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Comment by jelling | Hacker News Reader

For some hard data, in San Francisco and NYC, the mass transit agencies are starting to plan for never getting back to full ridership again. And by plan, I mean starting to ask for federal funding to keep the systems alive (which I think they should) because the fare revenue is never going to return to pre-pandemic levels but the physical plant remains just as expensive to operate.

Keep in mind: these are two of the densest cities in the U.S., where people typically have less space for a home office and commutes are shorter vs an exurb type city. WFH is here to stay in my view, especially for employers in competitive recruiting spaces.

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> commutes are shorter vs an exurb type

I'm not sure about that. People i know in NYC typically spend as much time commuting as in any other city I've known, if not more. It's a big city, and because of the nature of public transportation (or traffic) it takes a while to move across it.

NYC is also, of course, a place where office space is more expensive than most other places -- employer choices could be effecting this as much as employee choices.

But I don't disagree with your general conclusion, as a general sense of things. I don't think NYC and San Francisco are the especially driving examples though.

I've noticed interesting trends in the Bay Area. Up until about three weeks ago, traffic during rush hour was lighter than pre-pandemic. But about three weeks ago, traffic in the south bay (specifically 280N from 85 to 101) has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

However, just last week I drove home from SF to Cupertino at 5pm and did it in 54 minutes (which is basically $min_time). Pre-pandemic that drive would have been 90+ minutes.

I also have the feeling (not SF) that traffic has returned to pre pandemic levels, but rush hour is much less severe. Probably because people also sometimes spend half days at the office or travel for leisure instead of work (e.g. leaving on a Thursday and working Friday remotely from a vacation home).

Boston too is switching some lines permanently onto weekend schedules with less frequent trains

Which ones? Personally curious.

Red, Orange, and Blue apparently. https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/17/mbta-to-cut-weekday-tra...

Anecdotally, I've gone into Boston a few times this year. My observation when I've driven in was that rush hour traffic was as bad as ever. But both the commuter rail and the subway were significantly less crowded than I would have expected.

Of course, schedule cutbacks make public transit less appealing. The commuter rail I usually take if going in for a weekday cut all the express trains and seemingly spaced the trains generally in a less commuter-centric schedule so it's less attractive than it used to be at the margins.

The MBTA did so because the FRA ordered them to after multiple incidents, including at least one death.

They haven't been hiring dispatchers, and overworking the ones they do.

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