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Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

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Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#101

Post by jrockway »

raldi wrote: post #98
jrockway wrote: post #27

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.")

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#102

Post by rayiner »

T-hawk wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#103

Post by discardorama »

ripter wrote: post #85
discardorama wrote: post #70

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 prob…

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).

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#104

Post by nerfhammer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
m0th87 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alw…

> 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 tr…

> 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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

nerfhammer wrote: post #104
dragonwriter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tr…

> 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…

> 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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#106

Post by closetnerd »

spike021 wrote: post #92
closetnerd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#107

Post by nerfhammer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #105
nerfhammer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 ha…

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

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

nerfhammer wrote: post #107
dragonwriter wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ha…

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.

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#109

Post by nerfhammer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #108
nerfhammer wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

Re: Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

#110

Post by hollerith »

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.

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.
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