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BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

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Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#31

Post by jrockway »

I think BART is the perfect storm of commuter railroads that aren't going to recover. San Francisco is tech heavy, and tech still seems pretty work-from-home heavy. A problem I always wondered about is whether or not BART was the right system for San Francisco, as it seems a lot of the big companies are out in the suburbs and never had public transportation. I walked from the Mountain View train station to the Googleplex once. Nobody does that twice. (These companies have their own transportation networks, which is kind of a shame for visitors.)

I don't know what other cities look like. I've ridden the subway in New York on and off throughout and past the pandemic. This week was the first week that seemed normal to me. I don't commute, but have ridden the subway at commuting times, and it's definitely a little more chill than it used to be. (Easy to get a seat! But the train does eventually fill up as you get farther into Manhattan.) Looking at the commuter railroads, which I think is the fairest comparison to BART, they seem to be 50% of their all-time peak capacity. Not ideal, and I'm not convinced that 50% of the New York metro will be allowed to work from home forever.

It will be interesting to see what congestion pricing does to people that used transit before the pandemic that drive now. When I worked in Manhattan, I had a friend that drove every day. He showed me the spreadsheet that he used to decide between a monthly pass on MNR versus driving, driving was ever so slightly cheaper. With a $20 a day charge to drive into the city coming in the next couple years, that might be the edge that the railroads need to make it a financially viable decision.

I always thought we should make mass transit free and see how the numbers do. If 400,000 people drive into the city every day, and 2,000,000 people take the train, it's clear where the tax dollars should go. But I think as soon as you charge someone that first $1 to take the bus, pretty much everyone decided "fuck it, I'll just drive". The costs are a little more insidious, wear and tear on your vehicle, gas once a week, etc. People count that as free. (For example, do you ever turn on electrical appliances without thinking about the cost of electricity? That's driving.)

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#32

Post by Karrot_Kream »

bquinlan wrote: post #10

In my social circle there is a perception that the BART is increasingly unsafe and some people who previously used the BART to commute from East Bay to SF are now driving. Their perception seems to be born out by the data: From the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department [1] Aggravated Assault (2019): 112 Aggravated Assault (2022): 114 Relative increase (2019 -> 2022) adjusted for ridership: 114/112/0.3 = 3.39x [1]…

This follows a general trend of roads becoming unsafer since COVID.

Traffic Fatalities in CA:

2019 -> 2020: +3.4%

2020 -> 2021: +7.6%

Unclear about 2021 -> 2022, I'd have to run the SWITRS data myself. Keep in mind these are just fatalities. I'm guessing crash data will show an even larger effect.

Source: https://www.ots.ca.gov/ots-and-traffic-safety/score-card/ and other OTS resources.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#33

Post by throwawaymaths »

ramesh31 wrote: post #28
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #2

As the article states, the reason why BART is so heavily impacted is because it was mostly designed as commuter rail. BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. While peak-hour (morning and evening commute) ridership is catching up again (BART publishes numbers so you can check the work here), usage outside of peak hours is at an all-time low because of the increase of WFH jobs.…

>BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. Because it's expensive as hell, and the only sane option for commuting into the city during rush hour. A $10 round trip to go 5 miles from the east bay to downtown is absolutely crazy. Easily double the price of any other metro in the US.

Easily an order of magnitude more than Singapore.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#34

Post by Reason077 »

jandrese wrote: post #18

In my area the subway system has still not recovered from pre-pandemic ridership levels. It has made me wonder if the kind of people who rode the subway were more likely to work from home. But at the same the the roads are also less busy than they were, at least judging from the amount of congestion delays we experience on a day to day basis. This is good and bad. The good is that I can almost always get a seat on a…

> "I can almost always get a seat on a train that used to be packed"

> "the fare went from $3.10 to $5.50 each way"

I suspect there is a cause & effect relationship between these two observations. But which is which?

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#35

Post by camel_gopher »

The core problem is assholes on the trains. People stopped riding because there’s either someone dangerous, someone crazy, or someone tweaked out. Literally on every Bart car, probably 2/3 of the time I ride. I end up using the Bart watch app to report this stuff every other time I ride.

One guy tried to light a seat in fire. Another tailgated me through the gates and proceeded to push past me. Another was slumped over in a wheelchair (someone called 911 in that case).

To their credit, the cops on the other end of the Bart watch app respond to almost everything submitted. They don’t have enough officers though to cover the whole system.

How do you fix it? Add more cops. No ticket, no ride. Two cops on every train. One at every other station. Arrest anyone who is there without a ticket more than once. Arrest anyone jumping the gates. Enough with the nonsense.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#36

Post by ghaff »

ramesh31 wrote: post #28
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #2

As the article states, the reason why BART is so heavily impacted is because it was mostly designed as commuter rail. BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. While peak-hour (morning and evening commute) ridership is catching up again (BART publishes numbers so you can check the work here), usage outside of peak hours is at an all-time low because of the increase of WFH jobs.…

>BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. Because it's expensive as hell, and the only sane option for commuting into the city during rush hour. A $10 round trip to go 5 miles from the east bay to downtown is absolutely crazy. Easily double the price of any other metro in the US.

Not if you compare to commuter rail. I'm further out but if you look at commuter rail parking, the train itself, and subway if I need to take it, I'm $35 to commute into Boston for the day. (If I do it every day, the pass is a bit cheaper.)

Yes, if I don't need to park at the subway and don't need to take commuter rail, it's about $5 but that's not really the norm for a lot of people coming in from the suburbs.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#37

Post by WWLink »

ars wrote: post #22
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #2

As the article states, the reason why BART is so heavily impacted is because it was mostly designed as commuter rail. BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. While peak-hour (morning and evening commute) ridership is catching up again (BART publishes numbers so you can check the work here), usage outside of peak hours is at an all-time low because of the increase of WFH jobs.…

> BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding. How much does BART cost per year (or per decade) vs the Bay Bridge? A huge advantage of roads vs public transit is you don't need staff. (Maintenence is needed on both, but even then I suspect roads are cheaper to maintain.)

The bay bridge and golden gate bridge are perpetually being painted.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/bay-bridge...

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#38

Post by jandrese »

Reason077 wrote: post #34
jandrese wrote: post #18

In my area the subway system has still not recovered from pre-pandemic ridership levels. It has made me wonder if the kind of people who rode the subway were more likely to work from home. But at the same the the roads are also less busy than they were, at least judging from the amount of congestion delays we experience on a day to day basis. This is good and bad. The good is that I can almost always get a seat on a…

> "I can almost always get a seat on a train that used to be packed" > "the fare went from $3.10 to $5.50 each way" I suspect there is a cause & effect relationship between these two observations. But which is which?

The fare increase happened about a week ago.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#39

Post by StickyRibbs »

I'm one who lives in the east bay (oakland/emeryville area) and don't use BART anymore because I'm WFH now.

I also choose to drive into the city on weekends and off commute hours because the BART always has sketchy people, homeless, some weirdo moving up and down the carts and there's never enough people in the off hours to make it feel safe and worth it.

It's a bummer because I'm down the street from Macarthur and would love to take it more often but I always have to be on guard which is not the travel experience I need in my life right now.

Re: BART ridership is still down nearly 70% from pre-Covid levels

#40

Post by bombcar »

ars wrote: post #22
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #2

As the article states, the reason why BART is so heavily impacted is because it was mostly designed as commuter rail. BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. While peak-hour (morning and evening commute) ridership is catching up again (BART publishes numbers so you can check the work here), usage outside of peak hours is at an all-time low because of the increase of WFH jobs.…

> BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding. How much does BART cost per year (or per decade) vs the Bay Bridge? A huge advantage of roads vs public transit is you don't need staff. (Maintenence is needed on both, but even then I suspect roads are cheaper to maintain.)

Also the drivers fund the heavy moving equipment which is a huge subsidy for the roads.

The BART has to pay for everything out of fares and sundry. The highway authority just has to build and maintain the road not the vehicles.

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