In the words of a plugged-in tipster:
Apparently Mission Bay has a new transportation agency that is running a new free shuttle service to/from BART and Mission Bay. It’s the first I’ve heard of it and wasn’t even aware it existed until one of the new shuttles drove by my window earlier today. Not directly related to the real estate market, but could be related to the long term viability of Mission Bay.
The shuttle currently makes fantastic time down the Fourth Street corridor. And it all circles back to real estate. At least to those who are plugged-in.
∙ Mission Bay Shuttle Service Announcement | Map [missionbaytma.org]
∙ The Future Fourth Street And Envisoned Hub Of Mission Bay [SocketSite]
Wow this is great! Can I take this if I just want a free ride to Philz? Take that, Muni.
Let’s hope the actual shuttle is better than that “interactive map”.
private shuttles are the wave of the future
Public transit is a pig
That’s great that’s it’s timed with BART. Who’s paying for this shuttle service?
This basically is public transit – it was required by the City/Redevelopment agency in the development of MB.
Hard to complain about the cost.
Otherwise, hard to see the need for something that only runs during the week commute times. N and T get you to BART pretty quikly…
Is it trying to kill the Jitney Bus?
“Jitney runs during weekday peak hours only. It is a faster alternative to Muni. $ 2.00 cash fare for each ride. Change is provided.”
http://www.transitunlimited.org/Jitney
Yeah, actually the Jitney seems pretty good. I took it from Market to Cal Train one time and I was STUNNED that they gave me change for a $20.
“private shuttles are the wave of the future”
So long as commuters don’t need to buy multiple tickets from different transit vendors for each commute. Oh, wait…that’s the situation today in the bay area !
“Public transit is a pig”
In the bay area, yes, though it need not be a pig. Plenty of other metro areas have far better and cheaper transit. We’re just doing it wrong. The problem is us, not the concept of public transit.
Milkshake
I would argue that it can only function well in cites of old with land use patterns that grew up around walking and transit. Then you have a chance to operate your inefficient bloated transit ok.
What cities do you have in mind as the model?
For most of the US and the Bay Area private, employer or business district run and operated shuttles running to major heavy rail stations are the only good answer to our problems are dispersed land use patterns
Other nice thing is labor is really cheap compared to PT
Wow, zig, if you call The City an example of “dispersed land use patterns”, I’d hate to see what you’d call the simi valley area or the Riverside-San Bernardino area.
Robot bus drivers are the wave of the future.
do they know they can’t make a left on townsend going north on 4th?
zig – I agree that transit has more of an advantage in cities built up before the proliferation of automobiles, mainly because the options to accommodate cars were so expensive (though some cities basically destroyed big parts of their older cores to make room for cars). When you’re constrained with parking and street widths transit becomes the only realistic choice.
What I meant was that the bay area transit agencies don’t really work together. Each agency is its own fiefdom and has little incentive to integrate with other agencies. There are co-located rail stations where neither agency bothers to erect signage directing transferring passengers to each other’s platforms. And multi-agency journeys require multiple tickets, even for some short trips. Sure, we have translink, but that is a joke. Instead of a true unified fare system like London’s Oyster, translink is simply just an e-cash card. It has taken over a decade to roll out so far (and surely millions of dollars) yet it isn’t even fully deployed.
The problem is a combination of bad management and lack of political will. There’s no technical reason why we could not have a better system.
“Wow, zig, if you call The City an example of “dispersed land use patterns”, I’d hate to see what you’d call the simi valley area or the Riverside-San Bernardino area.”
I guess super dispersed. There is a reason that for the last few decades investments in transit in the Bay Area have done nothing for ridership. It couldn’t possibly work. It is literally pissing money away for nothing
Note I am speaking about the Bay Area and not the tiny city of San Francisco which makes up about 1/7 of it and had adequate transit
The Milkshake of Despair
I don’t disagree that there could be many improvements. The idea that people in the East Bay have heavy rail running through their backyards and can’t buy a unified pass to make unlimited rides within their zone (not as a intercity commuter) is asinine and anti-transit
Still there is a more fundamental issue IMO. It’s one of wasting most of the region’s transit money on BART stations in in suburds near poor land uses and the most inefficient lightrail in the nation (world?) the VTA and its gone on for decades. Ridership is not growing despite spending billions
Anyway this is beyond this tread.
In case you haven’t read this report I think you would find the following of interest.
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/AnnualReport-09/MTC_AR_2009_Final.pdf
“Since 1997, total transit costs have increased by 50%, … and ridership grew by only 7%”.
Zig, that report is quite depressing. The transit subsidy required for a Bay Area passenger vs. a Los Angeles passenger is an eye opener as well. The entire regional system is “not sustainable” if major changes are not made.
“The entire regional system is “not sustainable” if major changes are not made.”
Hmmm – could it be because BART’s next big project in the works is a two station(!) $3.5 billion extension to, wait for it…, Livermore? And on the other hand, there’s absolutely no talk about Geary rail, where that money would actually make a difference.
The Bay Area transportation cabal is run by people who think that light rail lines through thousands of acres of tech campus parking lots that are empty 2 days out of the week and operate at an ave speed of 25 mph makes sense. The only thing that will change this is $6.00 gas.
“U.C. Berkeley Grad student lies hurt and unconcious for 2.5 hours, later dies”.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/09/BAO01DBLLG.DTL
It will take more than $6 gas to get some to return to MUNI & BART in the Bay Area as long as it remains unsafe. The story of a student gasping for life at the Civic Center BART station while the so-called “unique, wealthy, educated, compassionate and politically aware” population of San Francisco passed him by without offering assistance is why many no longer use public transportation in the city, or even live in the city for that matter. A story like this in any other city would cause a civic uprising and media outrage, but here in San Francisco, it passes with minimal acknowledgement.
Justin, you have the story wrong. The young man was seen on a security camera at 3 a.m. waiting at the top of the escalator– the station was closed for the night. Then he was found at the bottom of the escalator at 5:30am. It is not known how and when he went from the top of the escalator to the bottom, and whether he fell or was pushed.
This is an unusual case that has little bearing on the safety of public transit. If one is trying to be safe based on this incident, perhaps one should avoid escalators.
There you go again. The car fetishists believe against all evidence that they are safer in their cars than on BART. And no amount of pesky “facts” will change their mind.
“This is an unusual case that has little bearing on the safety of public transit.”
Really? Where was the BART police? (on second thought, maybe that could be worse since they seem to shoot or taser first, and ask questions later). If BART and MUNI are so much safer than my private vehicle, explain how people have become used to passing other human beings laying on the ground in stations? Is it now a standard feature of San Francisco public transit to pass people laying motionless on station platforms, whether sick, drunk, sleeping or whatever, the whole zone of safety on public transit is brought down to an unacceptable level.
The most disgusting thing about this story was NOT how the student became injured, but how so many BART patrons could pass him without offering assistance.
We don’t know how many people walked by the man after his injury without helping (before someone did), because we don’t know when he was injured. He was discovered at 5:30am, about an hour after the station opened, but before most commuters at Civic Center station arrive there.
Given that the injury occurred just outside the station sometime between 3am and 5:30am, I would take away the lesson that those hours are not the safest to be outside alone in the Mid-Market area. Car drivers have been killed while walking to their cars in the middle of the night, and driving home at 3am after a night drinking at a bar or club has its dangers as well, so the dangers at that hour are not confined to transit commuters.
zig – I hear you on the use of transit funds to essentially encourage suburban sprawl. That really doesn’t make sense. What’s next ? BaRT to Tracy ? That would really reduce that grim backup on westbound 580 at 6am, but only for a decade or two while Tracy and Manteca inflate to their next level of bloat and clog the transportation links again.
Thanks for that MTC report link. One issue that seems to get glossed over is that transit agencies are charged with providing cheap transit to many members of our community : the poor, elderly, and disabled. In the case of the elderly and disabled extra resources are provided which increases the cost of transit while slowing service somewhat. And then there’s the paratransit service which is essentially a subsidized taxi service for those who cannot use the normal public transit services. I fully support the ADA driven policies because they provide transportation freedom to a group of people who would be shut-ins in other countries. Still we should recognize this burden loads the finances of transit agencies and realize that they are somewhat handicapped in the competition with automobile based transportation. The only concession that auto transport makes for the disabled is to designate some percentage of parking spots for disabled drivers.
You can get a really good idea of how large of a transportation subsidy is granted to these groups by riding the bus and watching how boarding riders pay for their fare. It is most pronounced in the non-SF counties of the bay area. There you will see that the majority of riders are paying a discount rate. Not only that the buses are usually almost empty. But the transit agencies must run their bus service otherwise the people who cannot afford to or are unable to drive would have no way to get around. Hence farebox recovery remains very low.
Outside of SF, bus riders are almost exclusively those who have no other option. This is in part because transit service is so poor and anyone who can avoid using it will. But the bigger factor is that we have such a highly subsidized, high quality automobile transit system and people know a bargain when they see it.
“And then there’s the paratransit service which is essentially a subsidized taxi service for those who cannot use the normal public transit services.”
Part of the problem in SF is that people who should be using the paratransit service don’t. Instead, they take the regular buses and then complain when Muni wants to remove stops and make lines more efficient because it will have a negative impact on their personal travel, even though it would make Muni as a system operate better. Meanwhile, paratransit would take them door-to-door instead of requiring them to walk to a Muni stop.
“Hmmm – could it be because BART’s next big project in the works is a two station(!) $3.5 billion extension to, wait for it…, Livermore? And on the other hand, there’s absolutely no talk about Geary rail, where that money would actually make a difference.”
It would certainly be nice to have BART on Geary, but you have to convince SFers to pay something for it. The suburban extensions happen for two reasons: 1) there are more people there, and 2) they are willing to kick in more money.
That said, it’s too bad San Mateo County dropped out, or else we may have had BART down Geary (and possibly continuing on to Marin) starting at Kearny-Montgomery Station, the East Bay line terminating on the upper level of the Market St Subway (now used by Muni) at Van Ness, and the San Mateo line starting on the lower level of the Market St Subway and going all the way to Palo Alto.
The most disgusting thing about this story was NOT how the student became injured, but how so many BART patrons could pass him without offering assistance.
Do you ask every person laying on the ground in SF if they are okay? Not to suggest that we shouldn’t…
In any case, bystander apathy is a very common phenomenon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
sfrenegade – paratransit is significantly more expansive ($3-7) than a regular bus ticket. And all paratransit riders also qualify for regular transit discounts (currently 75 cents), making the gap even larger.
I don’t see paratransit as a viable alternative to removed stops. Muni would quickly reestablish a stop if it caused more paratransit calls. If it weren’t for the ADA there would be no paratransit at all. It is the loss leader of loss leaders.
It would certainly be nice to have BART on Geary, but you have to convince SFers to pay something for it. The suburban extensions happen for two reasons: 1) there are more people there, and 2) they are willing to kick in more money.
Agreed with 1, but not with 2. The burbs certainly don’t kick in more per capita or tax themselves in any way on top of the normal BART tax (which is the same for all three counties).
Check again, anon @ 3:06PM. While it is true that the BART District tax is paying for some of the Livermore extension, some of it is coming from the local community too. I humbly suggest that San Francisco could do the same thing. Here is a description of the funding for Livermore BART:
http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=2974
Funding sources, according to BART Project Manager Malcolm Quint, would come from a variety of sources: $120 million that’s been identified by BART to preserve right-of-way, the Measure B sales tax, bridge tolls, the city of Livermore, Measure K funds from San Joaquin County, state and federal funding and public-private partnerships.
“sfrenegade – paratransit is significantly more expansive ($3-7) than a regular bus ticket. And all paratransit riders also qualify for regular transit discounts (currently 75 cents), making the gap even larger.”
No doubt, paratransit is more expensive than regular Muni service, but paratransit is also meant to cover a very small number of riders. Instead, Muni is trying to have it both ways and making the system less effective for 95%+ of riders by running the lines so inefficiently. Muni would be cheaper to operate and gain more ridership if it were more efficient. All of those extra stops slow everything down and require more runs (aka more drivers and buses) in order to compensate. There were reports that came out in the last year or so about this. Every time Muni tries to do something about it, the full force comes out against it.
“It would certainly be nice to have BART on Geary, but you have to convince SFers to pay something for it. The suburban extensions happen for two reasons: 1) there are more people there, and 2) they are willing to kick in more money.”
Sorry – I completely disagree with both these statements. I think the suburban extensions happen because BART management is insane.
The 38 itself carries 50,000 riders a day, more if you consider parallel lines. Livermore itself has only 84,000 people and even the stupidly inflated ridership levels they are projecting don’t even come close to the 38.
Regarding your second point, from your own list, it looks like most of the funding comes from sources other than taxes from the fine folks of Livermore. I guarantee that the people living along the Geary corridor have paid more in BART taxes over the last 40 years than Livermore ever has. The thing is 3.5 billion dollars. I would guess that BART taxes paid by Livermore over the last 40 years amounts to 1/20th of that.
Transit choices should be based upon actual need, relative value and appropriate service level, not on some perceived slight that a small town might feel. It’s moot anyhow, because if BART can’t come up with the money for SJ BART there’s zero chance for BART to Livermore. Eventually when eBART is built to Antioch for a more reasonable $500M, Livermore (and BART) will wise up and do the same.
I’m well aware that the 38-Geary and parallel lines may have ridership up to 100K per day. I agree with you that reviving the B-Geary would be a good extension of BART.
I don’t know how to calculate your assertion that people along Geary have paid more BART taxes than Livermore. It’s possible. But note that San Joaquin county is kicking in money too, and those people might commute in on Livermore BART. And Measure B is in Alameda County, so again, local money, as is Regional Measure 2 for bridge tolls. There are very few BART funds if that $120M is the only amount.
But I think the point still stands — if you can get SF to kick in money and if you can find the political will by getting the Geary merchants to agree to the line and the NIMBYs to agree to it too (when both groups have fought against it for years and years), BART will probably build it. And while they’re at it, kick in some of the $500M for 30th Mission station.
“if BART can’t come up with the money for SJ BART there’s zero chance for BART to Livermore”
I’m not sure if you read the literature on these BART extensions or not. SJ BART is largely funded by VTA in Santa Clara County. This is similar to the San Mateo County extension which was largely funded by SamTrans. I believe SamTrans also paid $200M to become part of the BART system, since San Mateo County isn’t part of BARTD. This is why San Mateo rides have a surcharge as well — it costs $2.90 between non-SFO stations in San Mateo County instead of $1.75 (and $6.90 to SFO) because of the surcharge. Daly City has a surcharge as well, which is why it costs $2.75 to go from Daly City to Balboa Park.
As for eBART in Contra Costa County, note that Contra Costa County has Measure J, and there’s also bridge toll money from Regional Measure 2, and more than half of the $502M comes from those two sources. See page 17:
http://www.bart.gov/about/bod/meetings/agendas/01-28-10%20agenda%20packet%202.pdf
People who pay and have the political will get BART.
“People who pay and have the political will get BART.”
I agree with you on political will, but pay is certainly a relative term. That’s why “SJ” BART only has money to go to Berreyessa. Sure it’s largely funded by VTA and VTA is broke. Your dollar figures say nothing about their inability to actually pay.
BTW, I live in Oakland and would use the SJ extension to go to work and the Geary extension to see parts of the City that I would normally just avoid. The point of what I’m saying is if every city or county acts like it’s own little fiefdom we’ll continue to have terrible transportation choices. I’m not saying Livermore doesn’t need some sort of rail, but full BART for that kind of money is simply insane, and political will or not – I don’t believe it will ever happen.
“I’m not saying Livermore doesn’t need some sort of rail…”
Livermore is served by rail : ACE http://acerail.com/ridingace/trainschedules.aspx
The speed and frequency of service is pathetic though.
“…every city or county acts like it’s own little fiefdom…”
Quite true. There’s no hard technical reason why we cannot have better transit. The hard issues are political. My guess on why the counties do not play well together is that in the past regional efforts have always benefited Oakland and environs disproportionally (and there are some technical reasons for this). Even the current MTC has their headquarters in Oakland.
Getting political support to expand freeways is easy because everyone experiences freeway congestion pain. Not so for transit improvements since the majority of bay area residents’ only experience on transit is a once-a-year ride to a Giants game, Bay to Breakers, or some other event that is difficult to reach by car.
“The point of what I’m saying is if every city or county acts like it’s own little fiefdom we’ll continue to have terrible transportation choices.”
I agree on that. The Bay Area has a ridiculous number of transit authorities that don’t coordinate nearly enough. To some extent, it’s understandable because the interests of one don’t necessarily intersect with the interests of another, but there’s no real overall strategy for the area either.
BTW, I live in Oakland and would use the SJ extension
The Capital Corridor train already goes to San Jose (connects with light rail at the Great America stop). In fact, it’s faster than BART will ever be. As an added plus, you can have a beer in the snack bar car on the way home.
Yes, The Capital Corridor trains are a deluxe ride. Not so deluxe however is the service frequency : 8 or so trains per day each direction. BaRT would be far more frequent.
And you know who manages Capitol Corridor?
Wait for it:
BART!
http://www.capitolcorridor.org/about_ccjpa/
I believe Capitol Corridor is one of the 4 or 5 busiest rail corridors in the country — after the Northeast Corridor, of course, the Pacific Surfliner, and I believe Acela. I forget the technical difference between the Northeast and Acela, but I think the Northeast has some spur routes, whereas Acela is just DC to Boston.
Just adding a few nuggets about BART extensions….
The BART east bay extensions (BART to Livermore and e-BART to Antioch)can be thought of as “legacy” project that have never really made any sense in transit terms. But ever since the BART district was born as a three county agency, extensions to the furthest corners of the district have been dangled as a carrot to keep local taxpayers and politicians happy. Folks out in east county were very jealous when the SFO extension jumped ahead, and have the same feelings about BART to San Jose. Their gripe is that “they’ve paid into the BART district for 30 years, and have gotten nothing”. That’s the politics in East County.
BART, more recently, has tried to temper these expectations by officially insisting that extensions need to make sense in the number of people they will serve, and “require” communities to upzone around stations to allow sufficient residential development. Partly in response to this, the latest Livermore plan takes BART to downtown Livermore (and then to a freeway intercept east of there) in order to both connect with ACE and serve the center of the community. This is all good…but at 3.5 billion the extension still doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.
e-BART in Eastern Contra Costa County is another expensive exercise in political pandering.
Both of these projects have county sales tax funding. However, San Francisco projects also have county sales tax funding, so it is definitely unfair to say that these east county projects have more local $ committment. They may, in fact, have less.
The Geary corridor is historically a BART planning corridor, but years and years ago it was decided that any project on it would actually be MUNI. BART would require tunnelling the entire way and would be horrifically expensive. Although an LRT extension was discussed for years, the current plan is for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). Although BRT will help, I personally still think that an LRT that went into tunnel between Cathedral Hill to Market Street is the only thing that will vastly improve the corridor. But we’ll see…
“Both of these projects have county sales tax funding. However, San Francisco projects also have county sales tax funding, so it is definitely unfair to say that these east county projects have more local $ committment. They may, in fact, have less.”
Well, you have to look at the funding sources. The point is that it’s not going to be just the BARTD tax that’s in play, and there has to be some additional money, whether state, federal, local, or regional thrown in for BART to kick in some money.
Is it definitively decided that BART will never finish the Post-Geary plan? I know that Muni was thinking about BRT on Geary, although that plan seems to be in continual flux, likely because of the NIMBYs and the NIMBY-merchants. It’d be sad if this was determined not-for-BART, because this would seem like the place that could most use an underground metro service in this city given the heavy potential ridership. BRT is a lame alternative and is just 38-Geary Redux. Ewww.
sfrenegade, BART hasn’t been discussed seriously for decades for the Geary Corridor. I’m not sure of the current BART policy, but many years ago the political understanding was that Geary remained a “BART corridor” (similar to Livermore or Antioch), but that BART would somehow contribute to a Muni system extension (at that time, presumedly light rail).
I don’t know what the funding plan for the proposed BRT system, and whether BART is contributing. But SF has decided that BRT is their current priority for improving service in the corridor.
Well, I know BART still technically owns the Muni Metro tunnels through Twin Peaks and leases the access to Muni. I can’t remember if BART also paid for construction up through West Portal, but had Muni operate the line. There are old BART plans that had BART sending a Twin Peaks line to Daly City via West Portal. In that plan, the then-planned Peninsula line would have been fed down Bayshore, similar to the T-Third with fewer stops:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4081268334/sizes/l/in/set-72157622518181915/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4007760726/sizes/l/in/set-72157622518181915/
There was a 1956 suggestion of BART down Columbus/Lombard to Marin instead of Geary, Muni down Geary, Muni on the T-Third corridor, Muni to Twin Peaks, and BART on Valencia and then-Alemany (now 280):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4185134869/in/set-72157622518181915/
This 1966 map appears to put Muni on Geary, but there was also a 1962 plan with BART on Geary even though I thought it had been nixed by then:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4408099420/sizes/l/in/set-72157622518181915/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4393335297/in/set-72157622518181915/
As you can tell, it’s not just BART’s transit plans that are all 50 years old and still not finished. San Francisco’s transit plans all date from this era as well, and you can see how long it took to build the T-Third.
curmudgeon, to your point of whether BART hasn’t been discussed seriously for decades on Geary, I thought there was some discussion of whether the 2nd Transbay Tube in BART’s 50-year plan would feed to a Geary Line, but I could be wrong on that.
curmudgeon: here’s the cite, an article from SFGate.com:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/22/MNGJQQJVSD1.DTL
It’s too bad the shuttle doesn’t go by the Financial District!!