
Design Your Own Dream Subway Line – ConnectSF from City of San Francisco - capkutay
http://connectsf.org/components/subway-vision/
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wahern
SF hasn't even completed the Van Ness or Geary BRT lines, which are about a
decade late.

By the time SF gets around to building any new subway line (10-15 years),
private autonomous cars and shuttles will have siphoned away most of SF MTA's
revenue. It'll be a lost cause. They need to build and _open_ a couple of new
commuter subway lines, e.g. along the Geary corridor, before autonomous
driving comes. Otherwise they'll struggle just to keep the existing bus and
at-grade light rail networks working.

The irony is that roughly half or more of the budget for the Van Ness and
Geary BRT lines is allocated for repaving the streets. They're effectively
bankrolling their own death.

Madrid and other cities figured out how to build subways on the cheap. Too
many U.S. cities see subways as prestige projects, and blow insane amounts of
money on cavernous stations and other aspects of design and construction. If
they built tunnels and stations like they often did 100 years ago--which is to
say, as utilitarian public infrastructure projects--it'd be much cheaper.

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capkutay
> By the time SF gets around to building any new subway line (10-15 years),
> private autonomous cars and shuttles will have siphoned away most of SF
> MTA's revenue

How will a city that's already jam-packed with cars and losing fast
thoroughfares to transit-only lanes be fixed with autonomous cars. You may not
have to drive or park, but it will take 30-40 minutes to get around the city.
A subway line would reduce this time in half which will always be appealing to
riders.

~~~
wahern
Autonomous shuttles == private bus service.

I'm not disputing that subways would be preferable. I'm saying that from a
fiscal and political standpoint SF MTA will never be able to justify and
afford the capital investment unless they start building them RIGHT NOW.

The biggest cost in running a bus service is labor. Out-of-the-gate,
autonomous cars and shuttles will have a substantially lower operating cost
than the public bus service network, and will for some time. Middle-income
commuters will flock to private bus services. Even if slightly more expensive,
they'll be cleaner, more comfortable, and more timely, _especially_ for
commuters. SF MTAs current fare is $2.25. A ride on Chariot (which I've used a
couple of times) is less than $4. Imagine what Chariot could offer if they
didn't incur labor costs for each shuttle?

The private shuttles don't obviate the need for a public bus service, but
they'll absolutely take a huge chunk of the profits. Also, without middle-
income commuters you're left with a higher proportion of people traveling on
free or subsidized bus fares. Also also, average passenger count will decrease
dramatically when you take away some of those commuters. An outsized
proportion of revenue comes from packed buses, which if we're being honest is
probably one reason why SF MTA has been slow with service upgrades--service
upgrades not only cost money to implement, they reduce your margins.

San Francisco doesn't build subways because 1) it's too costly and 2) NIMBYs
put up too many political roadblocks. Serious competition will mean even 1)
less revenue for SF MTA, and 2) more excuses for the NIMBYs to block
investment. Also, autonomous vehicles will only bolster lobbying for
investment in the road networks at the expense of public transit.

The pain of slow transit _manifestly_ isn't enough to cause SF to build a new
subway (the Central Subway notwithstanding for obvious reasons). Autonomous
vehicles will only tip the balance in favor of surface transit generally, and
away from public transit. It will make subways even more expensive in absolute
and relative terms, which means they simply won't happen because (for good
reason) SF has generally been a fiscally conservative government. The few
recent big projects have come with substantial problems, despite being
primarily funded privately or without state or federal money, and so will only
make the city more risk-averse.

Long-term subways would still make sense. But from a long-term perspective
subways have made sense in SF for quite some time. If investment can't be
sustained from at least a medium-term perspective, it simply won't happen
without a miracle. And autonomous vehicles will make the numbers look much
worse than they ever have.

