[ars]

> 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.)

[Karrot_Kream]

This is actually a fun one to point to. Replacing the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge happened recently, and has been one of the most expensive Californian infrastructure projects to date. It started with a price tag of $250 mil but it ended up costing $6.5 bil. In the meantime, BART has performed modifications on their tracks and has begun switching to new rolling stock, but it's been a lot cheaper than replacing the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

[ars]

Looks like the bridge opened about 100 years ago - so that's $6.5 bil/100 years. So that's one data point.

Wikipedia says BART costs about $0.6 bil/year. Which is 10 times as expensive as the bridge. I need figures on yearly maintenance cost for the bridge to make this accurate though.

But so far it's not looking good for BART.

[Anechoic]

You're comparing a 2-mile, $6.5 bridge to a 130-mile, $0.5 bil/year system and you think this looks good for the bridge?

Not to mention in addition to direct costs, you need to look at externalities.

[ars]

It was not me who made the comparison, that's the person I replied to.

They were comparing number of people crossing the bridge to the total number of people using the entire BART system.

If anything what you say just makes BART look even worse, since a 2 mi stretch of bridge carries a half as many people as a hundred mile long BART system.

[sagarm]

Great comparison! Let's stop maintaining the bay bridge or servicing the bonds. Then rebuild it in 100 years.

That way everyone can use BART :)

[WWLink]

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

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

[bombcar]

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.

[kimixa]

True - the majority of the BART maintenance cost is the rolling stock not the track. How much does the average commuter spend on car maintenance and fuel? Or even the capital expenditure in the first place, if that commute is the difference between needing a(nother?) car for the household in the first place.

And costs like the drivers and station workers is just split over the 1-per-car drivers across an equivalent road. I don't know anyone who enjoys that commute, likely arriving more stressed rather than less, and you can't read or prep for your real work in any way when driving.

It's a common fallacy to ignore relatively small per-person costs, even if the total adds up to a massive amount due to the numbers of people.

[jeffbee]

Uh, the other (correct) way to look at it is the Bay Bridge requires a staff of 1000 people to move 1000 people across the Bay. Just because you externalize the costs doesn't mean you eliminated them.

[ars]

Some people might get work done on a train, but not many. Most just waste their time.

So those 1000 people spent that time either way, makes little different if they are passengers or drivers. However driving gets you there faster, so the costs are lower.