[calr]

I find commuting from the 24th and Mission to downtown via the BART very pleasant these days. Before COVID I would fight my way and barely squeeze in. Now I get a seat just about every time. I get off at Montgomery, so I am able to skip over the sketchier stops on Market (Civic center and Powell to some extent). There are still plenty of great cafes, coffeeshops, and bars open within walking distance of my office. Overall no complaints; I enjoy going into the office much more than before COVID.

[SeanAnderson]

Unfortunately BART isn't financially viable with the current numbers, right? https://www.bart.gov/about/financials/crisis

[shuckles]

Transportation infrastructure isn’t meant to be financially viable. Interstates aren’t profit centers.

[SeanAnderson]

I agree, but the funding still has to come from somewhere. SF has an 800M budget shortfall and is looking at slashing services ~20% https://sfstandard.com/politics/city-hall/san-franciscos-def...

The BART website clearly states that they are able to provide current operations due to COVID funding which runs out in 2025. They plan to stop offering weekend routes, stop running after 9PM, reduce train frequency to every 60 minutes, etc.

[shuckles]

BART's budget is not funded by San Francisco. I think there are many sources of funding such as bridge and highway tolls which should be explored to shore up BART operating budgets. In addition, BART should abandon boondoggle capital projects like the monstrous tunnel VTA is proposing in the San Jose extension to invest in ways that improve service on existing lines. Finally, it is more than reasonable to redirect highway spending to transit.

[SeanAnderson]

That sounds reasonable enough, thanks. It looks like tolls generate ~750M currently and BART shortfall is ~330M. So, it's doable if we're able to push through an increase of 50% on tolls.

I wasn't able to easily look up our highway spending budget.

[jeffbee]

That's not what BART's report says, at all. That is a worst case analysis. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission required all agencies to undertake an unusual analysis using scenarios provided by MTC. The report concludes that BART cannot cut its way to solvency in the given scenarios. The report does not reflect BART's actual projections or plans.

[SeanAnderson]

Okay, sorry if I am fearmongering. It's not my intent. What do you feel will happen?

From my perspective, there's a website that has the word crisis in the URL, a chart that shows a ~40% loss in revenue due, and the two-year SF budget shortfall is trending up - recently revised from $720M to $780M. I find it challenging to take away an alternative perspective when none is offered up on the website beyond "be a transit champion."

[shuckles]

This is a bit too optimistic. BART in its current two year budget is projecting consecutive years of $300m operating deficits. That is very far from sustainable and not an unusual worst case.

[ipnon]

Many subway systems are profitable, like the Tokyo JR East. If there is a will there is a way. Americans simply prefer sprawl and cars when it comes down to it.

[sofixa]

> Many subway systems are profitable

The vast majority are not, the systems in a bunch of Asian cities (mostly in Japan, HK, Taiwan, Singapore) are the exception due to a few reasons, most notably because they use distance-based fares and land around stations often belongs to the operator bringing in massive commercial revenues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

[shuckles]

> Many subway systems are profitable, like the Tokyo JR East.

My comment was about America, but point taken. Road infrastructure in Japan has heavy use tolls.

> Americans simply prefer sprawl and cars when it comes down to it.

Americans aren't a monolith, and transit increases land values so it's unlikely Americans prefer sprawl, all else equal.

[Tiktaalik]

It's impossible to know if Americans genuinely prefer sprawl because the alternative of building more compact communities is banned by regulation all over.

[TMWNN]

>Transportation infrastructure isn’t meant to be financially viable.

Not profitable != not financially viable. At some point, anything that loses too much money becomes not become viable. Transportation isn't exempt from this.

>Interstates aren’t profit centers.

US highways do pay for themselves <https://web.archive.org/web/20170712175437/www.rita.dot.gov/...>, and help pay for other modes of transportation. Transit receives the biggest subsidy per passenger-mile, with rail and airlines in between.

(For those wishing more detail: From the executive summary <https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...>:

>*Highways*

>* Users of the highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs in 1994-2000. <https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...> This was a result of the increase in the deficit reduction motor fuel tax rates between October 1993 and September 1997, and the increase in Highway Trust Fund fuel tax rates starting in October 1997.

>* School and transit buses received positive net federal subsidies over the 1990-2002 period, but autos, motorcycles, pickups and vans, and intercity buses paid more than their allocated cost to the federal government.

>* On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.) track

[shuckles]

You are citing a common accounting sleight of hand where you look at federal gas excise revenue and compare it to only federal spending on highways. Some issues:

* This includes an important subsidy from urban road users - who are federal funding ineligible - to highway users. * Federal funding is only 25% of highway spending, the rest being state and local funds. * Most road expansion capital projects deliver worse increased passenger throughput per dollar than highway projects.

Regarding costs, a good rule of thumb is the best performing road networks pay for half their expenses with user fees (Texan highways). Some poorly performing ones like Maryland are at 20% (http://www.actfortransit.org/archives/testimonies/2009Apr29T...). Owen D. Gutfreund’s Twentieth-Century Sprawl is a good reference.

The final logical mistake in this line of analysis is looking at per rider subsidies between roads and transit, since American transit systems are uniquely inefficient precisely because of the burdens on transport laden by the road system. You can’t build densely because everyone thinks their cars won’t fit in the new urban geometry, but density is a precursor to successful transit. So we are stuck in an equilibrium where we prop up despots around the world for gasoline while everyone hates their commute.

[Aaronstotle]

I'm in the same boat, I commute from East Bay and BART now has plenty of space in the morning and evening.

Not empty, but not as full as it used to be, I also enjoy commuting because its the perfect place to read.

[atleastoptimal]

That's the tragic thing about public services. They're much better when providing the same service at a volume far below profitability.

[sine_reality]

i mean isnt this true for pretty much everything from a user's perspective?

[htrp]

You will continue to enjoy your commute until everyone else is back in the office. Once that happens, you will hate it just as much.

[atleastoptimal]

I'd wager at this point in the history of the West, the full "return to the office" back to pre-pandemic levels will never happen. We will look back at 2019 as the point at which we hit "peak toil", before the WFH movements and AI automation changed the structure of productivity forever.