SFist: BART Wants to Reduce Service, Increase Fares

Belgand

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:02:29 -0800

So does my girlfriend. That's why I'm quite familiar with it. Unless you're going to downtown Oakland or downtown Berkeley you're more or less screwed.

peninsulachick

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:53:01 -0800

What I don't understand is why everyone (including BART) operates under the assumption that if people want the trains to run later, they must want 24-hour service, and since BART can't run 24-hour service, those arguments are automatically pointless and invalid. There is a BIG difference between closing at midnight and running 24 hours a day. For example, the D.C. Metro runs until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, and opens at 7 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. In those four hours, Metro is magically able to inspect all its tracks (and its system is two miles longer than BART's). If BART were to adopt a similar schedule to Metro, there's no reason why it couldn't stay open until 3 a.m. Even 1 or 2 a.m. would be preferable to what we have now. Yet, whenever anyone expresses a desire for BART to stay open maybe even just an hour later, we get bombarded by "OMGZ WE CAN'T DO 24 HOURS!" As if that's really what anyone is asking for!

withak

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:14:19 -0800

I take BART from SF to the East Bay every day.

Belgand

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:52:31 -0800

It seems that BART and Muni both only want to serve work/home commutes. Not just in scheduling, but also in routes. The vast majority of lines for both only run from downtown (where they assume everyone works) out. Taking BART from SF to the East Bay? Hah! You're going the wrong way apparently. Their only interest is in suburbanites who want to get to their downtown SF jobs. Taking it into the East Bay means you get stranded at some commuter station that everyone drives to. Muni Metro? Only goes downtown. Yeah, if you happen to be in the way of the route you can technically take it elsewhere, but they only intend for it to take you downtown. Moving between neighborhoods is often made unreasonably hard and hours are designed primarily to address commuting alone. How about running late-night buses with slightly greater frequency to areas with high concentrations of bars and clubs on the weekend when people will be in greater need of them? Among the many, many other problems (e.g. lack of a proper subway as opposed to buses for a small, dense urban area) we have multiple systems and all of them tend to only seek to solve a very narrow transit goal. Though they can't even do that very effectively at least they could try to address people's actual transit needs. Oh and how about this: put up some actual damn signs Muni! Painting a small often unlabeled line on the street is not really an appropriate way of marking a bus stop. Putting a band of paint around a utility pole isn't just awkward, but it feels very unprofessional and doesn't provide much information. Is it really too hard to put up a simple sign listing the bus routes served, hours, and where they're going at bus stops? I know it's too much to put up a schedule (even though other systems do), but that would also imply that you bothered to adhere to it.

mushmouth

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:57:34 -0800

Bingo!!! That third track is how the New York Subway is different than almost any subway system in the world and why it is nearly the only one in the world that can run 24 hours a day.

withak

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:20:13 -0800

They aren't paying out any $25 million civil judgments, their insurance company is.

Akit

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:06:22 -0800

BART can't run 24-hours. They use the shutdown time to make repairs to the tracks and grind them so they are quieter. It's not like New York where they can run 24 hours because they have express train tracks.

sfperson2000

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:05:26 -0800

Hubc -- BART is already incredibly subsidized. They get .5% of every dime spent in the Bay Area after all! That is why the sales tax is 8.5% here and 8.0% in places like Sacramento.

manys

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:52:21 -0800

Maybe they wouldn't have to cut service if they weren't paying out $25mil civil judgments. 24hr? The deck is stacked against it, least of all due to the loss of DUI revenue that would result.

hubcap

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:27:33 -0800

no fucking way. i was just in SF this weekend with a friend who was in from NYC. we were both bitching about the lack of 24/7 trains. and now this. then i met some argentine girls who couldn't stay out past midnight because BART shuts down. another terrible loss. cant we just subsidize this with some DoD money ? :(

ChesterY

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:29:16 -0800

@masterdave: I've ridden the AC Transit All-Nighter plenty and don't find it scary at all...if anything, the challenge is to not sleep through your stop. Though, beware: there's apparently one bus that does a shift-change in the middle of the route, stranding you in Downtown Oakland at, like, 4AM. Not fun. An hour later in the morning and it'd kill ability to use BART for early-morning SFO flights, like jcsnotes...notes. And an hour earlier would make it completely useless for party-commuting. It's already quasi-useless as it is. And ending an hour earlier, more importantly, would strand a hell of a lot of folks who are getting off from night jobs around that time. I'd rather pay a higher fare than see service curtailed. But I'd also like to see BART parking lots charge more than a token fee.

jcsnotes

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:07:23 -0800

Starting BART an hour later in the am would kill those (like me) who use it to try and catch early flights out of SFO to the East Coast. In combination with MUNI bus lines actually running on schedule at around 6 am, this is one of the few public transit success stories in terms of a mass transit solution which actually works the way one would design it.

masterdave

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:01:52 -0800

Has BART ever done a study to see how many people would actually use BART and/or muni if it actually ran late enough that they could get home from their jobs, have a good night out, or anything like that? Can't take BART to a show in the East Bay because most shows that aren't at big-time venues don't get out before the last train. Sometimes the headliner doesn't even show up before midnight. Conversely, if you're in the East Bay and you want to see a show here, hope you can get back to a BART stop before midnight otherwise you'll turn into a pumpkin and be stranded in SF! The idea that less trains meaning less riders equals more money is pretty foolish to me. So maybe they only run 2-3 car trains all night long, at least if there was a guarantee I didn't have to ride a crappy "all nighter" bus (which is kinda scary sometimes, anyone ever take these?) I'd be a lot more inclined to see/do things that required me to take BART somewhere. If all BART wants to be is a work/job commute system, it'll continue to be a huge failure that people don't want to ride.

murphstahoe

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:51:47 -0800

Yet people say we should extend BART to San Jose instead of coming up with more affordable options...

GefilteFish

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:42:00 -0800

Cutting back BART service in the morning and night would be an enormous pain for the Bay Area, and I imagine it would increase congestion on the roads and trains. They could probably do a lot more with advertising, but I don't understand why pay cuts and/or layoffs aren't mentioned in that CBS article. Do BART conductors really need to earn 100k or more per year, as I've heard they make?

Ciaran

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:41:45 -0800

If the budget hole is $90m, why mess around with stuff that pisses everyone off and only saves $2-3m?

EllyMental

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:20:20 -0800

So annoying! Why is it every industry with operating expense shortfalls makes consumers bear the brunt of their own financial incompetence? Hey Muni, I want that $200 back I accidently overspent this weekend!