SFist Rants: A Modest Public Transportation Proposal
This morning BART was late getting into Millbrae so we had to hop on Caltrain. Luckily, we had enough time before the train came so we didn't have to play the "Get To Work on Time or Get a Ticket?" Game we've had to play a few times before. You know, that game you play when the train is right there and you still have to deal with the stupid ticket machine and so you have to decide whether you'd rather get into work at a reasonable hour and risk the 
chance of getting cited for not having a ticket or not risking it and being a little more late into work (we've gambled a few times and if it weren't for some luck and a transit cop slacking off on filing paperwork, we'd have shelled out some serious duckets).
While having to go through all the rigmarole of hopping on Caltrains and being at the least fifteen minutes late kind of sucks, what really chaps our hide is that we have a monthly pass for SamTrans but not one for Caltrains. So in having to suddenly buy a ticket, we have to shell out another $2 on top of all the rest of the money we shell out. And yes, we can afford $2, but if you factor in the fact that BART is late about once a week then it starts adding up. Factor in all the other expenses we have to do over the year to deal with pub trans and it's a lot of bucks. So here's our little Modest Proposal to all the department heads of our Public Transportation system: you screw up, you reimburse us.
Why should you do this, especially as you have budget problems galore? Well, you want people to ride you, right? You want people to trust you, right? So in doing this you're saying, we're going to take care of you no matter what. It's kind of like what the airlines do if they screw up and pay for hotel fares and all that. And what if it starts to majorly impact the budget? Well, maybe it'll force you to do better next time. It's not OUR fault you guys can't get your act together. Look at it as kind of a personal responsibility type thing, you screw up, you suck it up. This is the Golden Era of Conservatism, after all. And maybe if all the Powers That Be see how much money they have to shell out, they'd feel some of our pain.
What sort of things should be taken care of? Tickets for other public transportation services, natch. Or cab fares we've all been forced to take whenever we were late for an appointment and stranded waiting for the N Judah. And maybe even things like extra Caltrain or MUNI fares we've had to purchase due to incorrect and/or lack of signage (some Caltrain stations don't have updated schedules which causes all sorts of fun when you watch, say the Palo Alto station whizz by and you don't get a chance to change trains until San Jose). And yes, even citations you might get due to not having the time to buy the ticket. We could also ask for lost wages for being late to work, but let's not push things.
How this would work? Well, if, say BART is more than five minutes late, they'll hand out free Get Out of Jail cards so whoever is checking knows not to bug us. Or maybe they could give every commuter a $50 stipend every other month that we could use for that time periods. And there's always PayPal which they can use to reimburse people for things like cab fares or no-ticket citations. We could write up a much more detailed plan for all this, but we're not getting paid six figures for figuring out things like that. Mr. Burns, you wanted a challenge, here you go.
Will this make things better? Maybe. Maybe not. But it sure will take some of the sting out of being late to work.