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Report: San Francisco transit agencies hinder ridership
Well, “bursting at the seams” are we? It would appear the problem to be solved is capacity, not coordination between agencies. Expand first, see how that goes, then coordinate as needed.
Austin, problem is two fold. BART from my home town in East Bay going into San Francisco are packed and I’m envious of any one of them who don’t have to sit in traffic like I do. However, that option is of little use to me because my work is somewhere else and a trip by transit for me would require at least two or three different agencies and a couple different modes. In my case, the other issue is my wife works also so any moves closer to work for me makes it more difficult for here.
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Don’t know the best solution other then start combing and rationalizing the bus systems. I do agree in extending and expanding BART. You are already seeing the development benefits of BART extending into San Jose. Electrifying Caltrains into San Fran as well as extending it into Transbay can’t happen fast enough. The second BART tube under the bay will be a reality. Combing the fare system for BART, Caltrains and Muni seems like a no brainer.
Timothy, that’s exactly what the Clipper card is for, it can currently be used on all the major transit systems in the Bay Area…Muni, BART, Caltrain, SCVTA, AC Transit, ACE, SamTrans(I believe), not sure about those serving the North Bay…oh, and you can also use it on the Capital Corridor. I’m not sure on how they plan to modernize something that is relatively new to begin with(the Clipper card).
Yes indeed, the problem may be two-fold, however which came first, egg or chicken? As a regular visitor to SF over the past 4 decades I have observed with pleasure the transit growth, but also the shortcomings. It is obvious that the lack of will to spend the necessary dollars, across most metro areas of the USA, makes any progress at all seem almost miraculous. Incrementalism rules.
BART should have other routes in the city (SF). New York , London have many routes through the city. You have to depend on sreeet cars and bus to get to other places in SF. Bus sure get slowed down by the heavy auto traffic at commute time and streetcar seem to give dents to some auto evety now and then. Movement underground would bypass much of the street level traffic. Most of the travel is to SF, BART is the most easiest to use of all the transit systems to go into the city. Auto commuters don’t effect BART travel time whereas bus is affected by the commuters. More bus on the street is not a big help I feel at commute time. The city seems to turn into a big parking lot at times.
And this comes as a surprise? And Caltrain, for all its updated ease-of-access and use of the handy Clipper Card? Caltrain’s fare machines do not accept debit or credit cards! Seriously. Even BART and MUNI machines at their stations take those. Frankly, the day that BART becomes the lead agency for all “heavy” rail transit in that megalopolis, the better it will be for all riders.
And don’t get me started on MUNI’s carefully veiled “cheaper” cable car fares which are not advertised in print or at stops or terminals…they have a huge cash cow in gullible tourists, and only kindly MUNI cable conductors will fill them in now and then that the discount fares exist. Oh for the days when you could use a MUNI transfer on the cables, pay a sensible fare and actually get across town on the grips. Not any more, and the “highway robbery” they’ve been doing on the Powell, Mason, Hyde and California street lines has gone on far too long. FYI, unwary tourists, the MUNI F-line historic streetcars take Clipper and accept transfers, but the cable cars don’t.
Where is the surprise in the 3% public transit usage in the San Francisco metro? Few US metro areas approach this percentage and even fewer exceed it. Transit agencies alone cannot resolve this problem when the decades since WW1 have rebuilt cities to cater to the rubber tired motor vehicle. As other posts have pointed out, there are strides to reverse this trend: the BART extensions and CALTRAIN expansion plans among them. Transit Oriented Development along this new infrastructure will do more to increase transit usage than co-ordination among the various agencies can accomplish.
AC Transit, West CAT and County Connection should become one agency. SamTrans and VTA should merge and Golden Gate Transit, Sonoma County Transit and Mendocino Transit Authority along with Petaluma Transit should all sleep in the same bed. Millions would be saved with the elimination of several dozens of duplicate upper and middle management jobs.