:          124,747,400 rides/year, 104 miles,  44 stations, ~20 hrs/weekday & ~17 hrs/day weekends

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_rapid_tra...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_commuter_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rai...

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.

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

I completely agree. I moved to Chicago about a year ago, and have been very happy with how great their public trans is!

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.

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.

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

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).

> 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...

100 years ago, you could use cut and cover without enraging a bunch of UES rich people. Oh well.

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.

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.

Wait the 2nd ave subway will really only be two tracks? Why? How much could it have possibly added to the cost to make it four? Once you're digging the tunnel why no do it right?

Blargh.

Billions of dollars of "studies" and such, I'm sure. NIMBYs hate cut and cover, so we end up digging absurdly expensive deep tunnels that are just worse to use once finished (they take forever to get into, compare deep stations in Washington Heights to Astor Place).

> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

You should try Dallas.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.")

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.

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.

Yeah, seriously. I'm not really sure how you can compare public transportation and driving a car in San Francisco.

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.

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.

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?

There's actually one case where they're trying to do this:

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-c...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-Francis...

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.

Even New York?

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.

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.

It really is terrible. What you're saying is like saying having 5 pennies is amazing compared to having 1 penny.

Agreed. The "americans should feel great about where they live because, hey, at least its not as bad as Sudan" argument.

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).

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-...

[2] http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-th...

[3] http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra...

Well... if they have to live in SF, the operators probably need to be at least the second-highest-paid operators in the US, just to have a roof over them.

That doesn't mean they should be payed higher than teachers, though...

I work in SF, and I don't live in SF.

Why should SF subway operators need to live in SF?

Fair point, but are there places within decent commuting distance that have decent living costs?

Yes, because privatization of public resources has never hurt anyone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

You're just being silly.

The government shouldn't be doing things that private industry does already. In this case: there are fleets of buses running all over the Bay Area, run by companies like Bauer (which provides the shuttles for Google). They are on time, clean and well-maintained (and the drivers don't give you any attitude).

> 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.

Germany's trains are also monopolies, yet the U-Bahns I'm familiar with are reliable and relatively clean - at least compared to the BART I rode.

It's not the monopoly that's the problem, it's the 'i don't give a damn' attitude that's prevailing. Most public transports around the world are either monopolies (MTR Hong Kong) or pseudo-monopolies (e.g. SMRT/SBS Singapore) or just in the public hand (German U-Bahns). Still they are on time. Still they are being expanded. Still they're usually clean. Still they are being modernized (some faster than others).

The difference is wether the objective is to do a public good (get our people from A to B as efficiently as we can) or to maximize profit (let's make sure the system works somehow but god for bid let's not dump good money into it).

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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-pe...

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.

Agreed that spending decisions should be more localized but funding has to be federal. They own the money spreadsheet.

Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the parties!

(second degree comment)

because no one disrupted it yet.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

Thank republicans who block infrastructure spending every chance they get.

Wrong! There are very few Republicans in the Bay Area and none in SF city goverment.

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).

Good point.

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