Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jonny_eh 4347 days ago
The only thing I learned from the article is that NY has a really popular subway. Duh.

My question is: Why is SF's public transit so popular? It can't be because of the quality. LA is a much bigger city, why isn't public transit more popular there?
3 comments
abalone 4347 days ago
Geography's a factor. It's not just SF, it's Oakland too, and there's a ton of commuting between them on BART on a daily basis due to the cost of living difference. They're separated by water so with BART (an underwater subway) you avoid bridge traffic. Also parking in SF and real estate in general is at a premium due to it being on the head of a peninsula.

SF alone might rank lower. Muni is certainly not "popular" with the population.. it's much less reliable than BART. My terribly anecdotal impression is a lot of people bike or take cabs within SF if at all possible.

link
wiseleo 4346 days ago
San Francisco numbers are misleading. They likely counted both BART and Caltrain. Since Oakland is included, Amtrak trains (Capitol Corridor, ACE, San Joaquin) might also be included. All the systems I mentioned are heavy rail and carry hundreds of thousands of passengers daily.

Muni has an always packed light rail subway system as well. Unfortunately, unlike San Jose's VTA, that subway has no bike carrying capacity. This makes it difficult to ride the bike to a light rail station and then use it again to reach your final destination in downtown or elsewhere in the city.

Regional heavy rail systems like BART have enormous ridership.

San Francisco buses need dedicated lanes in residential areas. Based on my personal experience, the root cause of traffic slowdowns appears to be double-parked cars. Buses run quickly at night when they are not slowed down by cars.

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/10/02/the-sorry-state-of-doub...

But this is changing. Dedicated lanes are being put in place. http://sf.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Picture...

link
ido 4347 days ago
Maybe because SF is denser?
link
mturmon 4347 days ago
Yes, and part of that is the area used. The SF-Oakland area used for aggregation contains 3.3M people. The LA area contains 12.3M.
link