As the article states, the reason why BART is so heavily impacted is because it was mostly designed as commuter rail. BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue. While peak-hour (morning and evening commute) ridership is catching up again (BART publishes numbers so you can check the work here), usage outside of peak hours is at an all-time low because of the increase of WFH jobs. Since the rail alignment of BART can't be changed now, we'll probably settle on a new normal with BART.
BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding.
I'm not 100% on my reasoning, so I welcome alternate explanations. I suspect that a lot of part-time or odd-hour positions were most impacted by WFH. I'm guessing many of these have gone remote. Moreover, headway was cut back during the pandemic so folks who absolutely had to go into their positions may have invested in a car and don't feel the need to get back on transit because traffic off-peak is not too bad.
I was wondering the same. Perhaps peak is all about people on fixed schedules like shop assistants amd the like, whereas those jobs that have switched to WFH Havre far mow flexible hours and many were using that flexibility was to avoid peak hours?
BART used to be so busy that people getting on in downtown stations would back-track to Civic Center/The Mission to actually get a seat across the bay.
A similar amount of behavior existed of people doing anything to avoid a peak hour BART train.
Now, if you're commuting in, the best times are during rush.
BART numbers will always seem insanely low vs. pre-pandemic because they were unsustainable high back then.
When I looked recently, Boston was still at just over 50% of pre-COVID transit utilization though some commuter rail and subway lines were a bit better--and bus lines were a bit better yet. Anecdotally traffic at rush hour is at least as bad as ever so it at least appears that some people switched back to (or started) driving who hadn't before.
Boston has had some well-publicized transit issues due to long-delayed transit maintenance but, at least short- to mid-term, it's lost a bunch pre-COVID commuting which has switched to driving.
> BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding.
Any source for that?
For BART numbers:
1. Is it traffic across the bay?
2. Or total traffic?
Edit: Digging up some data, I think it is #2, which seems a weird number to use.
BART total per day: ~400k
Bay Bridge per day: ~200k
>BART is unique in that historically it paid most of its costs in farebox revenue.
Because it's expensive as hell, and the only sane option for commuting into the city during rush hour. A $10 round trip to go 5 miles from the east bay to downtown is absolutely crazy. Easily double the price of any other metro in the US.
Not if you compare to commuter rail. I'm further out but if you look at commuter rail parking, the train itself, and subway if I need to take it, I'm $35 to commute into Boston for the day. (If I do it every day, the pass is a bit cheaper.)
Yes, if I don't need to park at the subway and don't need to take commuter rail, it's about $5 but that's not really the norm for a lot of people coming in from the suburbs.
I like when people complain about metro fares. What would the equivalent cost (and speed!) of driving be? Remember that you will need to pay for parking. The answer: Much more than 10 USD, and much longer than BART.
Also, I checked the fare between Powell Station and 12th / Oakland, it is 3.85 USD one way. So, 7.70 USD round trip. Crossing the bay twice at 100 km/h is pretty cheap at that price.
Compared to the cost of driving that five miles, parking, tolls, etc that's not that expensive. If you're taking BART to work and back every work day that's $200 a month. The Bay Bridge toll is $7 IIRC. Then you've got to find parking in downtown SF. Street parking is a crap shoot in 1) finding a spot and 2) not having your car vandalized any given day and a paid lot of space is likely to put you over the $10 round trip BART cost.
San Francisco seemingly hates car commuters and just about every aspect of the city demonstrates that fact. Commuting on BART for work is downright cheap compared to driving.
> BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding.
How much does BART cost per year (or per decade) vs the Bay Bridge?
A huge advantage of roads vs public transit is you don't need staff. (Maintenence is needed on both, but even then I suspect roads are cheaper to maintain.)
This is actually a fun one to point to. Replacing the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge happened recently, and has been one of the most expensive Californian infrastructure projects to date. It started with a price tag of $250 mil but it ended up costing $6.5 bil. In the meantime, BART has performed modifications on their tracks and has begun switching to new rolling stock, but it's been a lot cheaper than replacing the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge.
Uh, the other (correct) way to look at it is the Bay Bridge requires a staff of 1000 people to move 1000 people across the Bay. Just because you externalize the costs doesn't mean you eliminated them.
In my social circle there is a perception that the BART is increasingly unsafe and some people who previously used the BART to commute from East Bay to SF are now driving.
Their perception seems to be born out by the data:
From the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department [1]
Aggravated Assault (2019): 112
Aggravated Assault (2022): 114
Relative increase (2019 -> 2022) adjusted for ridership:
This follows a general trend of roads becoming unsafer since COVID.
Traffic Fatalities in CA:
2019 -> 2020: +3.4%
2020 -> 2021: +7.6%
Unclear about 2021 -> 2022, I'd have to run the SWITRS data myself. Keep in mind these are just fatalities. I'm guessing crash data will show an even larger effect.
Is it possible that the amount of assault is relatively unrelated to total ridership? Like the number of criminal assholes in the community is about the same regardless of how many people use mass transit?
I suspect so. I think in large part (but not all) the perception that San Francisco has gotten more unsafe since the pandemic is because our horrific social problems are now even more visible with fewer crowds around.
I suspect this is exactly the phenomena in action. You've got a relatively constant-sized population of deranged individuals who ride the trains a lot. When there's a lot of people on the train, they disappear into t.
The core problem is assholes on the trains. People stopped riding because there’s either someone dangerous, someone crazy, or someone tweaked out. Literally on every Bart car, probably 2/3 of the time I ride. I end up using the Bart watch app to report this stuff every other time I ride.
One guy tried to light a seat in fire. Another tailgated me through the gates and proceeded to push past me. Another was slumped over in a wheelchair (someone called 911 in that case).
To their credit, the cops on the other end of the Bart watch app respond to almost everything submitted. They don’t have enough officers though to cover the whole system.
How do you fix it? Add more cops. No ticket, no ride. Two cops on every train. One at every other station. Arrest anyone who is there without a ticket more than once. Arrest anyone jumping the gates. Enough with the nonsense.
I agree, it goes beyond danger which I see some people debating elsewhere in the thread. A tweaker might not be dangerous to me but I still won't enjoy being stuck in a tin can with him. Societies generally try to police antisocial behavior for a reason, but I guess some people think anything short of actually violent behavior should be tolerated. And "it's a city" shouldn't be an excuse.
Cops are expensive. You can run a bus line all day for the cost of 3 officers. If you want cops everywhere, aside from the fact that the HN demographic is much more open to this than lower income folks, you're gonna have to deal with a much more expensive transit system which will cost taxpayers more.
The disconnect is frustrating though. Middle and low income people do not trust the police. Don't believe me? Just listen in on any public meeting. Multiple community members and community groups call in to talk about how much they hate the police. Nobody calls in about how much they were helped by the police, unless they live in a wealthy district.
So what. The Bay Area is one of the most economically productive places on the planet. Tax payers are more than capable of handling it.
The public transit system is frankly an embarrassment across the country. If Morocco can have bullet trains, the Bay Area can have a safe, smooth intercity transit system.
A lot more of the lower income segment is more pro-cop than higher income segments. Those individuals may not trust the police, but they still typically prefer their presence to a lack of it.
Roads are similarly unpoliced -- but the lack of enforcement mostly harms vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists rather than the people driving. This creates a cycle where driving is increasingly the only safe option.
I can corroborate this experience. Last time I rode BART, someone lit up a joint while we were in the airtight car under the waters of the San Francisco Bay. The time before that, I had a crazy guy screaming the whole ride.
The San Diego Trolley used (haven’t been there in 20 years) to be crawling with cops; you’d be hard pressed to do a longish ride without seeing at least one.and they responded fast.
The latter being important; if you see a situation, report it, and see it handled it fades away as a memory; if each time you see it it never gets resolved and you just leave, it stays as a bad memory.
I've ridden BART sometimes recently, and they are much more aggressive about requiring tickets and making freeloaders exit now. Feels like they're cracking down.
I haven't had an unsafe experience yet, while I have been attempted carjacking. Granted that was at midnight, a time I wouldn't try to ride BART. And I would probably avoid most stations at night, especially Civic Center anytime.
I'm one who lives in the east bay (oakland/emeryville area) and don't use BART anymore because I'm WFH now.
I also choose to drive into the city on weekends and off commute hours because the BART always has sketchy people, homeless, some weirdo moving up and down the carts and there's never enough people in the off hours to make it feel safe and worth it.
It's a bummer because I'm down the street from Macarthur and would love to take it more often but I always have to be on guard which is not the travel experience I need in my life right now.
I don't think this is unique to BART. My local news regularly highlights what an S-hole our subway system is. It has become a good place for the homeless to spend their day and no one has found a satisfactory fix for now. Right now you only ride the Subway if you absolutely don't have an alternative.
Low ridership feeds on itself since low ridership leads to even less ridership and the accompanied decrease in the budget to run it.
I'm in DC today, come here regularly for business but live in the bay area, moved into bay area in August 2020. Can't imagine DC without the metro and heard just today they actually fixed the new cars during the pandemic, so net win here. Even before the pandemic the BART helped convince me to not live in the City.
I think the analysis here tends a bit pessimistic. Bart just had its biggest day in years at Pride and its recovery is in line with the other agencies in the bay. If you're a fan of BART, I'd also like to invite you to the premiere of my movie about BART, playing at July 18th, 630pm at the Roxie. Here's a trailer: https://youtu.be/7eH3FfIGp8w, and you can grab tickets at https://roxie.com/film/tunnel-vision.
London Underground has reached over 90% of pre-pandemic passenger numbers as of April 2023 [1], and Transport for London expects to achieve an operating surplus in 2023-24.
Notably, while peak-time commuter travel is still down on pre-pandemic levels, weekend passenger numbers on some routes has hit new all-time records.
I live in Oakland and am frightened of taking BART after hearing many horror stories from friends. If I, a healthy man in his 20s, am afraid to take BART, imagine how intimidating it must be for women and the elderly.
I live here and take BART all the time. My partner has some car crash trauma so unless I'm driving, she's using transit to get around and she generally feels safe. It can get sketchy at night on the weekdays but otherwise neither of us have had problems on BART.
FWIW people complain about sketchy people and odd comments on BART, but I've also been followed by a driver I merged in front of who circled the block, cut me off, tried to follow me home, then flashed a knife on me and threatened to shank me. Last year someone got mad at me on the freeway then brake checked me at an exit. People run reds here all the time too, which is scary on both car, bike, and foot. As long as I use BART before 11 PM on weekdays I never really feel more unnsafe than I do when driving, but I also am not the type that likes to live away from people. I enjoy cities.
Why is there so much rage there? I can't understand how anyone has the spare time (and willingness to needlessly burn fuel) over petty traffic incidents like that.
Ok but this is not the reason. People don’t ride BART because half of working professionals now work at home and don’t need it. You can clearly see this in the fact that weekend BART riders is most of the way back to pre-COVID levels. Riders are not afraid of the system. It just doesn’t serve their weekday needs right now.
By the way freeway shootings in the Bay Area tripled to more than one every day and plenty of people still use the freeway.
I road BART on Tuesday and it wasn't scary. You repeating what you heard might just create an echo chamber that amplifies something that isn't true and gets other people to believe it.
Counter anecdata, I rode Bart last night from 16th mission at ~9PM. First I waited 45mins for a train, then all the available seats on that car were covered in piles of trash, and panhandlers hassled the elderly couple next to me.
I think BART is generally tolerable, but you're dismissing how obviously fucking terrible the BART experience can be and regularly is. A lot of people aren't willing to deal with that roulette, nor should they have to. Other transit systems aren't this bad.
That's true. Even if I intellectualize a trip on BART as risk-free, it's still anxiety inducing and involves inconvenience I would volunteer to avoid if I had a car.
I took BART the other day to go watch the As v Yankees (missed the perfect game yesterday by one day god damn it). Anyway, it was safe both ways and quite pleasant.
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BART along the same alignment still moves 2x more people than the Bay Bridge does though, which is something to remember as non-users of BART clamor for its defunding.
You state that peak (commute) traffic is recovering but off-peak is still low, due to WFH?
Wouldn’t WFH be impacting peak hours, with off-peak at all-time-low due to other things like leisure travel?
A similar amount of behavior existed of people doing anything to avoid a peak hour BART train.
Now, if you're commuting in, the best times are during rush.
BART numbers will always seem insanely low vs. pre-pandemic because they were unsustainable high back then.
Boston has had some well-publicized transit issues due to long-delayed transit maintenance but, at least short- to mid-term, it's lost a bunch pre-COVID commuting which has switched to driving.
Any source for that?
For BART numbers:
1. Is it traffic across the bay?
2. Or total traffic?
Edit: Digging up some data, I think it is #2, which seems a weird number to use.
BART total per day: ~400k Bay Bridge per day: ~200k
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco–Oakland_Bay_Brid...
https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/June18FactShee...
Because it's expensive as hell, and the only sane option for commuting into the city during rush hour. A $10 round trip to go 5 miles from the east bay to downtown is absolutely crazy. Easily double the price of any other metro in the US.
Yes, if I don't need to park at the subway and don't need to take commuter rail, it's about $5 but that's not really the norm for a lot of people coming in from the suburbs.
Also, I checked the fare between Powell Station and 12th / Oakland, it is 3.85 USD one way. So, 7.70 USD round trip. Crossing the bay twice at 100 km/h is pretty cheap at that price.
San Francisco seemingly hates car commuters and just about every aspect of the city demonstrates that fact. Commuting on BART for work is downright cheap compared to driving.
How much does BART cost per year (or per decade) vs the Bay Bridge?
A huge advantage of roads vs public transit is you don't need staff. (Maintenence is needed on both, but even then I suspect roads are cheaper to maintain.)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/visuals/bay-bridge...
The BART has to pay for everything out of fares and sundry. The highway authority just has to build and maintain the road not the vehicles.
Their perception seems to be born out by the data:
From the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department [1]
Aggravated Assault (2019): 112
Aggravated Assault (2022): 114
Relative increase (2019 -> 2022) adjusted for ridership:
114/112/0.3 = 3.39x
[1] https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2023-01%20Mont...
Traffic Fatalities in CA:
2019 -> 2020: +3.4%
2020 -> 2021: +7.6%
Unclear about 2021 -> 2022, I'd have to run the SWITRS data myself. Keep in mind these are just fatalities. I'm guessing crash data will show an even larger effect.
Source: https://www.ots.ca.gov/ots-and-traffic-safety/score-card/ and other OTS resources.
One guy tried to light a seat in fire. Another tailgated me through the gates and proceeded to push past me. Another was slumped over in a wheelchair (someone called 911 in that case).
To their credit, the cops on the other end of the Bart watch app respond to almost everything submitted. They don’t have enough officers though to cover the whole system.
How do you fix it? Add more cops. No ticket, no ride. Two cops on every train. One at every other station. Arrest anyone who is there without a ticket more than once. Arrest anyone jumping the gates. Enough with the nonsense.
The disconnect is frustrating though. Middle and low income people do not trust the police. Don't believe me? Just listen in on any public meeting. Multiple community members and community groups call in to talk about how much they hate the police. Nobody calls in about how much they were helped by the police, unless they live in a wealthy district.
The public transit system is frankly an embarrassment across the country. If Morocco can have bullet trains, the Bay Area can have a safe, smooth intercity transit system.
The latter being important; if you see a situation, report it, and see it handled it fades away as a memory; if each time you see it it never gets resolved and you just leave, it stays as a bad memory.
I've ridden BART sometimes recently, and they are much more aggressive about requiring tickets and making freeloaders exit now. Feels like they're cracking down.
I haven't had an unsafe experience yet, while I have been attempted carjacking. Granted that was at midnight, a time I wouldn't try to ride BART. And I would probably avoid most stations at night, especially Civic Center anytime.
that will never ever happen.
I remember 15 years ago reading about how much BART police get paid, was supposed to be way up there to the point people got upset about it
See a crazy person? Cross the street. Notice every ride on BART is dangerous? Don’t use BART.
Simple pattern matching can save your life.
Deleted Comment
I also choose to drive into the city on weekends and off commute hours because the BART always has sketchy people, homeless, some weirdo moving up and down the carts and there's never enough people in the off hours to make it feel safe and worth it.
It's a bummer because I'm down the street from Macarthur and would love to take it more often but I always have to be on guard which is not the travel experience I need in my life right now.
Low ridership feeds on itself since low ridership leads to even less ridership and the accompanied decrease in the budget to run it.
We have the added shitshow of being a metro system spanning three different states. No one wants to pay, no one feels responsible; it's a mess.
Notably, while peak-time commuter travel is still down on pre-pandemic levels, weekend passenger numbers on some routes has hit new all-time records.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65821633
FWIW people complain about sketchy people and odd comments on BART, but I've also been followed by a driver I merged in front of who circled the block, cut me off, tried to follow me home, then flashed a knife on me and threatened to shank me. Last year someone got mad at me on the freeway then brake checked me at an exit. People run reds here all the time too, which is scary on both car, bike, and foot. As long as I use BART before 11 PM on weekdays I never really feel more unnsafe than I do when driving, but I also am not the type that likes to live away from people. I enjoy cities.
By the way freeway shootings in the Bay Area tripled to more than one every day and plenty of people still use the freeway.
Dead Comment
I think BART is generally tolerable, but you're dismissing how obviously fucking terrible the BART experience can be and regularly is. A lot of people aren't willing to deal with that roulette, nor should they have to. Other transit systems aren't this bad.
Embarcadero <-> Coliseum both ways.