How SF-Based Shuttle Startup Chariot Crowdsourced Its New Commuter Route | Hacker News Reader

How SF-Based Shuttle Startup Chariot Crowdsourced Its New Commuter Route

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22 pointsNimi11 comments

SF MUNI needs competition. Badly.

There was a time (ironically, I read this in the MUNI museum near the Ferry Building) when SF had multiple, competing services. They would compete with each other on getting people from the Ferry Building to (wherever) the fastest.

MUNI gets a good chunk of its funding from the City government; it averages around $1/ride. Services like Chariot (I have never used it, and don't know anyone who uses it either) should be able to get similar funding from the government, if they are providing local transportation. It's only fair.

We know how to make sf muni significantly faster and cheaper; it's just sf lacks the willpower to do so. Muni has the slowest route round-trip time of any major bus system, caused by the overabundance of bus stops. Recommendations from transport experts seem to be to get rid of 2/3 of bus stops. If this were to happen, bus speeds would increase leading to less need for buses and drivers.

   Your Muni is slow. With an average vehicle speed of 8.1 mph, it is far and 
   away the slowest major urban transit system in the nation. While some of 
   this can be blamed on San Francisco's congestion and density, there are 
   myriad methods of speeding up service other agencies have adopted that Muni 
   hasn't. This isn't just an inconvenience for Muni's declining ridership; 
   it's a major financial drain on a beleaguered system. Slow vehicle speeds 
   force Muni to spend more money to provide less service. Muni's lethargy is 
   literally costing it millions.
   
   For these and other reasons, Muni spends more to operate its vehicles than 
   virtually any comparable transit agency. For every mile Muni runs a bus in 
   this city, it spends $19.21; comparable agencies nationwide pay between $10 
   and $13. For every mile Muni runs a light-rail vehicle, it throws down 
   $24.37; comparable rail services spend between $12 and $22.

   http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-04-14/news/the-muni-death-spiral/

That said, services like chariot need no public funding; they're actively destructive to public transport. Amongst other things, public transport requires temporal and service area ubiquity in order to be effective, particularly when the city goal is transport first. Cherry picking high demand times / locations and withdrawing them from muni damages the system as a whole.

Scaling to meet peak demand is more expensive than merely meeting average demand, and when fares are heavily subsidized, peak demand doesn't pay for itself. And when every bus and train is standing room only, riders need more time at every stop to push their way to the doors. Relieving some of the peak demand should also make Muni faster and cheaper.

Generally speaking, municipal bus systems tend to have profitable routes and unprofitable routes. The subsidy is to run the unprofitable ones. Of course some commercial entity can come in and compete on the profitable ones, but that doesn't mean they should get a subsidy too unless they also run the unprofitable routes.

Drive-by downvoters: at least post a reply and explain which part of this you disagree with...

The larger problem is that Muni's quality of service is terrible on all of its routes. The buses are usually filthy, late, slow, vastly overcrowded, falling apart, and frequently contain dangerous and/or insane people.

If the bus system were better on any routes, there would be proportionately less need for private mass transportation.

Combine this with Muni's seeming inability to run enough trains and buses on high-demand routes, and inability to even operate what would be very profitable routes on high-demand corridors such as the Marina to downtown, and we have our situation today.

If these routes were profitable, the MUNI could run more buses on these routes and not need as much subsidies, right? Win-win for both: MUNI makes more money, and people get better transit.

Most of the riders who suffer daily on MUNI are monthly pass holders anyways, so the MUNI already has taken their money; there is no economic incentive for MUNI to provide better service.

San Francisco had many private bus lines until the 1970s. They were called "jitneys." The city made them illegal as Muni service continued to degrade, to shield Muni from competition.

It's unclear how Chariot is getting around San Francisco's anti-jitney regulations. My guess is they're just ignoring it and operating illegally.

"It's unclear how Chariot is getting around San Francisco's anti-jitney regulations."

From the article:

"... Vahabzadeh says it has received support from SF city Supervisors in neighborhoods that it currently serves."

Seems like they have at least some political support.

This seems likely. SF supervisors are innundated with citizen complaints about poor Muni service on a daily basis, and seem to be unable or unwilling to do anything about Muni itself.

Chariot is fantastic. I live in the Marina and work on Market. Taking the 30 sucks, period. As does Muni in general. I moved back to SF in September after being away. After a month and half of constantly being reminded just how often Muni failed, or was unreliable, I gave up and bought a bike.

Which was great, but there are PLENTY of days when it's either rainy, or cold, or I just don't feel like dealing with the bike. Chariot makes those days sooo much better than facing the 30 (or whatever I'd have to take if I were still working in SOMA.)

There's apparently so much of a market here (for a commuter service not as terrible as Muni) that another company, Loup, seems to be completely cloning what Chariot is doing, complete with having people go up and directly try and steal customers while they are waiting at Chariot's stops.

...services like Chariot could end up funneling away revenues that would have otherwise gone to public transportation services. At a time when only 30 percent of public transportation funding comes from passenger receipts, squeezing those funds even further could have a significant impact on those services.

That logic is backwards. If 90% of funding came from riders, then reducing ridership would be a real threat to the system. Since only 30% comes from riders, the implication is that even if ridership went to zero they could probably keep something going.

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