[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.

[waqf]

> tracks have different widths

To be clear, the tunnels have different dimensions, but the actual track gauges are the same (standard gauge … unlike BART).

[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.

[seanmcdirmid]

And let's not even get started with Tokyo.