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Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

alexmedearis.com

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Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#31

Post by spike021 »

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#32

Post by samstave »

suprgeek wrote: post #9

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.

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

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#33

Post by rayiner »

al_gore wrote: post #17

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...

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#34

Post by dba7dba »

samstave wrote: post #32
suprgeek wrote: post #9

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.

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...

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#35

Post by melling »

dba7dba wrote: post #14

> 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…

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#36

Post by jackowayed »

kylec wrote: post #16

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#37

Post by protomyth »

samstave wrote: post #32
suprgeek wrote: post #9

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.

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

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#38

Post by bowlofpetunias »

gdne wrote: post #5

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.

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#40

Post by m0th87 »

clauretano wrote: post #30
kylec wrote: post #16

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.

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