Between this, the new BART cars (also much quieter!), and Muni hitting a reliability & satisfaction records, there’s really a transit renaissance going on in the Bay Area. I really hope we can keep this going!
Fun fact: BART police has a large fleet of SUVs, with the highest vehicle-to-officer ratio in the bay area (if only there were some other way for them to get around!)
Fun exercise: compare the cleanliness of a Muni Bus/LRV to a BART car (even a new one at the start of the day). There is a huge difference.
why does a transit system need its own police force? Aren't municipal and county police enough?
Having people who have jurisdiction in any bart station is useful. And for example, consistent foot patrols are valuable to BART but not necessarily valuable to the city of Hayward, or whatever. As a concrete example, BART has more or less a goal to be able to put an officer on the car within a stop or two if you report on the app. That's logistically challenging for like a half dozen reasons if the bart police wasn't it's own org.
You would think that the counties could get together and work out an MoU.
1. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
Transit police, campus police, DEA, ATF, etc, etc, etc. Their entire job is to harass people that the equivalent generalist police couldn't justify allocating resources toward.
Irate homeless? SFPD won't show, but BART Police will.
Drunk college kids shenanigans? Normal cops don't care, but campus police does.
Weirdos making machine guns or huge amounts of LSD? FBI don't care as long as you're not trafficking, they got real crime with real victims to chase. ATF and DEA care though.
Wash rinse repeat this pattern for literally every bespoke police agency.
Yeah, jurisdiction can be a theoretical reason for these agencies but once again it's still a priority thing. When agencies care jurisdiction and coordination isn't a problem. Having one agency span multiple only helps if you're chasing stuff so petty it would get dropped.
I hate Reddit but having both in one image is really convenient.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/x2d7v7/num...
Two of the biggest are Canadian National Police and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Police -- and those two are deputized, in both Canada and the US, with Federal, State and Provincial police powers. Despite being railway employees they can cite you for, e.g. speeding if they catch you doing so. Either on or off railway property.
An example of how it goes wrong is NYC. NYPD absorbed the transit police years ago and the role basically degraded to an overtime sink.
Also, with normal railways rails generate property taxes and towns often make deals where slivers of tracks get annexed to nearby towns or cities.
The firm that reupholstered damaged BART seats in the ‘80s paid people to slash them so they’d get more business.
It was estimated that "possibly 85 percent of the more than 7,000 BART train cushions damaged since August 1979" was the work of this company, the Examiner reported at the time.
All said and done, BART had paid the company $115,000 for the repairs, a total of about $339,128 in today's money.
Charlie Chaplin did it first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izqhtBPd4VQ
I also agree that the governance structure for BART is weird and overly complex. Why do I elect a BART director? Why are they in their own special BART districts completely discontinuous from the 10 other ways we have sliced up the Bay Area?
All that being said, BART has done some good stuff too. The new cars really are way better, and they were not easy to procure since BART has its own weird, non-standard rail gauge. They have increased frequency and shortened trains on weekends to respond to the ridership changes.
Most of all, BART remains the only form of Bay Area transit genuinely faster than driving in real-world circumstances: it averages above 60mph in parts of the east bay, and goes from downtown Oakland to downtown SF in 11min, which is often 2-3x faster than driving. It's the primary transit system that can compete head-to-head with driving. For that reason, I do hope they keep increasing frequency (shortening trains if necessary).
(Also, while I am biased towards Caltrain, the new trains beat traffic on 101/280 San Francisco↔San Jose during rush hour).
There should be no elected school board, transit districts, utility boards, assessors, sheriff, and so much more. No one is properly informed about candidates for these positions.
For that matter, the Board of Supervisors should have no power other than oversight and impeachment. The Mayor should basically be a local dictator, with the power to do anything the State authorizes the municipality to do, at their sole discretion, with the oversight of an elected board.
Instead it removes accountability from public servants who can simply hide behind the “elected” excuse.
I don't think the gauge is a major problem. Train orders are always a custom project, few urban networks use exactly the same standards. Railroad manufacturers are used to different gauges.
In that case blocking the road and dropping in a new road bridge was affordable given the economic value but generally you put up with what you've got.
In practice I am not convinced the BART is severely impacted by their "weird" gauge (whatever is meant by that, not sure what their loading gauge is, for passenger trains the distance to and height of the platforms would be most relevant).
Stadler KISS series used by Caltrain is built at least in 3 different widths.
Auckland, NZ had (not sure whether still in use) rolling stock from the UK, converted from 1435 mm to 1067 mm track gauge, the loading gauge obviously was close enough.
Finland has engines (Sr3, Dr20) and railcars (Dm12) designed for smaller central European loading gauges. They look a bit tiny compared to other stock, but they are fully usable.
BART and Muni were great. My only complaint was that BART from downtown to SFO was almost painfully loud.
There are 30% more violent assaults on BART vs Muni.
> if only there were some other way for them to get around!
Do you want them to respond rapidly or eventually?
If anything that statistic you cited shows that their existing policies are not a deterrent. Perhaps because they are in their vehicles instead of on train cars where the crimes are happening.
So you're sure you can create a deployment plan that will have the correct amount of officers on station at all times? What if they need backup? What if two incidents happen at once?
> their existing policies are not a deterrent.
I'm sure their vehicle strategy has little to do with deterrence. Or are you suggesting this is the _reason_ why there is more crime?
> instead of on train cars where the crimes are happening.
Crimes also happen on the platform, the turnstiles, and the curtilage. I get that people want to be "mad the vehicles exist" but this is not sensible.
That said, there are lots of other stops in the area that are either overrun with parking, like you said, or are one story business districts with no housing. Lots left to do.
I suspect the problem might be mismatched incentives. ISTR reading that some East Asian transit companies own and develop the parcels on and around their stations, which provides funding and drives ridership.
That station (the Google Office MIT/Kendall one I'm assuming) was part of the larger redevelopment that happened in Kendall Square over the last 40 years which displaced a significant portion of Cambridge residents due to eh flawed 1949 Urban Redevelopment Act (the same one James Baldwin historically opposed).
Just go one stop inbound (MGH) or outbound (Central) and that level of synergy goes away.
A lot of this is because the T is just straight up old. Most of the stations are at least a century old if not older and it would take an inordinate amount of money to rebuild stations in a more modern manner.
> I suspect the problem might be mismatched incentives
The Asian as well as the more recent North American metro systems like BART or DC Metro are much newer (built or rebuilt in the last 50-70 years) and were thus able to include that public-private mixture.
I think the Bay Area suburbs are also egregious - e.g. North Berkeley BART station is surrounded by single family homes, even though it's 25min from downtown SF by train.
If they can electrify the San Jose to Gilroy segment that will be even better.
Not that electric isn't a huge step up for all the usual reasons but most of that is just because it's new and hasn't been worn out yet.
The Stadler KISS units are so much faster because they're EMU's (Electric Multiple Units), that is most of the wheels in a 7-car consist are powered with their own traction motors. An F40PH makes 3000 hp (2200 kW) while a Caltrain 7-car KISS consist can put out 9400 hp (7000 kW) continuous and about 50% more than that in short duration overload mode for starting. That's the reason it accelerates so much faster.
Traditional locomotive trains are completely obsolete in any sort of commuter service with frequent stops, there's just no way for them to keep up with EMU's or even DMU's. You can't solve it by just putting bigger engines on the locomotives, you wouldn't have enough weight on the wheels to make sufficient tractive effort.
So California, one of the forerunners in the US, seems to be roughly 90 years behind. Depends on your age whether you'll be able to enjoy a quiet train trip during your lifetime. </sarcasm>
Even today it’s not uncommon to de-electrify lower-volume rights of way.
They need to turn every road or pedestrian crossing into an underpass or overpass, or eliminate it. They've started on this process, but it will take many years.
The lights and barriers are assumed to be sufficient. Within cities, there may well be CCTV cameras (pointing only at the crossing) so the signal controllers can check the crossing is clear.
More video than you could possibly want:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hidjpkqJ0-Y
(I think the honk in the first one is the train driver recognizing the person filming? It's far too late to be for safety.)
The requirements for a no-signal crossing is essentially a pedestrian gate. The quote the city has for each crossing was if I remember right 1.5 million usd. And you’d need to replace many of them. The city doesn’t want to prioritize that much money. (FWIW I agree)
The worst thing is we have under utilized tracks going all over the region and no commuter train service. Even with the rail expansion prior to the Olympics (I’m near Los Angeles), the commuter rail is only being extended to the northern most edge of the city.
Neighbors have been fighting against commuter rail every step of the way. I’ll say attending local govt and rail proposal meetings is at once interesting, impressive at what some groups are trying to achieve and disturbing at the lengths people go to prevent change.
I get that there's improvement but like it's still rather pathetic compared to almost everywhere else across the pond.
More to the point, I've been favorably impressed with the transit options since moving here, and in terms of reliability it's been better than NYC, though obviously there are fewer trains/branches.
I'd love to see BART open later, like NYC, but even Tokyo trains stop at midnight.
Not being negative. Being realistic. It's unfortunate that being realistic often is negative. Transit here is garbage. You either luck out and live and work near transit or you're like most people and have to drive.
A couple million in energy savings doesn't mean anything compared to the amount wasted by cars.
At current population density all of our lives would improve if a network as dense as the tokyo metro appeared in the bay area over night.
It's probably not worth arguing about too much, because ultimately I agree with you that there's a lot more to be done to reduce car ridership. But pointing at those places and saying "copy them" misses a lot of structural differences.
[1] https://mta.info/about [2] https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0056b6a98b8b4a48869f822...
(Transit oriented upzoning, no parking minimums, and businesses in the station building.)
The Bay area (people) want top of the line transit, all of California wants it. It's similar to how Ethiopia wants to get out of poverty. Both places can't get what they want for similar reasons: incapability.
Take a look at the high speed rail. Probably won't finish in both of our lifetimes. People want that thing, what's stopping it from happening is incompetence.
Sure, everyone wants an easy commute where the train picks them up in front of their house and drops them off at the office, but they also want their house with yard in Walnut Creek. Or lacking that, their single family house in the Sunset.
Sure some people would be happy in a high density city, but do enough people want it to make it worth building? As dense as downtown San Francisco is, it's still a long commute to the Easy Bay or Peninsula from the Sunset or Richmond. Driving is usually faster and more convenient.
The reason we don't build more density isn't lack of demand (see: the price of rent), it is entirely political.
Much of my midwest family is that way - they couldn't believe how tiny my "city" apartment was that wasn't even in the city, it was a 1600 sq ft townhouse that was a 40 minute commute from city center.
It's going to take decades (or some catastrophic disaster) to get Americans to change that mindset and give up low density living.
>It's going to take decades (or some catastrophic disaster) to get Americans to change that mindset and give up low density living.
Bro, that catastrophic disaster is called global warming. And you can see the effects of global warming in the weather in the US. There have already been entire cultures and peoples uprooted from where they live because of rising sea levels. The luxuries we enjoyed living in cities designed for cars is bought and paid for with our future.
I'm sure San Francisco would love to have more billion dollar high density buildings, but can a developer sell enough million dollar condos to pay for them? Is there any evidence that it's zoning that's keeping more residentials towers from being built in downtown SF?
>Bro, that catastrophic disaster is called global warming
It's not a catastrophic disaster yet -- nearly all Americans sat at home in comfort watching the LA fires. People don't see a disaster if it doesn't affect them, then it's just a tragedy.
It is zoning that is stopping high density from going up. The house owners are stopping it. You. When you remove those restrictions you get tons of projects wanting to execute on that.
Look up builders remedy.
In the Bay Area, examples of "Builder's Remedy" projects include proposed developments in cities like Mountain View, Menlo Park, Saratoga, and Los Gatos, where developers leverage the state law to build high-density housing projects in areas previously resistant to new development, often by proposing large apartment complexes or mixed-use developments on sites zoned for lower density housing, particularly in affluent communities that haven't met state housing mandates; notable examples include a 200-unit project at 1920 Gamel Way in Mountain View and a large development at the Mountain Winery near Saratoga, which could include a hotel alongside residential units, all while utilizing the "Builder's Remedy" to bypass local zoning restrictions due to the inclusion of a significant portion of affordable housing within the project. Key points about Bay Area Builder's
Targeted areas:
Developers often target affluent cities like Menlo Park, Los Gatos, and parts of Santa Clara County, where housing needs are high but local resistance to new development is strong.
High-density development:
These projects often propose significantly denser housing than what is typically allowed under local zoning, including multi-story apartment buildings. Affordable housing inclusion: To qualify for "Builder's Remedy," developers must include a substantial percentage of affordable housing units within the project.
Local opposition:
While intended to address housing shortages, these projects often face significant local opposition from residents concerned about increased density and potential impacts on their neighborhoods. These are rich house owners who own a home and they are the 15% who oppose the 85 percent who don’t. It’s class warfare.
LA is your front doorstep and I lived in LA about two miles from the border of the fire.
Yeah watch from the comfort of your own home. Give it some more time and one day people will be watching you from the comfort of their own home.
Zoning rules are the evidence. Eliminate the zoning rules and let the market sort it out. No? Why not, are you afraid the "character" will change immediately?
You can have both. Tokyo is twice the size of the bay area. Density isn't the issue. It's incompetence.
Hence the term BOTH <3 things && metro>
My brother in law moved from Tokyo to where he could buy a house and yard in Chiba Japan, it's around 900 sq ft with a "yard" that's smaller than the deck on the back of my house. And it's still a 20 minute bike ride + 90 minute train ride to his job in Tokyo.
I don't know if you've been to many homes in Walnut creek, but a small attached house is not what people are moving out of the city for - if that's what they wanted, they could just move to the avenues and stay in SF
I don't think I'm overstating when I say that American style suburbs with large lots and large homes are not conducive effective public transit.
Public transit in Tokyo is largely underground. Density is irrelevant. If you have high density or low density above ground, this factor is completely orthogonal to whatever you build Underground. Understand?
>I don't think I'm overstating when I say that American style suburbs with large lots and large homes are not conducive effective public transit.
You, in fact, didn't say ANYTHING related to this matter. You simply stated it's not conducive without mentioning why it's not conducive. I disagree. You can still build it because what's above ground has nothing to do with what's below ground.
The fact of the matter is, once you build this, barring zoning restrictions, the density should follow. Right now the bay area is a political battle ground where rich people effectively price out poor people with zoning restrictions. It's a class based war where a luxury you want is impacting the lives of people less fortunate than you.
If you let the bay grow naturally and fairly then people with your "wants" should move to the country side.
Suburbia is also not sustainable for the environment. It's why greenhouse gases per capita in the US is the worst in the world.
My argument is that it's economically infeasible, especially in the USA.
Extending Caltrain to downtown SF is estimated at $3B/mile, BART to San Jose is $780M/mile. You can't spend hundreds of millions of dollars building transit to a neighborhood with 100 homes. It's already hard to serve those neighborhoods with buses, since bus routes are either long and slow that wind through many neighborhoods, or they are vastly underutilized.
It’s economically feasible. We have the most powerful military in the world we have the highest gdp per capita in the world.
It’s economically feasible. When I say we are incapable of building mass transit I’m referring to every single type of incompetency in existence except for economic incompetency.
You change the zoning laws it will be utilized.
I didn't think it was necessary to specify "under normal economic constraints and not a thought experiment where we can spend unlimited money on transit". I forgot where I was. Lesson learned.
I’m baffled at how you think it’s not economically possible when it completely it is. How does Tokyo even exists if it’s not economically possible?? It’s possible it’s just we can’t do it due to incompetence.
Just look at the high speed rail in California. That is a framed picture of American incompetence.
The problem is that Bart network will barely get denser. At the rate they're building it, your great great great great great grandkids will live in a bay area where most people don't need to jump on a car to get to work.
We can do better. It's not magic. But we don't. And that is pathetic.
Doesn't help that we're at the end stages of a debt driven real estate/rent price spiral. That means acquiring land for mass transit is twice as expensive as it should be. Ditto labor costs.
Also, if you check out smaller cities in Japan they don't always have as good public transit.
Heck, even in Tokyo you can find neighborhoods where you still need to walk or maybe take a bus because train lines don't quite reach them.
Even Cupertino doesn't have a station ffs