[fhkatari]

I used to live in Oakland, and am really sad to see continued failures of BART. They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a long (but no traffic) ride possible from Oakland to San Jose. A key challenge for BART is that they depend a lot more on ticket sales than subsidies, and as a result, have been hit much harder with lower ridership.

[jerlam]

As an occasional BART rider, the changes they've made since the pandemic have been in the right direction. I'm mostly indifferent to the new trains and payment cards, but they've increased the frequency so that missing a train doesn't mean you can be waiting for over 30 minutes, which can be longer than your entire trip.

The main problem which BART cannot fix is that the trains usually don't go to where you want to go.

[sagarm]

BART can fix that by building dense mixed use -- office, commercial, and residential -- around their stops.

[pj_mukh]

They are doing that in East Bay [1] on BART owned land. They had been blocked so far by the most virulent NIMBY trash leading to some of the most scathing coverage [2]. Most have been unblocked and are under construction. The one still being blocked is Ashby BART because of (say it with me folks), a "HIsToriC flEa MARkeT" (that mostly sells stolen goods)[3].

[1]: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/magazine/housing-berkeley...

[3]: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/09/17/berkeley-ashby-bart-...

[bee_rider]

Ok but “historic flea market” cannot possibly a real reason; this must be a parody. What’s the real reason (I won’t click the links due to the cognitive risk of having this ridiculous story confirmed).

[Lammy]

> What’s the real reason

My links are worth clicking:

http://radicalcartography.net/bayarea.html

https://goldenstatswarrior.substack.com/p/the-great-migratio...

[jyounker]

BART can't do that. The cities can do that.

[somanyphotons]

I think that's part of the problem, bart stations should be the centerpiece of a really dense (micro)neighbourhood

[lotsoweiners]

Lol. That sounds like you’re saying “well the neighborhood sure is shit but at least we’ve got good public transit”.

[immibis]

have you ever lived in one of these places? Big cities in Europe are made entirely of them. They're pretty cool.

[xlbuttplug2]

> sad to see continued failures of BART

I think this is overstated, at least from an operations point of view. My mom has been using BART to commute to work for over a year and I can't recall many incidents like this.

[schoen]

> They had started significant expansions right before the pandemic, allowing a long (but no traffic) ride possible from Oakland to San Jose.

They're still working on this, with four more stations planned beyond Berryessa (Little Portugal, Downtown San José, Diridon, and Santa Clara), plus an additional infill station on the Berryessa line. I think that would be really cool. Unfortunately it looks like this new extension won't be that competitive with Caltrain as a way to get to San Jose from San Francisco. Maybe at non-express times.

Also, it looks like it won't be complete until 2040!?

[pj_mukh]

Otherwise known as the Worst Transit Project in the US [1]

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k

[pm90]

i mean yeah if you’re in SF caltrain is super convenient, so its fine. Getting from oakland to south bay without a car was hell though. This line would make it so much better.

Plus: Oakland is actually building homes for people while SF remains laughably behind on building quotas.

[hedora]

Try the transbay bus. Depending on station location, it’s often faster than the bart. Also, it doesn’t smell like piss, and I’ve never witnessed an assault on it.

[hedora]

Amtrak still has service on that corridor. Apparently it was a convenient way to get to SF back in the day (via ferry).

Of course most of Silicon Valley is closer to the San Francisco - Santa Cruz line, making the ferry service redundant.

It’s too bad they ripped all this stuff out, and will never rebuild it!

[yawnxyz]

ever since I paid $8 for jumping in and out of a BART station b/c I meant to go into a Muni station... I lost all respect for them.

[Johnny555]

This is pretty common among transit agencies, I got on the wrong platform in Japan once and couldn't get back out until I talked to a station agent, the fare gate gave an error and wouldn't open the gates. Not sure if that's better or worse behavior than charging a fare.

It's called an "excursion fare", which is meant for those that just ride the train without getting off and come back to the same station. You can talk to a BART station agent (assuming you can find one) and they'll let you out, or call customer service and they'll reverse the charge.

Modern fare systems should be able to figure out when you've exited right after entering and not charge you. BART is supposed to be adding a 30 minute grace period so if you go in and out of the station within 30 minutes, you won't be charged.

https://www.bart.gov/guide/faq#3

[kelnos]

Heh, I was in Japan a few weeks ago, and had left my bag in a locker at a station (inside the fare gates). I went back to get it later in the day (when I could check into my hotel), and the station attendant charged me 150 yen just to go in to get it and come right back out!

I get that they want to charge people who ride the trains for... fun?... and then get off at the same station, but it felt really silly.

[landedgentry]

I think those tickets are for people who train watch on the platform or see off friends/family from the platform.

[Symbiote]

If it was good enough in 1980, Japan might computerise it but they won't change it.

[Lammy]

Fun fact: the reason it's like that is because both levels were envisioned for BART usage before the Peninsula lines got cut. In the original design both levels would have been the same fare area and you would have been able to walk between them instead of having to take the big escalators down to BART caged off from the Muni level. It's comical to watch one of the Muni trains crawl to one end of the giant platform that was sized for 10-car BART trains.

[kelnos]

Ah, I've always wondered why the Muni platforms (especially Powell) are so ridiculously long compared to the Muni trains themselves. Makes so much sense that they were originally designed for BART cars.

[Lammy]

And here's a citation — Engineering Report: Rapid Transit for the San Francisco Bay Area, June, 1961: https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/50-years/1961-...

“The San Francisco Downtown element of the Bay Area regional rapid transit system consists of a four-track, two-level subway beneath Market Street and a two-track, single-level subway beneath Post Street.”

“At Montgomery Street, the Market Street subway joins the San Francisco approach to the Trans-Bay Tube. The subway extends up Market Street to about Van Ness Avenue where it swings lo the south to become the Peninsula Line in Mission Street. The lower level of the subway provides through regional service by joining the Peninsula and the Trans-Bay Lines. The upper level is built to accommodate local rapid transit trains at a future time and will be utilized initially by the streetcars of the San Francisco Municipal Railway.” (emphasis mine)

And the flow map of estimated 1975 passenger counts makes it clear why they would want to double up on platform capacity along that stretch: https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/50-years/1961-...

Imagine if we got this BART: https://i.imgur.com/hon9nEf.jpeg (1956)

[xlbuttplug2]

I too learned that the hard way when dropping a family member off. I naively assumed it wouldn't charge me if I tapped out at the same station 10 minutes later.

[ta1243]

London Underground has nice clear policies around this, both about what you'll be charged

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/how-to-pay-and-where-to-buy-tickets...

And about refunds (typically you'd get an automatic refund for a one-off event)

https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/refunds-and-replacements/touched-in...

I always have high levels of respect for companies with such clarity

[crote]

In The Netherlands you get a full refund if you tap out at the same station within 20 minutes. If you travel with NS (National Railways), you even have 60 minutes to tap out.

Having someone pay just to wave off someone is incredibly customer-hostile. Besides, how many people are even committing fraud like that?

[bee_rider]

A parallel comment suggests it might be an “excursion fair.” Although it is not really the intended use of a train, some reasons an individual might ride the train might be sight-seeing, or because they are homeless and want somewhere warm to hang out. In that case, IMO it isn’t really a fraud attempt to get off on the same stop you got in, it is just unexpected use of the system.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

Did they ever fix this as announced in 2022? https://sfist.com/2022/12/08/rejoice-bart-is-dumping-the-6-4...

[mogdance]

Oh! I thought they were going to get rid of that fee: https://sfist.com/2022/12/08/rejoice-bart-is-dumping-the-6-4...

[a_t48]

You can talk with the clerk to get a refund. But I thought they were doing away with it entirely…

[impute]

You can also call them and get it refunded after the fact

[maldev]

I don't see how it ever comes back. You used to have business people and engineers riding the train. But with Covid the enforcement policies got really bad and the trains and atmosphere are so trashy now. It's far easier for the aforementioned group to just hire an Uber than deal with the crime and trashiness that's plaguing the system now.

[kpennell]

I ride the system all the time and I don't think it's trashy. Also there are the new gates all over that block people from jumping in as easily and that has been cut down quite a bit. I think it's tough for Bart to probably come back still because people don't need to be in downtown SF as much as they used to because a lot of people work from home now, but yeah I just don't think it's fair to say that the system is some trashy system. I think it's mostly pretty nice.

[hedora]

Good to hear.

I heard they reopened the bathrooms (they closed them system wide in response to 9/11). If true, I’m guessing that helps a lot.

[andbberger]

BART's doing great. good headways, same schedule all day everyday. name another american transit agency doing a takt

[Hilift]

BART is unfortunately doomed. It had been running on federal aid, and with a deficit. Ridership is down 60% from 2019 (50 million vs 118 million). Now with San Francisco and Oakland in a long, slow downturn, it is unlikely to improve.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Have you ever read what people said about NYC in the 1970s ?

[dyauspitr]

It’s not frequent though.

[ryanmcbride]

I'd say the BART administrators overpaying themselves is the bigger moneysink. Not to mention the spending 73M dollars to overhaul the gates to stop fare evaders, when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents.

[darth_avocado]

The problem is that the Bay Area needs a single transit agency. All the agencies fighting each other for funding doesn’t help. It’s a much easier task to levy a minuscule tax on the entire region that pays for free public transit. If BART wants to do that at the moment, they can’t.

[trollbridge]

I live in an area with a county-wide transit sales tax, and it just seems to result in them running a lot of empty buses around and building (and eventually abandoning) transit centres. Full price is $1.50 (which if paying cash means fiddling around with coins) except for the 50+ mile express routes which are $2.50.

[darth_avocado]

Well you could be in the Bay Area where you’d have 27 agencies, that still run a lot of empty routes and build useless and expensive transit centers, and then charge way more than what you have.

[hedora]

They also need to get the roads, busses and ferries on board with this plan.

The goal (by law) should be twofold:

1) increase the number of people with a 90th percentile commute under 15, 30 and 60 minutes. (i.e., improve quality of life and encourage economic growth)

2) sharply reduce the average CO2-equivalent emissions of each commuter.

The current statewide policy (by law) is to reduce commute miles.

In practice, this means intentionally sabotaging commute corridors, which slows economic growth (fewer available workers and fewer reachable jobs) reduces quality of life and increases CO2 emissions (due to repeated idling and hard acceleration).

[jeffbee]

The MTC is that organization for the Bay Area.

[darth_avocado]

Bay Area has 27 transit agencies and MTC has limited control over them beyond dictating how the state funds are allocated. Thats not what I’m talking about. What I’m suggesting is that the 27 agencies be one agency operationally and get funded as such. You’ll have much better outcomes.

[jeffbee]

MTC is not just concerned with allocating state funds, though. They administer RM2 and RM3 and the AB1107 sales tax, and they put on a trench coat to act at BATA collecting and using bridge tolls.

[darth_avocado]

But unless MTC is concerned with the operations, you cannot have decent outcomes. If BART has an over reliance on fare but MUNI doesn’t, a single agency would be better able to balance the budget. Similarly if one agency is spending more of the state funding on creating new routes while other is spending more on creating more frequent service on existing routes, MTC won’t be able to direct what needs to happen. If BART is running more often, but the bus I take to the BART station just cut service, I’m not taking BART anymore.

Point of a single agency is not just to collect taxes. It is to make sure there are better outcomes, so that when you do need more taxes to fund public transit, you don’t get the pushback from the public.

[jedberg]

> when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents.

There was a study done on this. It turns out that the median income of someone riding under the Bay Bridge in BART is higher than someone driving a car across it.

In other words the wealthier people are using BART. So if you made it free, you'd be subsidizing the wealthy.

[darth_avocado]

That’s a very wrong conclusion to draw from the study. If median income of someone riding the bart is higher than someone driving, it could also mean that they drive because it is cheaper to do so. If you make it free, they would probably ride BART too, making it more accessible and equitable.

[jedberg]

The study was more in depth than that. It found that BART goes to more places that wealthy people go (financial district, SOMA, etc) than where poorer people need to go.

[s1artibartfast]

That makes perfect sense. Poor people are attracted to cheaper real estate (residential and commercially). Real estate is cheaper because it is less accessible and convenient.

One area is concentrated and the other is decentralized.

[hedora]

So, force the rich people to use the bridge, and increase commute times for everyone?

Seems like a much better plan than synchronizing and expanding the train networks so they cover more neighborhoods in all parts of the bay (except Marin, of course…)

[bee_rider]

Please forgive me for the ignorance, but is there some significance of “under the bay bridge” for this study, or did they just pick it arbitrarily? It seems like picking a point arbitrarily like that could introduce some skews.

[Me1000]

I'm pretty sure it's just being used as a turn of phrase here. Under the bridge means commuters are riding BART, over the bridge means they're driving.

[ryanmcbride]

I don't care it should be free.

[jedberg]

Yes, let's ignore all data saying that it being free would make everything worse and not address any of your concerns about the environment or helping poor people.

[SllX]

> when it SHOULD just be free for bay area residents.

Absolutely not.

[scarmig]

I think there should be options for low income residents to ride for free or heavily discounted rates (which exists now). But it's all about implementation: simply letting anyone jump on turns the system into a madhouse. Making sure everyone pays (even if through a government issued pass) and works with the system helps balance equity considerations with maintaining safety and cleanliness.

[SllX]

BART has several discounts: https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts

Discounts are fine. Free riding isn’t.

[edoceo]

Why is free public transport bad? Could get even more folk out of their cars, or expand employment opportunities.

[Spooky23]

Because people are people. You won’t be able to get on the train to commute when people are sleeping there.

People don’t value free things, and it’s hard to plan things without pricing demand.

[darth_avocado]

Because people in America have being taught to think that way. Plenty of countries run free (or near free) public transit just fine.

[ianburrell]

The price is not the barrier for most people using transit. The service reliability and availability is more important. Would you rather pay fare for frequent bus or wait around for free fares?

[bethekidyouwant]

Because the tube will be filled with the unwashed masses

[SllX]

I answered more thoroughly in response to your sibling comment.

[omnimus]

Because socialism.

[myrmidon]

> Discounts are fine. Free riding isn’t.

Why not? Could you not make a pretty strong argument that avoided negative externalities (CO2 and air pollution from car engines and tires) make public transport worthwhile by itself, and just fund transport by taxing those (gas/cars)?

Saves you all the infrastructure for billing/access control and some enforcement, too.

[SllX]

1) it’s a funding source for transit agencies which are already facing shortfalls and at the mercy of voters for any tax increases or bonds.

2) we want public transit to be exclusionary on a fee-basis to exclude people who generally will not be able to pay for it on their own in order to avoid tragedy of the commons situations which actually suppress ridership by people who can afford to pay the fee: vagrants, criminals and people who smoke crack on the trains.

If you live in a region of the world that doesn’t have these issues, great, do what you want. We’re talking about the Bay Area specifically, and the thing keeping BART ridership down is that people don’t want to ride BART because it sucks. The actual service is mostly fine. The issue lies in the people.

I also have no interest in subsidizing the people I know can afford to pay. In the years prior to the new fare gates being installed, I could walk off MUNI and just casually catch every type of person from every type of walk of life, and by that I mean mostly regular commuters with decent paying jobs, just casually free loading because they could.

[marcinzm]

Because capitalistic incentives work. More riders = more money => incentive to get more riders. More riders = more cost/hassle => incentive to have fewer riders.

[ryanmcbride]

Okay bootlicker

[tekno45]

bart doesn't get to decide its free.