> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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+?
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.
> 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.)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
[+] [-] dba7dba|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jbermudes|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beachstartup|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] qwerta|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fancyketchup|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] armandososa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdx6|12 years ago|reply
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|12 years ago|reply
Specially if I have the New York public system to look forward to. Its not exactly a success.
[+] [-] suprgeek|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dba7dba|12 years ago|reply
sigh...
[+] [-] hollerith|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylec|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackowayed|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|12 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] clauretano|12 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] nerfhammer|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] spike021|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mapgrep|12 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] nerfhammer|12 years ago|reply
Commuter rail:
Heavy rapid transit: More: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...
[+] [-] jostmey|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wavesounds|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mempko|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluetidepro|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] al_gore|12 years ago|reply
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|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] harryh|12 years ago|reply
Blargh.
[+] [-] sssilver|12 years ago|reply
You should try Dallas.
[+] [-] edward|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|12 years ago|reply
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|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spike021|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gdne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] al_gore|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bowlofpetunias|12 years ago|reply
SF, like most US cities, reserves ridiculously wide roads for car traffic.
[+] [-] jorde|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ripter|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudwizard|12 years ago|reply
Compared to cities outside the US, it is a mess.
[+] [-] 100k|12 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-Francis...
[+] [-] meerita|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gooserock|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] discardorama|12 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] closetnerd|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ginko|12 years ago|reply