[bigyikes]

I grew up in the south and was fortunate enough to move to the Bay a few years ago.

I was expecting it to be some kind of utopia, with futuristic technology on every corner.

In reality, it is roughly the same as anywhere else in America. A bit of a let down. The innovation does not take place in the infrastructure.

Beautiful place, though!

[patmorgan23]

When BART was built in the 60s/70s it was innovative. The construction techniques for the Transbay Tube were unique at the time. The system was billed as a transit system built from the ground up for the space age. It was equipped with, at the time, a state of the art Automation Train Control system.

Upgrading those systems is expensive and difficult, so it's not surprising old prices of equipment hung around until the end of their useful life. Especially since BART is going through a massive budget crisis at the moment (and this isn't the only one in its history).

[BHSPitMonkey]

I've shared this experience/opinion with folks nearly verbatim :) Especially after having seen what I took to be a very well-integrated transit system in Chicago, the fragmented and confusing Bay Area experience was quite different from what I expected.

[kccqzy]

If you count Waymo as futuristic technology* then you actually see it fairly often.

*: Many people don't. Self-driving cars are better than human-driven cars, but affordable and reliable trains are even better.