
Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad? - capkutay
http://www.alexmedearis.com/why-is-san-franciscos-public-transportation-so-bad/
======
dba7dba
> 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](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.

~~~
armandososa
Hah! you should all come to Mexico some day.

~~~
protomyth
Well, the Twin Cities when I lived there built a light rail that didn't really
follow the commuters and killed a couple of people every year because they
removed roads to build the tracks but didn't ensure that people wouldn't turn
onto the tracks.

------
pdx6
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.

~~~
closetnerd
I'm really skeptical about "we'll see our public transportation system
improve, at least in the city".

Specially if I have the New York public system to look forward to. Its not
exactly a success.

~~~
pdx6
I think you have every right to be skeptical. The track record for our city
employees and elected officials is abysmal. It is up to us, as voters, to
maximize pressure on our political leaders and dole out consequence for
failure.

I've outlined the tools we are using today to move forward, and I am still
optimistic we will move to a world class transportation system in time.

------
suprgeek
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...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-
u-s/)

Do not expect things to get better either unfortunately.

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

~~~
dba7dba
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...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/27/calif-
state-senator-arrested-for-alleged-gun-running-was-gun-control-advocate/)

~~~
spikels
He was on the SF city council until he was term-limited out.

------
kylec
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+?

~~~
clauretano
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

~~~
m0th87
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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 true of
SF at all.)

> 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.

San Francisco's bus and train service are both labelled "Muni".

BART also has stops in San Francisco but is a separate multicounty agency (the
Bay Area Rapid Transit District) of which SF happens to be a member, it isn't
SF's.

~~~
nerfhammer
> 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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.

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

~~~
dragonwriter
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.

~~~
nerfhammer
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](https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf)
. Is Oakland not analogous to Newark in this system?

------
mapgrep
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.)

~~~
jostmey
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.

~~~
aaron-lebo
What is up with the Dallas hate in this thread?

It doesn't have public transit comparable to Chicago, New York, or even San
Francisco, but it is a much younger city than those and has much different
dynamics both historically (was really built out in the 50s and 60s with
suburbs in mind) and politically (fiscal conservatives are huge here).

I typed pretty much the following paragraph in another comment, so forgive me
for being annoying but I want to stress it:

Despite that, and despite that the DART rail to to the best of my knowledge
didn't exist 20 years ago, you can take the rail to the far northwestern
suburbs (Carrolton), the far northern suburbs (Plano), the northeastern
suburbs (Rowlett), the west (DFW airport), and all of the lines reach into
different parts of South Dallas and connect areas like Oak Cliff, Fair Park,
Deep Ellum. The TRE connects Irving and Fort Worth. Buses cover a much wider
area.

The trains do run a less frequent weekend service, but they still run to every
single one of those areas. Considering the political culture here and the fact
that DART loses money I'd say that is a damn miracle.

You can make the comments you want about the car culture here, but that is
true for any suburban city in America. People will say the same thing about LA
drivers.

I wish Dallas was better but it is doing damn well for itself.

------
wavesounds
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.

------
mempko
Glad I live in Chicago, which has comparatively (for USA) awesome public
transport.

~~~
bluetidepro
I completely agree. I moved to Chicago about a year ago, and have been very
happy with how great their public trans is!

~~~
knite
I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and find that San Francisco is
significantly easier to get around in.

The public transit is worse, but the city itself is smaller, and Uber/Lyft/etc
rates are low due to competition, which effectively means personalized
pickup/drop-off throughout most of the city is <$10. For an individual, that's
often worth it. For a group of 2-3, when compared against the sum of their
total public transit costs, it's almost always worth it.

~~~
Cymen
I think most people are interested in public transportation to commute to
work. I know I am and Uber/Lyft doesn't really help that situation.

------
al_gore
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](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).

~~~
rayiner
> 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...

~~~
T-hawk
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.

~~~
rayiner
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.

------
jrockway
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.

~~~
raldi
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.

~~~
jrockway
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.")

------
sssilver
> Why is San Francisco public transportation so bad?

You should try Dallas.

~~~
edward
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.

------
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.

~~~
closetnerd
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.

~~~
spike021
Yeah, seriously. I'm not really sure how you can compare public transportation
and driving a car in San Francisco.

~~~
closetnerd
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.

------
gdne
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.

~~~
al_gore
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?

~~~
nerfhammer
There's actually one case where they're trying to do this:

[http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-
brt-c...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/06/27/options-for-geary-brt-come-
into-focus/)

------
jorde
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.

~~~
sjf
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.

------
cloudwizard
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.

Compared to cities outside the US, it is a mess.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Because car use in Europe is more convenient? I don't get the argument, cars
are even more expensive to use in much of Europe than even NYC.

------
100k
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).

[http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-
Francis...](http://www.amazon.com/Street-Fight-Politics-Mobility-
Francisco/dp/1558499997)

------
meerita
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.

~~~
Apocryphon
Even New York?

~~~
meerita
Never been there. But from what I've seen from my buddies traveling there,
there's no comparison. Public transport in Barcelona is really awesome.

------
jowiar
One major challenge in the Bay Area often boils down to the lack of a
government with the authority to collect taxes and impetus to spend them on
Bay Area infrastructure. You either need three city governments and a pile of
local ones to get on the same page, or persuade a state government that is not
particularly keen on Bay Area spending and hamstrung by ballot initiatives.

~~~
al_gore
This is true, but there's no reason that San Francisco itself couldn't have
proper rapid transit instead of street cars. Even just removing cars from
those streets and creating dedicated lanes (these exist in some places, of
course) would be a huge help.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
The streetcars that remain mostly are still there for the Market Street Subway
and the Sunset Tunnel. In other words, they are demonstrably better than an
equivalent bus route in as-the-row-flies distance.

------
gooserock
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.

~~~
andys627
It really is terrible. What you're saying is like saying having 5 pennies is
amazing compared to having 1 penny.

~~~
closetnerd
Agreed. The "americans should feel great about where they live because, hey,
at least its not as bad as Sudan" argument.

------
discardorama
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?

[1] [http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-
quest-...](http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-11/muni-in-elusive-quest-
for-85-on-time-performance-computers-are-displacing-eyes-on-the-s)

[2] [http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-
th...](http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2009/02/18/waiting-for-the-bus-and-
waiting-and-waiting/)

[3]
[http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra...](http://www.contracostatimes.com/editorial/ci_25564767/contra-
costa-times-editorial-bart-directors-have-no)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well... if they have to live in SF, the operators probably _need_ to be at
least the second-highest-paid operators in the US, just to have a roof over
them.

That doesn't mean they should be payed higher than teachers, though...

~~~
eqdw
I work in SF, and I don't live in SF.

Why should SF subway operators need to live in SF?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Fair point, but are there places within decent commuting distance that have
decent living costs?

------
marincounty
You should try Marin County Transit--you could walk faster. When I worked on
SF--I quickly bought three beater bikes and chained them up. They were so
crappy no one stole them. I chained them in strategic spots around town and
used them. This was 10 years ago, maybe the thieves have gotten desperate?

~~~
hollerith
Huh? I consider Marin County's buses vastly superior to SF's. I am really
confused by your statement!

With the exception of one route (the 35 serving the Canal Area, which has very
heavy passenger loads), if I show up at a bus stop in Marin County 5 minutes
before the time indicated in the schedule and wait for 10 minutes, the
probability that the bus will fail to come some time in those 10 minutes is
less than 1 percent. On non-rainy days, the probability goes down to about 0.2
percent.

In contrast, when I lived in SF in the late 80s and early 90s, the probability
was about 50% (and higher than that in the Mission District). There was no
sense in consulting the timetable: the best strategy was to go to a bus stop
that has buses that go where I want and wait an indeterminate amount of time.
Sometimes it would take 3 hours for a bus to come, then 3 or 4 buses would
show up in a 3-minute interval. This during non-commute hour when the
(useless) official timetable has the buses coming at regular intervals.

Marin County resident since 1995; car-less most of that time.

When the traffic along a route is uncongested, Marin Transit buses will wait
at some stops so as to avoid leaving any stop before the time printed in the
schedule. Most of these waits are only a few minutes. Are these waits at bus
stops what you refer to with your "you could walk faster"? Well, if so, it
still seems to me like the best way to do it, since the bus's not going as
fast as it could at times of less traffic congestion than usual is made up for
by the rider's having to wait less time at the stop. And except for the ones
on Route 35 and Route 17 (the ones without upholstered seats, that is) the
buses are much more comfortable than Muni's buses.

------
closetnerd
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.

------
ginko
It is? I had little problems getting around SF when I was there. Especially
the bus network is quite good.

------
Apocryphon
If they had the incentive to, could the tech giants of Silicon Valley work
together to lobby local governments to get their act together to improve
public transportation? Seems like it would be a more long-term solution than
private corporate shuttles.

------
mblakele
Low density. Without enough population density it's impossible for transit to
be economically viable. Tokyo has it. London has it. NYC has it. SF is...
simply not dense enough to support a good transit infrastructure.

~~~
mercutio2
Huh? SF's population density is 17k per square mile. Only 60% as dense as all
of NYC, but still extremely dense.

If you meant the SF Bay Area, then yes, it's not dense at all.

SF itself could afford a much better transit system, and, as the article
mentions, the situation may actually improve in the next decade or so!

~~~
mblakele
So you have 60% of X. If you need X, you have to subsidize the difference.
Where does that money come from?

Anyway 60% is probably too high, because it's misleading to compare SF alone
with NYC. You might better compare SF with Manhattan, or better still compare
the greater Bay Area with greater NYC.

Having used transit pretty extensively in both areas, I also think NYC is less
balkanized. If we could reduce the number of different agencies running
transit through the greater Bay Area, I think there would be less waste and
less misplacement of resources. Today there are multiple agencies even within
SF proper.

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bubbleRefuge
Lets get real. The infrastructure problem in this country has to get solved at
the federal level. Since we know here on HN that the federal government is an
issuer of currency[1] and state and local government are users of the
currency, like households and business, the only entity that can fund the
massive infrastructure is said Federal Government. And, unlike China, all
federal spending is underwritten by legislation. With the political climate
being what it is, the only way this happens is another major recession (which
may be on the horizon) or some kind of 3rd party grass roots movement.
Depressing indeed.

[1] [http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-
pe...](http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-
perspective.html)

~~~
closetnerd
I think federal level is definitely at fault but it shouldn't be.

We should have more understanding of our local governments, more insight and
voting power. We put so much authority and responsibility at the federal level
that by the time the system reaches to the local governments its just a
mindfuck of bureaucracies that no one can deal with.

~~~
bubbleRefuge
Agreed that spending decisions should be more localized but funding has to be
federal. They own the money spreadsheet.

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ar7hur
Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the
parties!

(second degree comment)

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joaorj
because no one disrupted it yet.

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JohnDoe365
Because the taxi lobby, supported by the oil lobby, has a firm grip on
municipal government?

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interg12
Thank republicans who block infrastructure spending every chance they get.

~~~
spikels
Wrong! There are very few Republicans in the Bay Area and none in SF city
goverment.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There are a lot of republicans in the Bay Area, they just seem to be the very
wealthy kind (and are more moderate). Source: I used to hang out at the San
Carlos Starbucks and a group of old guys would come in everyday to praise Bush
(they were really cool, however, one was a B29 pilot in W2).

