SFist Rants: Where Have all the Riders Gone?
Yesterday, BART announced that with deficits still looming and the number of commuters to the Peninsula still disappointing, they're going to raise fares and cut service. Which we think is a brilliant way of enticing more people to use an underused service. In fact, we’ve already come up with BART’s new advertising slogan-- "Ride BART! Now more expensive and slower!" Since we take BART all the way to Millbrae to get to work, we are thrilled.
Of course, we could point out that maybe more people would ride it if, say, they fixed the routing problems at the airport so there wouldn't be fifteen minute delays just outside the station. Or routing problems at Daly City so there wouldn't be fifteen minute delays on to get past Daly City. Or not try and shoot ten trains through Daly City at once so there won't be fifteen minute delays to get past Daly City on the days there's not routing problems. Or deal with SFist's big bugaboo, total lollygagging at SFO for fifteen minutes while we miss our connection. As pissed as we get when we meet our connection, we can only imagine how pissed people will be when they miss their connection at SFO.
But we're not here to rant about BART. Fish in a barrel. We are here to rant about something else involving public transportation, that being you.
See the reason why BART built the long-awaited extension to SFO and the Peninsula was because study after study, survey after survey, and poll after poll said that people wanted it. Build it, and they will come. So they built it, but when the rubber hit the road, or in this case when the wheel hit the rail, you didn't come.
As part of our commute, we take a totally empty SamTrans bus for a bit on the 101 and as we get slowed down by the inevitable ebb and flow of traffic, we can't but help notice how many cars are on the road and how many of those cars have only one driver in them. We can't but help wonder how many of those people, when asked, talk about how much they want to ride public transportation, but…. In fact, we couldn't help notice that some of those cars have "Greenpeace" stickers on them or "Stop Global Warming" stickers. Not to mention either "Support Our Troops" or "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers. We would mention the all-too obvious hypocrisy in all that, but we won't. Again, fish in a barrel.
When the commute goes smoothly, which it does more often than not, it's actually a really nice ride. In the morning, we drink our coffee and read both the Chron and the Examiner. In the afternoon, we read books and thanks to our commute, we've been averaging about two a month. Hell, we knocked off significant portions of War & Peace while on BART. And as for the ride to SFO? It totally beats SuperShuttle. But now we're facing the reality of having to pay more for our commute and deal with more hassles on our commute. And yeah, part of it is because BART can't keep things in order, but a large part of it also has to do because all you people who say they support public transportation don't actually take it. And for that, thanks a lot.