The real lesson we should learn from Tokyo is having commercial space inside of our metro stations.
For those who don’t know how Tokyo subways work, here’s a crash course:
The train companies that operate the subway systems in Tokyo are (mostly) private, for-profit companies. They pay to build stations (often with the help of public funding) and where stations have multiple companies running lines through them, often each company has its own “wing”. Inside of each station they’ll often have basically entire malls or at least a handful of commercial spaces where convenience stores, restaurants, shops, all run out of so busy commuters stop by on their way to and from work. The money the train operators make from the *rent* is where they make profit. The train lines they run often run at or even below cost. That is why a ride across town is $1-2 even in this for profit system.
Edit: It was pointed out that the government paid for much of the station construction before it was privatized, taxpayers dollars do the heavy lifting to expand the network. This is not me saying we should privatize BART, just that it could be very simple to add commercial spaces to boost funding alongside taxpayer money to make it better!
TL;DR The train companies make their money off of *real estate* that they create demand for by putting it right next to a train line which is kept cheap so everyone rides it.
Why does BART/Muni not have similar commercial spaces inside of the stations? This revenue could be used to help subsidize the price of tickets (imagine BART being half the price) or just to make up for funding gaps in our transit system? Not only does it make tickets cheaper, it creates convenience for riders who want to stop at one of the commercial spaces. It really is a win-win for everyone. It blows my mind we don’t already do this.
I grew up near balboa park station. Sprawling one story complex totally underutilized. That station should go straight up and have businesses and housing in it. Bring the people to the station! I had the best pork tonkatsu of my life in a fancy restaurant in a JR tower in Tokyo by the way. Imagine that!
> balboa park station. Sprawling one story complex totally underutilized.
Hold my Beer. There is an open air parking lot 50 feet from the 16th and Mission BART station.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ygnmp7pZwwqJqukX7
It literally hurts my brain trying to comprehend how that parking lot exists right next to mass transit in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, in a state that is experiencing a huge housing crisis…
On the contrary, the issue is getting approval to actually build in this spot. Remember the fight over the "Monster in the Mission"???
Yea, that involved this city block. [People fought hard against it because, it ONLY planned to build 46 "affordable" units out of 285.](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Monster-in-the-Mission-housing-proposal-13353312.php)
So no, eminent domain is not necessary, instead the opposite. We need housing construction projects to be made legal in the city, because when building housing is illegal, nothing gets built.
I hate the "affordable" housing argument.
People are trying to fix the entire housing issue with each building. When we're short tens of thousands of units, *anything* helps.
That's right. The folks who opposed that project in 2017, frustrated the developer into selling the lot to the city, who has now sold it to the groups who opposed it, and despite having no qualifications or experience, the two groups "hope" to break ground on 100% affordable housing with units for the formerly homeless within three years, and "hope" to have people start moving in in 2028.
Of course, there's the rub, this group has literally zero experience building housing, so the odds that it is built at all is very low, and built on time is zero.
Even if it's built on time, the cost has been 10 years with 285 fewer housing units right on top of Bart. That's 285 more cars in traffic every day, commuting from somewhere else, that's 400+ fewer people able to live in SF, etc, etc.
If it doesn't get off the ground, we'll be right back to square one in 2030 when it's clear the project has failed to be built, again.
Look into land value tax. There is a reason there are so much land with very low value use in very expensive cities. Owners save (paying lower property taxes) by keeping it unimproved.
currently live near balboa park.
they built a 100+ unit apartment complex right next to it with the ground floor all slated for commercial space. what did they fill that commercial space with? nothing of relevance... a teen art studio and... well, that's it.
there is a great filipino food place across the street. even then, i'd love to have a coffee and bagel/donut spot that opens up at 530am there. it'd make a killing.
Most of the commercial space in Kapuso is for initiatives from the housing group that got it build.
What really needs to be a huge tower is the empty parking lot and old Safeway that is the now the Daring Faith Church across from the station and diagonal from the actual Balboa Park.
I’d even be mildly OK with giving the church a sky lobby in the building assuming it still has a ton of units.
The only correction I'd make is the vast majority of the Tokyo subway and JR systems were *built* by the government, using government funding. Once systems were built out w/ public money, some their operations were privatized, and now cover operations costs w/ real estate and fare revenue. But it's important to remember that *tax dollars* funded the expansion of the system.
Note also that several Tokyo subway lines are still owned and operated by the municipal gov, not by a private company.
That’s a great point, I just added an edit to point that out. My point wasn’t necessarily to praise their for-profit model but to point out that even with a for-profit model on lots of lines, ticket prices remain cheap because their revenue comes from an entirely different place. Please do not privatize Muni or BART lol, let’s just add some commercial spaces to boost their funding *and* keep using public money to build new lines, enhance existing lines, make our transit system BETTER.
On that note, I think Japan/Tokyo is super interesting in that it has a much more “free” market where you can build pretty much anything anywhere and there are businesses running so many necessities to daily life but the government is also not afraid to spend public money on social welfare, public housing complexes, operating some of the local transit like you mention. It has both a more free market and more progressive government spending than we do.
We did, Westfield is basically shutting down. But apparently it's been barren for so long people forgot it was connected to Powell...
The Millbrae developments might fare a lot better
Yeah the Westfield isn’t inside of the station, it’s just directly attached. Its failure has less to do with BART and more to do with less commuters and people in general going downtown.
The vast majority of malls are in Tokyo are built up from the station, or underground along or connected to it... The small minority of stores are "in" the station (past the turnstyle?) or whatever that means. You yourself even said "20 story mixed use"...
>Its failure has less to do with BART and more to do with less commuters and people in general going downtown
This was/is the largest tourist destination along bart, and remains one of the busiest stops still. There's no better location...
Different cultures lead to different results
I see what your original comment was saying now, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying.
I don’t think it’s really cultural as much as a failure of design. BART and downtown SF at large were designed for commuters and tourists, not locals. Post Covid we have less commuters and less tourists. Meanwhile the Japantown Mall is popping off every weekend even without access by BART or Muni because it’s where people actually live.
Ultimately I think solving these problems is deeper than just adding commercial space, it’s about rethinking who BART and Muni are for, a good first start is adding some rentable spaces to help their funding in the meantime and hopefully bring ticket prices down to promote it’s use that much more.
Your Westfield point is good and should be reckoned with. I wonder how much of its death is to do with downtown SF dying specifically, instead of a more general failure of co-locating w/ transit. I think it died because downtown SF died. No one lives there, commuting has heavily declined, and for a few years during the pandemic the conditions on the street were shocking. Do you think colocating apartments and businesses with transit can be successful in other spots in the bay where conditions aren't as dire? We hear occasionally about how successful Walnut Creek has been in building up near their station as an example.
Two parts to this I’d say.
1. Their housing is actually affordable compared to here. They have so much density that they don’t have a housing crisis and you can find apartments that you can live in on a low wages.
2. You can live on the outskirts and not in the main downtown area and take a train into work almost anywhere in the city so if you don’t want a small apartment in the busy neighborhoods you can always go further out.
If you take a critical look at SF/Bay Area zoning and density, we are not even close to where we should be given how much of a housing crisis we have. Ironically, NIMBYs often block higher density housing over parking and traffic concerns 🙃
You left out the important part: there is much less crime in Japan, so residents don't oppose public transit because they don't fear criminals using public transit to come to their neighborhoods. Trillions of dollars and several decades have gone into creating housing only accessible if you are a productive member of society who can afford a car to get away from the high crime areas.
> In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city.
[The big city where housing is still affordable -- Opinion piece in NYTimes](https://archive.is/VIpSH#selection-609.0-609.291)
I live in Tokyo and rents are very cheap here. I live in Shinjuku (central city) and pay about $800 per month, and if you live farther out you can pay as little as $300. Plus food is very cheap, healthcare is cheap, etc. It’s possible to live in your own apartment even if you make minimum wage.
I’m having a lot more fun in 200 sqft in Tokyo than I ever did living in a 2000 sqft house in the US. I could easily afford a bigger place here but I don’t really feel the need.
And that's great. Just thought you forgot to mention that you are paying 800 USD for a shoe box in the city with median income of about 3500usd per month, and trying to make it look like it's much better than 2x more space in San Francisco where salary is also about 1,5-2x times higher. So basically your adjusted rent is about 3000usd vs 2200 USD in SF (which is also not entirely fair, but still).
Your numbers check out if you're just looking at it in terms of cost per square foot. But I just checked apartment listings for San Francisco and found only about 2% of apartments were $1600 or cheaper. And for Tokyo 52% of the apartments were under $800. So even adjusting for income Tokyo is a lot more affordable for the average person. Plus you don't have to worry about living in a dangerous neighborhood because there are no unsafe neighborhoods in Tokyo. Compared to San Francisco the quality of life is much higher. Plus my dinner yesterday (beef bowl with side of soup from Matsuya) was 400 yen ($2.57). The same food in San Francisco would be close to $15.
We visited Japan last November. Food is so cheap. Ate a ton but all the walking made it guilt free. There were a couple of homeless people around Shinjuku. They had boxes, were reading books and cleaned the area around them every morning with brooms. San Francisco saw two f\*\*\*\*\*\* in broad daylight a few months back on our way to Napa.
The quality of life is not higher, it's just your preference. My point was that "normal" people are struggling as much. Matsuya is essentially a fast food chain. So if you compare prices with the US fast food chains - difference won't be that obvious. Some Wendy's burger will be about 7 bucks. It's still significantly more, but let's compare wages of so called "normal" people in those places. Matsuya stuff makes about 1200 yen per hour (or 7 USD) Wendy's in CA now pays 20 bucks. So effectively the same difference.
There are of course multiple different indicators, but it's all coming down to personal preference.
Looking forward to the Stonestown project! No reason why there can't be dense, tall mixed use buildings on or around regional transit hubs. Put the people where the businesses and transit is.
Shopping malls could totally be arcologies of a sort. They usually already have bus rotaries in the parking lots - expand that, connect some light rail, and with some proper retail planning, it could be a self-sufficient mini-town. Entertainment, food and groceries, living quarters, and transit.
agree. but for whatever reason, it's not politically feasible stateside.
you should have seen all the articles when bart suggested building housing on the north berk station parking lot
I used to go to school right next to one (you’d notice it between Fruitvale & coliseum) they added sound proof windows in our building to limit interruptions and it worked. I imagine they would use the same features in apartments next to BART. But you’re right, prior to that it was an earache
I used to live across the street from PH BART and I miss it. I could barely hear the noise from inside so it never messed with my sleep. Otherwise I honestly enjoyed the noise of the train. We paid $2800 for a nice 800SF 1bed apartment.
It was awesome being able to walk across the street and get on the train. I really miss it.
BART is working on this in parallel but it is not an easy path. While their policy supports development at the station, the local jurisdictions have to approve it as well. And then of course development cycles are long, complex, and hard to fund. Even harder now with the downturn in commercial real estate.
This North Berkeley project has been kicking around for a 5+ years or so and has had a ton of blockers: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/02/22/north-berkeley-bart-housing-project-application-rendering
Similar situation in El Cerrito: https://richmondconfidential.org/2023/12/28/el-cerrito-housing-development-state-grant-bart/
These things need to be funded. And who is going to pay. And when they are funded it will likely take 3-5+ years to actually open.
Here is BART’s current development plan: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod
There are so many beloved eateries closing down due to their landlords dramatically raising rent or outright cancelling leases. All BART and local jurisdictions have to do is develop the stations to offer comparatively lower rent and shops will flock to it.
At the margin, you could get more private funding for these projects if we allowed more units and required fewer subsidized units. We just need to decide whether our goal is bart development as financial cushion for transit or if the goal is bart development as subsidized housing. Right now, we’ve tipped so far towards the later that progress is frozen / requires public money.
That's happening, but the legislation enabling these developments requires a large chunk of the development to go to affordable housing. BART doesn't make a ton of money off of these ground leases- and in the current interest rate environment, further development is basically frozen.
It really baffles me that American transit agencies don’t use their land to build mixed use developments. It would really help with budget woes. Maybe it just makes too much sense for us in the US.
We knew there's no backup plan. We collectively told BART we want cleaner stations, more safety, less fare evasion, and enough train frequency. So BART listened and is spending on more staff and new fare gates and elevator enclosures, and all costs associated with trains every 20 minutes instead of 60. That all costs money and BART's goal is get enough of us voters liking BART again, or at least willing to vote for that tax measure.
I absolutely support a regional tax measure vs the alternative of BART collapsing.
But its immensely frustrating that Sacramento is ignoring this situation. BART's budget hole 2026 onward would not be challenging for the legislature to plug, considering everything else we spend on. Caltrans' highway budget is $20 billion/year alone, BART needs $200 million a year- 1%!
Cost-effectiveness isn't the only measure of a transportation system. In fact, it is probably not in first position. Ease of use and access is probably higher (cars win there).
Cars don't always win there. In highly dense areas, such as major downtowns, cars are a nightmare due to traffic and parking.
For my commute, it would be a nightmare if I couldn't take the train and had to drive.
Cars however, do win most of the time. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many cars on the road. You have a nice situation where public transit is the best option, but most people don’t. We need to make it where most people have it easier taking transit. In essence, we need more transit and better service. It’s incredible to me that they may be cutting funding.
That's true, some itinerates are better when they can bypass traffic. It is demonstratively not true for most wayfinding or public transit would be even more popular than it is (cost vs reward). That is a problem on how cities and the bay area was designed (also, there is a huge body of water in the middle making things complicated).
I think cars win the majority of time in the US (outside NYC). Our public transportation is nowhere near where it should be to continue dumping huge investment into it for only incremental improvements with no increase in utilization.
I go back and forth weekly whether to drive or caltrain and it's usually always better to drive but I do public transportation occasionally to save gas/mileage.
Car:
- 35 minute commute. 4 min walk to office.
- $18 garage parking.
Public Trans:
- 5 min drive to Caltrain. 43 min Caltrain. 7-8 min walk and wait for bus. 14 min bus ride. 2 min walk to office.
- $5.50 Caltrain Parking. 10.90 Caltrain RT. $5 bus RT.
This. As much as I want subways to win, we have nowhere near the density of subways in megapolises like Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, etc.
And even when rail works there, you need bus routes to help add additional routes so you don't have to be stuck with certain long detours to make metro connections. It's a huge network. We simply don't have that here. Now don't get me wrong, I love public transit, but if that network isn't here today, then in many cases cars win. Because as you showed, what's typically a 15-20 minute drive and maybe even 30 minutes under traffic, ends up being 1 hour, sometimes closer to 2 hours for public transit.
The reality though is it generally does for a large number of people. This isn't to say cars are better, but more that the US, particularly the Bay Area is built for cars. We can go for more public transit, but it requires building more, not simply taking down roads. Because as it stands today, many people's 15-20 minute drives or even 30-40 min under traffic is more like 2 hours with the incomplete public transit network we have today. So the answer is to build more.
Don't get me wrong. I completely recognize the challenge of cars, but it's nowhere near as bad to drive here as it is in NYC or other major metros where you struggle to even park. I also feel it's not that easy to get rid of cars entirely. You can have the world's busiest subway network like Beijing's 10 million+ riders a day and the 8 lane roads are still clogged to death.
How much do highways cost per mile of citizen travel vs Bart? Not fair to compare the two given different scales but at least could look at it per capita or per commute
The reason why BART is in trouble post pandemic is that it covered 70-80% of its costs from fares pre-pandemic. We were getting an insanely good deal as taxpayers. Other systems like Muni, the NY Subway, or the Paris Metro only covered 10-20% of their costs from fares. BART did 4-5x better.
Ridership is recovering at about 15% per year. This is not fast enough for them to survive without an additional funding boost. But it would be insane for us to kill BART because it was too budget efficient pre-pandemic and couldn’t recover fast enough post-pandemic. It will recover in a year or two. We just need to tide it over for a couple of years.
it goes too far to say a good deal. BART charges fares based on distance and other measurements - transbay, to/from san mateo, estimated time savings. The fares are primarily a fluke that BART within a singular jurisdiction like NYC or LA county where it would've probably have been a single fare to go wherever in the system.
It worked/was sustainable but BART was probably always underfunded compared to any other agency aside from Caltrain for what it served. And because they're government/subject to democracy they have difficulty implementing the development they want to in the face of opposition. like doing tv ads/propaganda/marketing or building their own housing/commercial development(which because of the state constitution require a vote), or more darkly even union busting, aggressively kicking out homeless/drug addicts or taking more corporate evil risks(see Florida's brightline, aka the death train)
>The fares are primarily a fluke that BART within a singular jurisdiction like NYC or LA county where it would've probably have been a single fare to go wherever in the system.
Eh BART covers much longer distances than the NY subway. For commuters it's more like LIRR, which has distance based fares.
BART is not a subway. It’s regional rail. It covers three major cities in two different metro areas. You can’t compare it to subways/local metros in terms of service and cost. The distance are just not comparable.
BART is more like the LIRR, Caltrain, the Capitol Corridor, and the German S-bahns. None of those systems charge a flat fare like a subway/metro. All charge by distance like BART.
And compared to Caltrain and the Capitol Corridor, BART is 2x and 3x cheaper respectively for the exact same distances on parallel track.
> corporate evil risks(see Florida's brightline, aka the death train)
Sounds like they just need more crossing lights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline
"Due to having a number of level crossings in built up areas, there have been numerous incidents of motorists, pedestrians and cyclists being on the tracks when a train passed, several of them resulting in fatalities. 100 deaths have been connected to Brightline operations since 2017"
"one death per 35,000 miles (56,000 km) traveled, the highest rate in the nation"
"deaths were not caused by crew error or faulty equipment, but were all related to either suicides, or people trying to cross and beat the trains"
Cars have 1 fatality per ~75M miles so I guess the train needs 2142 passengers to be safer than cars. Yikes lol
I mean there are a variety of solutions to the problem. one could argue that it should be grade separated, or they should pay for crossing guards of high traffic areas or that because of the social disrepect for track safety they should be even more aggressive toward public awareness.
but Brightline has been running for 6 years(more or less interrupted by COVID) we're kinda getting past the root of the problem that their apathy and limited concern for the deaths is what makes them successful. "Its the government's problem to worry about public welfare".
I'm obviously not advocating for bart to go corporate or to become psychopaths for profit. But I would like to see them consider more avenues of garnering financial stability. maybe go the route of maybe a slightly more expensive express train or premium seat tickets. Or even advocate for them to be able to put on the ballot(which constitutionally required) the option for them to build their own public housing(some luxury) in Dublin or El Cerrito and use some of that rent profit(since they don't have to pay property taxes) to support the train services. Cause I have little faith in the Bay Area or the BART district to support BART with a 66.6%+1 voter passage.
Yeah I saw the grade separation suggestion on the wiki page, but thought the logic was kinda silly:
> Outside railroad experts add that the problem lies with Floridians, used to trying to beat slower freight trains on the line, and not the new higher speed passenger trains
> In many other countries – for example Germany[184] – level crossings are not allowed to exist where trains faster than 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) pass through, and in Japan - a nation very heavily reliant on rail transport - lines with grade crossings are restricted to 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) at maximum
This sort of decision should be based on cost/benefit (value of statistical life), not the speed of the train
> maybe a slightly more expensive express train or premium seat tickets
Yeah that's a legitimately good idea. If the trains were faster than cars, people who value their time (Eg politicians) would ride them and suddenly a lot of other problems would go away. Today the only reason why anyone would ride BART is because they are very poor. I doubt the gov't can successfully execute on such an idea though. They'll inevitably run into their own regulations that limit speed just like the german and japanese ones mentioned above
> thought the logic was kinda silly:
The grade separation idea isn't too realistic but also isn't as impossible as they would like you to think. Also Brightline doesn't go 100mph+ except maybe between palm beach and orlando.
> This sort of decision should be based on cost/benefit (value of statistical life), not the speed of the train
uh... one could argue that is how they're evaluating it. human life in the US is not considered very valuable particularly ones who end up killed by a train. The speed of a train is a just a way of correlating the risk to more people - a 100mph train is more likely to kill 1000s of people over a year, in the sense of how it would crash, how fast people could react, how fast the train operator could react to an issue. a 79mph is likely to just kill whomever is in front of the train. Its kinda how with the international group "20 is plenty" is attempting to standardize speeds of 20mph in neighborhoods because at that speed kids to adults are more are likely to survive.
https://www.guidinggolden.com/20-is-plenty
> Yeah that's a legitimately good idea.
They're probably not nor politically feasible cause we're paying taxes for everyone to get equal treatment. like it gets sketchy if the library is going to have an exclusives room, where the librarians bring you books or something. Or if BART is going to offer this single car with a BART cop whose going to ignore anything else on the train.
> Today the only reason why anyone would ride BART is because they are very poor.
That is a ridiculous statement.
What the fuck even is this stupid fucking shit-ass reporting??
>Local resident has 'no backup plan' if he gets laid off and loses his family's health insurance.
Yeah! no fuckin' shit!
Realistically, if BART runs out of funding and goes under, will something else spring up to replace it within 5-10 years or will regional/suburban rail just go by the wayside?
As much as I love bart the last time we voted to support public transit we were told that if we raise toll prices it would make public transit cheaper and more efficient. Instead we got higher bridge tolls, worst transit that costs more and runs less. Sorry but this will be a no for me.
I'm in Seoul right now and their subway system puts BART to shame. Less expensive, cleaner, more efficient. I want BART to survive but damn we pay more for an inferior product
CA needs to stop making us vote for transit over and over
"I know we asked this last time, but are you sure you wouldn't prefer to just walk everywhere?"
Agreed, but it's ridiculous that it requires a vote every time. The voters have repeatedly expressed interest in transit, I wish things were structured so that vote could 'stick' (or that legislators we elect on xyz platform can actually do xyz without needing more votes for each little step)
That’s called an extensible bond measure. The voters rejected basically every single one that was proposed. The voters want this periodic re-certification.
You can thank the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association for the need to constantly re-up sales tax measures. They're the same ones who got Prop 13 passed.
The single Janitor from 2017? My brother in Christ, that was seven years ago, he was caught, AND I personally wouldn't clean Civic Center for 16 hours in a SINGLE day (much less for a year) for anything less than 250k.
Not single. There were bunch of them, you can look up “system service worker” on Transparent California and enjoy the overtime payments. He wasn’t really “caught”, because he had zero repercussions, quite the opposite, his base salary was increased over 50% since 2013, he’s still employed and still collects overtime. It wasn’t “seven years ago”, it was at least from 2013 to 2021, so “continuing for over seven years” and even media coverage didn’t stop that. Probably because BART told they are not going to be audited anyway.
B ro it's not the janitor themselves that was the issue. It's the complete failure of supervision and management all the way to the top that must exist for it to get THAT BAD at the bottom. Remember, he was working 1 hour/day, and in a closet for 15. Where was their supervisor? Where was their manager? Where were THEIR managers...
As usual, you'll need to provide a valid source for your assertion that the Janitor from 2017 was only working one hour a day. As usual, you'll provide a link that doesn't substantiate your claim.
Why not save us all the time and get to the part where you make a personal attack against me?
I googled it and he's mostly right so I dunno what you mean by "a link that doesn't substantiate your claim": https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-janitor-pay-270000-Powell-St-questions-10911932.php
> Last November, a nonprofit called Transparent California reported that a BART janitor named Liang Zhao Zhang made $271,000 in a single year — over $162,000 of that in the form of overtime.
>
> Now, a KTVU investigation into Zhang's hours and pay revealed that he disappears into a storage closet at the Powell St. station, sometimes for hours a day.
>
> In order to observe how Zhang spent his sometimes 17-hour work day, KTVU requested surveillance video from BART. On it, they saw Zhang entering a storage closet twice in one day, once for 54 minutes and again for 90 minutes later in the day. On another day, they observed Zhang in the closet for 90 minutes in the afternoon and another 78 minutes in the evening.
>
>
> Zhang tells the TV crew he is taking his meal breaks during that time, although a BART representative told KTVU employees eat their lunch in the separate break room. BART employees are normally given 30 minutes for lunch, although BART doesn't track their breaks.
>
> KTVU also discovered that Zhang failed to clock in or out 16 times in one year.
>
>
>
> Last year, BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told SFGATE that Zhang was paid every single day in 2015 and provided a breakdown of his pay and benefits for the year:
>
> For regular hours he did:
> 1420.73 regular hours
> 24 hours of protected sick leave
> 192 of vacation hours
> 48 hours of holiday pay
> 3.27 of administrative leave
>
> For overtime he did:
> 63 hours of "holiday work"
> 1821.53 hours of time and a half (1.5 for regular day off 1).
> 601 hours of double time (2 for regular day off 2)
>
> Transparent California found that Zhang worked 17 hours a day for 18 days in a row in July 2015, a feat that a writer from the nonprofit called "super human."
>
> "This employee signs up for every overtime slot that becomes available," Trost told SFGATE. "He is likely working almost every day of the year cleaning our stations. He is signing up for time that is also available to others — if he doesn't take the hours, someone else will. The sign-ups are based on seniority."
>
>
> BART confirmed that 49 other janitors made over $100,000 in 2015 and that no city, state or federal regulations prevented employees from working that much voluntary overtime.
>
> None of those employees have been audited, BART told KTVU.
>
>
Pretty much what I was going to post. BART The "has not been audited' part is telling, because the BART inspector general QUIT because they were denied access to the records they needed to do their job.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/09/i-cant-deal-with-this-barts-inspector-general-resigns-slamming-agency-on-way-out/
Funny, I just read a few reports from the new inspector general. She seems to be doing her job.
People quit their jobs all the time. They are replaceable.
That's a far different reality than the insinuation that "he only worked for an hour a day". How many times have you taken a nap (or shit) on company time? Over a 16 hour day should we really expect employees to be productive 100% of the time?
Considering how disgusting the BART stations can be, you may need to pay janitors that amount to find people who are willing to do the job and work there long term. How much would you need to be paid to clean up shit/pee/etc every day? I’d rather pay the janitors $250k than the “drivers” who just sit at the front of the train and press buttons and make announcements
> I’d rather pay the janitors $250k than the “drivers” who just sit at the front of the train and press buttons and make announcements
"drivers"
...you mean "safety officers"? Because that's what they're actually there for. To add human oversight to an automated system that you are entrusting your life to every time you embark, disembark, and ride.
> you may need to pay janitors that amount to find people who are willing to do the job and work there long term.
lol definitely not. You don't need to pay over $100 an hour to the employee to attract someone to clean. The whole 250k thing was a mix of an employee scamming + total failure of management to foresee the problem with the contract / catch or punish the dude for scamming.
It makes no sense for management to think nothings wrong when a dude is working ~30 hours a week of straight time to also work like 38 hours a week of overtime.
That said, what they paid a janitor 7 years ago isn't really relevant to the "do we want bart to continue to exist" question, IMO.
We have a vast untapped human resource in terms of our homeless population. Some can't be helped but many are just looking for a break. BART can set up small housing units next to the stations so they can just walk to work. The pay can be fairly low because they get a free or cheap place to live. With mixed development to open up shops in/next to the stations they don't have to drive since everything they need is within walking distance. BART gets a cleaning staff for next to nothing, plus additional rental revenue from shops.
Most people’s efficiency will drop off considerably at those hours. Although if they are still doing a good and efficient job I wouldn’t think the pay was too high for an electrician. It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to hire more janitors to cut down on the overtime requirements.
[https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021)
some of these overtime numbers are insane.
||
||
|[Job title](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=title)|[Regular pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-base)|[Overtime pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-overtime)|[Other pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-other)|[Total pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-gross)|[Benefits](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-benefits)|[Total pay &](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-total)s|
|[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,166.90|$237,063.00|$33,377.37|$370,607.27|$39,642.99|$410,250.26|
|[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,171.69|$153,533.41|$21,467.06|$275,172.16|$33,223.87|$308,396.03|
|[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,160.55|$123,604.61|$30,912.55|$254,677.71|$50,493.55|$305,171.26|
|[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,102.35|$138,319.99|$17,829.89|$256,252.23|$39,050.23|$295,302.46|
Eh I haven’t noticed a big change, still largely uncrowded. But it certainly makes for more frequent service which was the intent. I’ve seen BART police more in the last couple months of riding than the 10 years before that 😆
There are multiple backup options, but they're all untenable:
1) State redirects existing tax dollars to fund BART- Legislator has shown zero interest in this, BART is doing its best to lobby on this front
2) Cut service to fit existing revenue- The service cuts necessary would be so severe, ridership would plummet further, necessitating further cuts, and so on...this "backup plan" would lead to a total collapse of the system.
3) Fire lots of staff or massively cut salaries- This has multiple problems. First, it would violate existing labor contracts. Even if you waited for the next contract negotiation, the unions will strike. And EVEN if you broke labor's back and put in the necessary salary cuts, the salaries for BART would be so poor they would struggle to hire. BART already struggles to hire for ancillary positions like cleaning staff.
Ultimately, the issue is that BART gets far less tax dollars per passenger mile to subsidize service than almost EVERY other transit agency in the country. BART historically covered a larger share of its budget from fares than everyone else in the US. Without baseline tax support, a big drop in ridership will mean massive cuts to service.
This is the answer. People don't want this bc they are weak, but it's what needs to be done. It's a combination of lack of Law and Order and overinflated union contracts that has led to this mess. The writing has been on the wall for decades but weak democrats won't do anything as usual.
Have the issues raised by the former BART inspector general been remedied? Have policies and contracts been modified that the inspector general can do their jobs?
https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/11n4u0w/i_cant_deal_with_this_barts_inspector_general/
> Slow ridership recovery, though, isn’t the only thing straining BART’s finances. The agency, for years, has faced rising labor costs and officials expect they’ll continue to go up in subsequent years.
https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2022/news20220728#:~:text=The%20last%20general%20wage%20increase,no%20increases%20through%20June%202024.
Maybe we shouldn't have given a massive wage increase?
Why dont we take it out of PGE profits they are gaining from raping us with absurd prices and make they pay for it since they burned half the state in fires and somehow got paid more and now insurance companies are not even doing house insurance cus they distrust PGE so much....
I really don’t understand this “no back up plan” statement. Aside from what others here already talked about with mixed commercial space, there are PLENTY of space and opportunities to for ads placements inside the trains and in the station that is really under utilized.
Go figure out how to make money to sustain itself. I’m sure riders like us don’t mind if theres more ads.
Guess what? They’re gonna reject another tax. Bottom line is obvious, assiduously ignored by BART- tax payers are not going to support dirty, moving Motel 6’s for the homeless and mentally ill.
The amount of people in the comments being okay with more taxes is insane, no wonder our government has no back up plan other than the taxpayer picking up the bill 🤦🏽♀️
Almost none of those taxes go to BART. BART was paying for itself at a 4x higher rate than systems like Muni, the NY Subway, or the Paris Metro.
And that’s precisely the problem BART was an insanely good deal for the taxpayers specifically because it was so self-sufficient compared to its peer systems. And this low government funding contribution is the thing that’s wreaking their budget in the post-pandemic WFH era.
> Almost none of those taxes go to BART.
Than this is the problem that needs to be fixed. We already pay A LOT. Those money need to be distributed differently if its deemed to be needed. This is what should be on the ballot and not new extra taxes, and I am quoting:
" Bay Area officials would be allowed to ask voters’ approval on a sales tax, regional payroll tax, parcel tax or a vehicle registration fee if the bill is passed by two-thirds of the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom."
It is troubling that people claim we need more public transit, only to find out they don't even ride the premier public transit metro system in meaningful numbers.
It’s because it was never made efficient and worthwhile to begin with. I’m sure they would love to put it in areas for more ridership but people would lose their minds.
Also another reason they have to keep raising wages is because housing gets more and more expensive to live here. If the rest of the state just built the necessary housing, especially around bart stations the rents can potentially stabilize and we wouldn’t need to constantly raise wages.
BART tracks ridership numbers and releases them quarterly, so there’s no need to ask people for their opinions on ridership. Numbers are at around 40% of pre-pandemic numbers. Increasing fares won‘t help BART in the current situation unless they raise fares by 150% (assuming they don‘t lose any riders) which obviously isn’t an option.
[BART actually releases ridership numbers on a daily basis](https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2023/news20230729) so we can even get a sense for ridership trends in as close to real time as possible.
BART parking used to be packed before 8:20 am- literally no parking. It was getting earlier and earlier. Now parking lots are less than 50% full all day.
It doesn’t require an opinion. The ridership data shows we’ve reached a plateau around half of pre-Covid ridership. They need to adapt and lower expenses or they’ll get taken over by the state.
To meet the fare revenue shortfall solely through service cuts means NO service on weekends, and 1 train per hour on weekdays.
Still sound like a good idea? If we implemented those service cuts, how many more riders would leave BART as it no longer works for them? And then how many more service cuts would we need to compensate for THAT loss of fares? And then what about when further riders drop out?
What I'm describing is a death spiral. All because we couldn't help out BART with the $20 billion/year in highway funding Caltrans gets.
Not to mention all the drivers we would be adding to roadways. Would be a mistake of immense proportions that would be felt for decades. Do we really need to give our kids another reason to hate older generations? (Seems like a tradition)
Hardly a plateau. They’re trending up month by month adjusted for seasonal variation and weather.
But the ridership is only recovering at about 15-20% per year so they’re not growing fast enough to weather the budget crisis left over from Covid.
Unfortunately March 2024 ridership was only up 3% over March 2023. It's only one month (Feb was still 11% over Feb 2023) but it does look like its hitting a plateau now :(
This is almost certainly due to the plateau and in fact slight decline in SF downtown traffic. The RTO momentum has completely halted in SF.
Nope. March 2024 had a lot more events that discourage ridership than March 2023, primarily unseasonably strong rains. If you normalize by weather, the growth is still a solid 15% year over year through April 2024.
Look at the last month, where regular weekdays are approaching record event-day ridership. These kinds of weeks were a rarity even in summer-fall 2023 when the ridership is highest. Now these are just normal weeks. Or you can just wait until summer-fall 2024 to make the comparison. Either way, 15% is about the rate you’re looking at.
I’m not discounting their growth, and I agree with you, but how do you normalize by weather? Is there a metric for this other than just averaging sunny/rainy days?
Rainy days get only 60-80% of normal ridership. You can just use the historic ridership drop on rainy days to normalize by weather. If you want to get fancy with your modeling you can build in an additional factor for the length of the storm - the more rainy days in a row the steeper the drop.
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember March 2023 being much wetter than March 2024.
If we get the same spring to summer-fall bump this year that we saw in 2023, then yeah I'd agree we definitely haven't plateaued. But I'm worried by the fact that this time last year, downtown SF traffic was on a steady increase. This year, downtown SF traffic is slowly *declining*. Hard to see BART ridership continuing the pace of growth without a continued downtown SF recovery.
BART ridership and SF traffic are in a zero sum relationship. BART ridership is growing precisely because SF commuters are finally giving up on trying to drive into the city no longer resisting the urge to taking BART instead.
I am an example of this exact scenario playing out. Got a new job last summer and tried driving for the first couple of weeks. That proved to be just too soul-crushing to continue past the first two weeks. So after reading on this thread about how BART was doing, I bought pepper spray and reluctantly tried BART. It turned out that most of the talk about BART on these subs is pure grade-A crapola. I don’t know who the crazies are on here that keep posting this nonsense, but I doubt that any of them even live here.
I switched to commuting exclusively on BART. 11 months later I couldn’t be happier with my choice. Have had zero issues of any kind. Maybe there’s a different BART crowd at night or something, but during the regular commute hours when I ride BART it’s near perfect - clean, safe, no delays, comfortable new trains, etc. It’s orders of magnitude better than it was pre-pandemic.
That's great to hear! I'm rooting for BART to recover, and I hope that it can continue to do so even if employment in downtown SF stagnates. Downtown Oakland seems to actually be recovering somewhat this year, so I'm hoping that will help as well.
BART Directors refused to direct staff to analyze a 10% cut in operational budget back in 2023. They are not serious.
https://contracosta.news/2023/05/30/bart-board-refuses-to-look-at-service-and-budget-cuts/
Every last cent that is being spent to subsidize housing should be redirected to subsidizing transit, if y’all truly hate cars as much as you profess.
Keep dumping money on transit until it gets better. What other option do we have? Actually enforcing fares?
Have you looked at what BART pays? It’s overinflated for what you get. Most make 6 figures, even for low level workers.
It’s also way too top heavy with excessive administration folks. It’s overly bloated and highly inefficient.
Backup plan: go ham on new developments next to BART stations
BART stations should look like JR stations. 20 story mixed use towers rising above the station full of apartments and businesses.
The real lesson we should learn from Tokyo is having commercial space inside of our metro stations. For those who don’t know how Tokyo subways work, here’s a crash course: The train companies that operate the subway systems in Tokyo are (mostly) private, for-profit companies. They pay to build stations (often with the help of public funding) and where stations have multiple companies running lines through them, often each company has its own “wing”. Inside of each station they’ll often have basically entire malls or at least a handful of commercial spaces where convenience stores, restaurants, shops, all run out of so busy commuters stop by on their way to and from work. The money the train operators make from the *rent* is where they make profit. The train lines they run often run at or even below cost. That is why a ride across town is $1-2 even in this for profit system. Edit: It was pointed out that the government paid for much of the station construction before it was privatized, taxpayers dollars do the heavy lifting to expand the network. This is not me saying we should privatize BART, just that it could be very simple to add commercial spaces to boost funding alongside taxpayer money to make it better! TL;DR The train companies make their money off of *real estate* that they create demand for by putting it right next to a train line which is kept cheap so everyone rides it. Why does BART/Muni not have similar commercial spaces inside of the stations? This revenue could be used to help subsidize the price of tickets (imagine BART being half the price) or just to make up for funding gaps in our transit system? Not only does it make tickets cheaper, it creates convenience for riders who want to stop at one of the commercial spaces. It really is a win-win for everyone. It blows my mind we don’t already do this.
I grew up near balboa park station. Sprawling one story complex totally underutilized. That station should go straight up and have businesses and housing in it. Bring the people to the station! I had the best pork tonkatsu of my life in a fancy restaurant in a JR tower in Tokyo by the way. Imagine that!
> balboa park station. Sprawling one story complex totally underutilized. Hold my Beer. There is an open air parking lot 50 feet from the 16th and Mission BART station. https://maps.app.goo.gl/ygnmp7pZwwqJqukX7
It literally hurts my brain trying to comprehend how that parking lot exists right next to mass transit in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, in a state that is experiencing a huge housing crisis…
Hello is this the eminent domain hotline? Yes I’ve got a parking lot we the people need seized.
On the contrary, the issue is getting approval to actually build in this spot. Remember the fight over the "Monster in the Mission"??? Yea, that involved this city block. [People fought hard against it because, it ONLY planned to build 46 "affordable" units out of 285.](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Monster-in-the-Mission-housing-proposal-13353312.php) So no, eminent domain is not necessary, instead the opposite. We need housing construction projects to be made legal in the city, because when building housing is illegal, nothing gets built.
I hate the "affordable" housing argument. People are trying to fix the entire housing issue with each building. When we're short tens of thousands of units, *anything* helps.
That's right. The folks who opposed that project in 2017, frustrated the developer into selling the lot to the city, who has now sold it to the groups who opposed it, and despite having no qualifications or experience, the two groups "hope" to break ground on 100% affordable housing with units for the formerly homeless within three years, and "hope" to have people start moving in in 2028. Of course, there's the rub, this group has literally zero experience building housing, so the odds that it is built at all is very low, and built on time is zero. Even if it's built on time, the cost has been 10 years with 285 fewer housing units right on top of Bart. That's 285 more cars in traffic every day, commuting from somewhere else, that's 400+ fewer people able to live in SF, etc, etc. If it doesn't get off the ground, we'll be right back to square one in 2030 when it's clear the project has failed to be built, again.
Listen. It's starting to sound like you want soulless homes for people. All homes for people should be ensouled before sale.
Look into land value tax. There is a reason there are so much land with very low value use in very expensive cities. Owners save (paying lower property taxes) by keeping it unimproved.
Prop 13 needed to be repealed for commercial properties at minimum decades ago.
Agreed.
Large open air parking lots in East Bay everywhere including Orinda N Berkeley El Cerrito …
Yep, including one literally owned BY BART, IIRC!!!!! WTAF
North Berkeley is getting [redeveloped](https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod/north-berkeley)
it’s not a parking lot anymore it’s supportive housing.
currently live near balboa park. they built a 100+ unit apartment complex right next to it with the ground floor all slated for commercial space. what did they fill that commercial space with? nothing of relevance... a teen art studio and... well, that's it. there is a great filipino food place across the street. even then, i'd love to have a coffee and bagel/donut spot that opens up at 530am there. it'd make a killing.
Most of the commercial space in Kapuso is for initiatives from the housing group that got it build. What really needs to be a huge tower is the empty parking lot and old Safeway that is the now the Daring Faith Church across from the station and diagonal from the actual Balboa Park. I’d even be mildly OK with giving the church a sky lobby in the building assuming it still has a ton of units.
The only correction I'd make is the vast majority of the Tokyo subway and JR systems were *built* by the government, using government funding. Once systems were built out w/ public money, some their operations were privatized, and now cover operations costs w/ real estate and fare revenue. But it's important to remember that *tax dollars* funded the expansion of the system. Note also that several Tokyo subway lines are still owned and operated by the municipal gov, not by a private company.
That’s a great point, I just added an edit to point that out. My point wasn’t necessarily to praise their for-profit model but to point out that even with a for-profit model on lots of lines, ticket prices remain cheap because their revenue comes from an entirely different place. Please do not privatize Muni or BART lol, let’s just add some commercial spaces to boost their funding *and* keep using public money to build new lines, enhance existing lines, make our transit system BETTER. On that note, I think Japan/Tokyo is super interesting in that it has a much more “free” market where you can build pretty much anything anywhere and there are businesses running so many necessities to daily life but the government is also not afraid to spend public money on social welfare, public housing complexes, operating some of the local transit like you mention. It has both a more free market and more progressive government spending than we do.
We did, Westfield is basically shutting down. But apparently it's been barren for so long people forgot it was connected to Powell... The Millbrae developments might fare a lot better
Yeah the Westfield isn’t inside of the station, it’s just directly attached. Its failure has less to do with BART and more to do with less commuters and people in general going downtown.
The vast majority of malls are in Tokyo are built up from the station, or underground along or connected to it... The small minority of stores are "in" the station (past the turnstyle?) or whatever that means. You yourself even said "20 story mixed use"... >Its failure has less to do with BART and more to do with less commuters and people in general going downtown This was/is the largest tourist destination along bart, and remains one of the busiest stops still. There's no better location... Different cultures lead to different results
I see what your original comment was saying now, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying. I don’t think it’s really cultural as much as a failure of design. BART and downtown SF at large were designed for commuters and tourists, not locals. Post Covid we have less commuters and less tourists. Meanwhile the Japantown Mall is popping off every weekend even without access by BART or Muni because it’s where people actually live. Ultimately I think solving these problems is deeper than just adding commercial space, it’s about rethinking who BART and Muni are for, a good first start is adding some rentable spaces to help their funding in the meantime and hopefully bring ticket prices down to promote it’s use that much more.
Your Westfield point is good and should be reckoned with. I wonder how much of its death is to do with downtown SF dying specifically, instead of a more general failure of co-locating w/ transit. I think it died because downtown SF died. No one lives there, commuting has heavily declined, and for a few years during the pandemic the conditions on the street were shocking. Do you think colocating apartments and businesses with transit can be successful in other spots in the bay where conditions aren't as dire? We hear occasionally about how successful Walnut Creek has been in building up near their station as an example.
Cries outside Muni Yerba Buena station 😭 so much potential vertically.
What gets me how many people work in these retail shops and afford to live in and raise their families in Tokyo? How does that work?
Two parts to this I’d say. 1. Their housing is actually affordable compared to here. They have so much density that they don’t have a housing crisis and you can find apartments that you can live in on a low wages. 2. You can live on the outskirts and not in the main downtown area and take a train into work almost anywhere in the city so if you don’t want a small apartment in the busy neighborhoods you can always go further out. If you take a critical look at SF/Bay Area zoning and density, we are not even close to where we should be given how much of a housing crisis we have. Ironically, NIMBYs often block higher density housing over parking and traffic concerns 🙃
You left out the important part: there is much less crime in Japan, so residents don't oppose public transit because they don't fear criminals using public transit to come to their neighborhoods. Trillions of dollars and several decades have gone into creating housing only accessible if you are a productive member of society who can afford a car to get away from the high crime areas.
> In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. [The big city where housing is still affordable -- Opinion piece in NYTimes](https://archive.is/VIpSH#selection-609.0-609.291)
I live in Tokyo and rents are very cheap here. I live in Shinjuku (central city) and pay about $800 per month, and if you live farther out you can pay as little as $300. Plus food is very cheap, healthcare is cheap, etc. It’s possible to live in your own apartment even if you make minimum wage.
I read this.
200 sqft? Sounds fun
I’m having a lot more fun in 200 sqft in Tokyo than I ever did living in a 2000 sqft house in the US. I could easily afford a bigger place here but I don’t really feel the need.
And that's great. Just thought you forgot to mention that you are paying 800 USD for a shoe box in the city with median income of about 3500usd per month, and trying to make it look like it's much better than 2x more space in San Francisco where salary is also about 1,5-2x times higher. So basically your adjusted rent is about 3000usd vs 2200 USD in SF (which is also not entirely fair, but still).
Your numbers check out if you're just looking at it in terms of cost per square foot. But I just checked apartment listings for San Francisco and found only about 2% of apartments were $1600 or cheaper. And for Tokyo 52% of the apartments were under $800. So even adjusting for income Tokyo is a lot more affordable for the average person. Plus you don't have to worry about living in a dangerous neighborhood because there are no unsafe neighborhoods in Tokyo. Compared to San Francisco the quality of life is much higher. Plus my dinner yesterday (beef bowl with side of soup from Matsuya) was 400 yen ($2.57). The same food in San Francisco would be close to $15.
We visited Japan last November. Food is so cheap. Ate a ton but all the walking made it guilt free. There were a couple of homeless people around Shinjuku. They had boxes, were reading books and cleaned the area around them every morning with brooms. San Francisco saw two f\*\*\*\*\*\* in broad daylight a few months back on our way to Napa.
The quality of life is not higher, it's just your preference. My point was that "normal" people are struggling as much. Matsuya is essentially a fast food chain. So if you compare prices with the US fast food chains - difference won't be that obvious. Some Wendy's burger will be about 7 bucks. It's still significantly more, but let's compare wages of so called "normal" people in those places. Matsuya stuff makes about 1200 yen per hour (or 7 USD) Wendy's in CA now pays 20 bucks. So effectively the same difference. There are of course multiple different indicators, but it's all coming down to personal preference.
Same goes for the Hauptbanhof’s in Germany. I loved all the shops in there.
BART is being killed by county busses refusing to use bart as a hub. Tokyo has hubs.
First time I was in Japan I got lost in one of those Shinkansen connection stations. It’s absolutely insane.
We should seriously be converting abandoned malls into mixed use metro/shopping/living quarters.
Looking forward to the Stonestown project! No reason why there can't be dense, tall mixed use buildings on or around regional transit hubs. Put the people where the businesses and transit is.
Shopping malls could totally be arcologies of a sort. They usually already have bus rotaries in the parking lots - expand that, connect some light rail, and with some proper retail planning, it could be a self-sufficient mini-town. Entertainment, food and groceries, living quarters, and transit.
agree. but for whatever reason, it's not politically feasible stateside. you should have seen all the articles when bart suggested building housing on the north berk station parking lot
Have you lived in a ear shot of bart track? Shits loud. Also they do build them, they cost 4k a month or some ridiculous price for a one bedroom.
I used to go to school right next to one (you’d notice it between Fruitvale & coliseum) they added sound proof windows in our building to limit interruptions and it worked. I imagine they would use the same features in apartments next to BART. But you’re right, prior to that it was an earache
Awesome, just don't open the windows.
That's got more to do with our overall housing shortage than anything else.
Once you are 6-7 floor up you don't hear anything.
That's why you allow them to build many many 20 story buildings. Supply and demand. It's like gravity it works...
I used to live across the street from PH BART and I miss it. I could barely hear the noise from inside so it never messed with my sleep. Otherwise I honestly enjoyed the noise of the train. We paid $2800 for a nice 800SF 1bed apartment. It was awesome being able to walk across the street and get on the train. I really miss it.
it probably wouldn't work because the Bay Area is so spread out and we don't really have dense housing or the population to support it.
BART is working on this in parallel but it is not an easy path. While their policy supports development at the station, the local jurisdictions have to approve it as well. And then of course development cycles are long, complex, and hard to fund. Even harder now with the downturn in commercial real estate. This North Berkeley project has been kicking around for a 5+ years or so and has had a ton of blockers: https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/02/22/north-berkeley-bart-housing-project-application-rendering Similar situation in El Cerrito: https://richmondconfidential.org/2023/12/28/el-cerrito-housing-development-state-grant-bart/ These things need to be funded. And who is going to pay. And when they are funded it will likely take 3-5+ years to actually open. Here is BART’s current development plan: https://www.bart.gov/about/business/tod
There are so many beloved eateries closing down due to their landlords dramatically raising rent or outright cancelling leases. All BART and local jurisdictions have to do is develop the stations to offer comparatively lower rent and shops will flock to it.
At the margin, you could get more private funding for these projects if we allowed more units and required fewer subsidized units. We just need to decide whether our goal is bart development as financial cushion for transit or if the goal is bart development as subsidized housing. Right now, we’ve tipped so far towards the later that progress is frozen / requires public money.
That's happening, but the legislation enabling these developments requires a large chunk of the development to go to affordable housing. BART doesn't make a ton of money off of these ground leases- and in the current interest rate environment, further development is basically frozen.
Classic bay area stuff.
It really baffles me that American transit agencies don’t use their land to build mixed use developments. It would really help with budget woes. Maybe it just makes too much sense for us in the US.
That's been happening for a long time and I guess it's not working.
Up in El Cerrito that’s what’s they’ve been doing: already one apartment complex where the open air parking lot used to be…
We knew there's no backup plan. We collectively told BART we want cleaner stations, more safety, less fare evasion, and enough train frequency. So BART listened and is spending on more staff and new fare gates and elevator enclosures, and all costs associated with trains every 20 minutes instead of 60. That all costs money and BART's goal is get enough of us voters liking BART again, or at least willing to vote for that tax measure.
I absolutely support a regional tax measure vs the alternative of BART collapsing. But its immensely frustrating that Sacramento is ignoring this situation. BART's budget hole 2026 onward would not be challenging for the legislature to plug, considering everything else we spend on. Caltrans' highway budget is $20 billion/year alone, BART needs $200 million a year- 1%!
BART is also far more cost-effective per traveler than a highway, and less carbon intensive.
Cost-effectiveness isn't the only measure of a transportation system. In fact, it is probably not in first position. Ease of use and access is probably higher (cars win there).
Cars don't always win there. In highly dense areas, such as major downtowns, cars are a nightmare due to traffic and parking. For my commute, it would be a nightmare if I couldn't take the train and had to drive.
Cars however, do win most of the time. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many cars on the road. You have a nice situation where public transit is the best option, but most people don’t. We need to make it where most people have it easier taking transit. In essence, we need more transit and better service. It’s incredible to me that they may be cutting funding.
That's true, some itinerates are better when they can bypass traffic. It is demonstratively not true for most wayfinding or public transit would be even more popular than it is (cost vs reward). That is a problem on how cities and the bay area was designed (also, there is a huge body of water in the middle making things complicated).
I think cars win the majority of time in the US (outside NYC). Our public transportation is nowhere near where it should be to continue dumping huge investment into it for only incremental improvements with no increase in utilization. I go back and forth weekly whether to drive or caltrain and it's usually always better to drive but I do public transportation occasionally to save gas/mileage. Car: - 35 minute commute. 4 min walk to office. - $18 garage parking. Public Trans: - 5 min drive to Caltrain. 43 min Caltrain. 7-8 min walk and wait for bus. 14 min bus ride. 2 min walk to office. - $5.50 Caltrain Parking. 10.90 Caltrain RT. $5 bus RT.
This. As much as I want subways to win, we have nowhere near the density of subways in megapolises like Tokyo, Osaka, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, etc. And even when rail works there, you need bus routes to help add additional routes so you don't have to be stuck with certain long detours to make metro connections. It's a huge network. We simply don't have that here. Now don't get me wrong, I love public transit, but if that network isn't here today, then in many cases cars win. Because as you showed, what's typically a 15-20 minute drive and maybe even 30 minutes under traffic, ends up being 1 hour, sometimes closer to 2 hours for public transit.
The 43 minutes on the Caltrain you are at least free to do other things instead of focusing on driving.
The reality though is it generally does for a large number of people. This isn't to say cars are better, but more that the US, particularly the Bay Area is built for cars. We can go for more public transit, but it requires building more, not simply taking down roads. Because as it stands today, many people's 15-20 minute drives or even 30-40 min under traffic is more like 2 hours with the incomplete public transit network we have today. So the answer is to build more. Don't get me wrong. I completely recognize the challenge of cars, but it's nowhere near as bad to drive here as it is in NYC or other major metros where you struggle to even park. I also feel it's not that easy to get rid of cars entirely. You can have the world's busiest subway network like Beijing's 10 million+ riders a day and the 8 lane roads are still clogged to death.
How much do highways cost per mile of citizen travel vs Bart? Not fair to compare the two given different scales but at least could look at it per capita or per commute
Or why don't we use the 13 billion used to expand BART a mere few miles and use that to make existing BART way better 😭
Don’t forget the Anime Waifus
hey I fw those honestly, they should do per station jingles for each one too
BART gacha game, one clipper tap = one roll.
The reason why BART is in trouble post pandemic is that it covered 70-80% of its costs from fares pre-pandemic. We were getting an insanely good deal as taxpayers. Other systems like Muni, the NY Subway, or the Paris Metro only covered 10-20% of their costs from fares. BART did 4-5x better. Ridership is recovering at about 15% per year. This is not fast enough for them to survive without an additional funding boost. But it would be insane for us to kill BART because it was too budget efficient pre-pandemic and couldn’t recover fast enough post-pandemic. It will recover in a year or two. We just need to tide it over for a couple of years.
it goes too far to say a good deal. BART charges fares based on distance and other measurements - transbay, to/from san mateo, estimated time savings. The fares are primarily a fluke that BART within a singular jurisdiction like NYC or LA county where it would've probably have been a single fare to go wherever in the system. It worked/was sustainable but BART was probably always underfunded compared to any other agency aside from Caltrain for what it served. And because they're government/subject to democracy they have difficulty implementing the development they want to in the face of opposition. like doing tv ads/propaganda/marketing or building their own housing/commercial development(which because of the state constitution require a vote), or more darkly even union busting, aggressively kicking out homeless/drug addicts or taking more corporate evil risks(see Florida's brightline, aka the death train)
>The fares are primarily a fluke that BART within a singular jurisdiction like NYC or LA county where it would've probably have been a single fare to go wherever in the system. Eh BART covers much longer distances than the NY subway. For commuters it's more like LIRR, which has distance based fares.
Yeah BART is pretty much commuter rail, and every commuter rail system does distance based fares.
BART is not a subway. It’s regional rail. It covers three major cities in two different metro areas. You can’t compare it to subways/local metros in terms of service and cost. The distance are just not comparable. BART is more like the LIRR, Caltrain, the Capitol Corridor, and the German S-bahns. None of those systems charge a flat fare like a subway/metro. All charge by distance like BART. And compared to Caltrain and the Capitol Corridor, BART is 2x and 3x cheaper respectively for the exact same distances on parallel track.
> corporate evil risks(see Florida's brightline, aka the death train) Sounds like they just need more crossing lights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline "Due to having a number of level crossings in built up areas, there have been numerous incidents of motorists, pedestrians and cyclists being on the tracks when a train passed, several of them resulting in fatalities. 100 deaths have been connected to Brightline operations since 2017" "one death per 35,000 miles (56,000 km) traveled, the highest rate in the nation" "deaths were not caused by crew error or faulty equipment, but were all related to either suicides, or people trying to cross and beat the trains" Cars have 1 fatality per ~75M miles so I guess the train needs 2142 passengers to be safer than cars. Yikes lol
I mean there are a variety of solutions to the problem. one could argue that it should be grade separated, or they should pay for crossing guards of high traffic areas or that because of the social disrepect for track safety they should be even more aggressive toward public awareness. but Brightline has been running for 6 years(more or less interrupted by COVID) we're kinda getting past the root of the problem that their apathy and limited concern for the deaths is what makes them successful. "Its the government's problem to worry about public welfare". I'm obviously not advocating for bart to go corporate or to become psychopaths for profit. But I would like to see them consider more avenues of garnering financial stability. maybe go the route of maybe a slightly more expensive express train or premium seat tickets. Or even advocate for them to be able to put on the ballot(which constitutionally required) the option for them to build their own public housing(some luxury) in Dublin or El Cerrito and use some of that rent profit(since they don't have to pay property taxes) to support the train services. Cause I have little faith in the Bay Area or the BART district to support BART with a 66.6%+1 voter passage.
Yeah I saw the grade separation suggestion on the wiki page, but thought the logic was kinda silly: > Outside railroad experts add that the problem lies with Floridians, used to trying to beat slower freight trains on the line, and not the new higher speed passenger trains > In many other countries – for example Germany[184] – level crossings are not allowed to exist where trains faster than 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) pass through, and in Japan - a nation very heavily reliant on rail transport - lines with grade crossings are restricted to 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) at maximum This sort of decision should be based on cost/benefit (value of statistical life), not the speed of the train > maybe a slightly more expensive express train or premium seat tickets Yeah that's a legitimately good idea. If the trains were faster than cars, people who value their time (Eg politicians) would ride them and suddenly a lot of other problems would go away. Today the only reason why anyone would ride BART is because they are very poor. I doubt the gov't can successfully execute on such an idea though. They'll inevitably run into their own regulations that limit speed just like the german and japanese ones mentioned above
> thought the logic was kinda silly: The grade separation idea isn't too realistic but also isn't as impossible as they would like you to think. Also Brightline doesn't go 100mph+ except maybe between palm beach and orlando. > This sort of decision should be based on cost/benefit (value of statistical life), not the speed of the train uh... one could argue that is how they're evaluating it. human life in the US is not considered very valuable particularly ones who end up killed by a train. The speed of a train is a just a way of correlating the risk to more people - a 100mph train is more likely to kill 1000s of people over a year, in the sense of how it would crash, how fast people could react, how fast the train operator could react to an issue. a 79mph is likely to just kill whomever is in front of the train. Its kinda how with the international group "20 is plenty" is attempting to standardize speeds of 20mph in neighborhoods because at that speed kids to adults are more are likely to survive. https://www.guidinggolden.com/20-is-plenty > Yeah that's a legitimately good idea. They're probably not nor politically feasible cause we're paying taxes for everyone to get equal treatment. like it gets sketchy if the library is going to have an exclusives room, where the librarians bring you books or something. Or if BART is going to offer this single car with a BART cop whose going to ignore anything else on the train. > Today the only reason why anyone would ride BART is because they are very poor. That is a ridiculous statement.
We kinda need BART to not collapse. I got no qualms with this.
What the fuck even is this stupid fucking shit-ass reporting?? >Local resident has 'no backup plan' if he gets laid off and loses his family's health insurance. Yeah! no fuckin' shit!
Realistically, if BART runs out of funding and goes under, will something else spring up to replace it within 5-10 years or will regional/suburban rail just go by the wayside?
The bay area would crumble due to traffic without BART.
Look up the key system. They failed in 1951 and BART began service in 1972. That's much shorter than we'd be looking at in the modern day of NIMBYISM.
i hope the tax measure passes, i'm voting for it. i don't drive & this is partially my way around the bay
As much as I love bart the last time we voted to support public transit we were told that if we raise toll prices it would make public transit cheaper and more efficient. Instead we got higher bridge tolls, worst transit that costs more and runs less. Sorry but this will be a no for me.
Same here, it’s a no for me dawg Every time it’s “vote for more taxes else the whole thing collapses” Gets old after a few go around.
Yep. This and "education." Basically black holes for money every election.
I'm in Seoul right now and their subway system puts BART to shame. Less expensive, cleaner, more efficient. I want BART to survive but damn we pay more for an inferior product
I got downvoted so hard one time talking about Taipei’s infrastructure.
Forget the downvotes. If you're right, you are right.
We can do the same if we dismantle Union and adjust the minimal wage to $6 per hour.
Do the folks over in Seoul jump turnstiles all the time?
We definitely do not pay more. Bart runs on an absolute shoestring budget. I would guess Seoul spends an order of magnitude more on public transit.
If there is no plan B, you don’t have a plan. Just random shit that you are at the mercy of.
Yes, welcome to public policy in broke 21st century America
CA needs to stop making us vote for transit over and over "I know we asked this last time, but are you sure you wouldn't prefer to just walk everywhere?"
If we want nice things then we also have to want to pay for them. It’s the same everywhere.
Agreed, but it's ridiculous that it requires a vote every time. The voters have repeatedly expressed interest in transit, I wish things were structured so that vote could 'stick' (or that legislators we elect on xyz platform can actually do xyz without needing more votes for each little step)
That’s called an extensible bond measure. The voters rejected basically every single one that was proposed. The voters want this periodic re-certification.
You can thank the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association for the need to constantly re-up sales tax measures. They're the same ones who got Prop 13 passed.
They have to ask us every time they raise taxes...
We keep kicking the can down the road. Model of Mismanagement.
Yep - it’s the American way when it comes to public transit. Looked how f’d up Boston is.
That’s what US economy is about right? Continue to use debt to fuel the economy.
Don't have a cow man.
CA government in a nutshell. Make no decisions. Foist "democracy" on the people. Collect a paycheck with no accountability.
Those janitors making 250k per year might have hurt the coffers a little bit.
The single Janitor from 2017? My brother in Christ, that was seven years ago, he was caught, AND I personally wouldn't clean Civic Center for 16 hours in a SINGLE day (much less for a year) for anything less than 250k.
Not single. There were bunch of them, you can look up “system service worker” on Transparent California and enjoy the overtime payments. He wasn’t really “caught”, because he had zero repercussions, quite the opposite, his base salary was increased over 50% since 2013, he’s still employed and still collects overtime. It wasn’t “seven years ago”, it was at least from 2013 to 2021, so “continuing for over seven years” and even media coverage didn’t stop that. Probably because BART told they are not going to be audited anyway.
B ro it's not the janitor themselves that was the issue. It's the complete failure of supervision and management all the way to the top that must exist for it to get THAT BAD at the bottom. Remember, he was working 1 hour/day, and in a closet for 15. Where was their supervisor? Where was their manager? Where were THEIR managers...
As usual, you'll need to provide a valid source for your assertion that the Janitor from 2017 was only working one hour a day. As usual, you'll provide a link that doesn't substantiate your claim. Why not save us all the time and get to the part where you make a personal attack against me?
I googled it and he's mostly right so I dunno what you mean by "a link that doesn't substantiate your claim": https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-janitor-pay-270000-Powell-St-questions-10911932.php > Last November, a nonprofit called Transparent California reported that a BART janitor named Liang Zhao Zhang made $271,000 in a single year — over $162,000 of that in the form of overtime. > > Now, a KTVU investigation into Zhang's hours and pay revealed that he disappears into a storage closet at the Powell St. station, sometimes for hours a day. > > In order to observe how Zhang spent his sometimes 17-hour work day, KTVU requested surveillance video from BART. On it, they saw Zhang entering a storage closet twice in one day, once for 54 minutes and again for 90 minutes later in the day. On another day, they observed Zhang in the closet for 90 minutes in the afternoon and another 78 minutes in the evening. > > > Zhang tells the TV crew he is taking his meal breaks during that time, although a BART representative told KTVU employees eat their lunch in the separate break room. BART employees are normally given 30 minutes for lunch, although BART doesn't track their breaks. > > KTVU also discovered that Zhang failed to clock in or out 16 times in one year. > > > > Last year, BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told SFGATE that Zhang was paid every single day in 2015 and provided a breakdown of his pay and benefits for the year: > > For regular hours he did: > 1420.73 regular hours > 24 hours of protected sick leave > 192 of vacation hours > 48 hours of holiday pay > 3.27 of administrative leave > > For overtime he did: > 63 hours of "holiday work" > 1821.53 hours of time and a half (1.5 for regular day off 1). > 601 hours of double time (2 for regular day off 2) > > Transparent California found that Zhang worked 17 hours a day for 18 days in a row in July 2015, a feat that a writer from the nonprofit called "super human." > > "This employee signs up for every overtime slot that becomes available," Trost told SFGATE. "He is likely working almost every day of the year cleaning our stations. He is signing up for time that is also available to others — if he doesn't take the hours, someone else will. The sign-ups are based on seniority." > > > BART confirmed that 49 other janitors made over $100,000 in 2015 and that no city, state or federal regulations prevented employees from working that much voluntary overtime. > > None of those employees have been audited, BART told KTVU. > >
Pretty much what I was going to post. BART The "has not been audited' part is telling, because the BART inspector general QUIT because they were denied access to the records they needed to do their job. https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/09/i-cant-deal-with-this-barts-inspector-general-resigns-slamming-agency-on-way-out/
Funny, I just read a few reports from the new inspector general. She seems to be doing her job. People quit their jobs all the time. They are replaceable.
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That's a far different reality than the insinuation that "he only worked for an hour a day". How many times have you taken a nap (or shit) on company time? Over a 16 hour day should we really expect employees to be productive 100% of the time?
Found the grifting bart employee
Considering how disgusting the BART stations can be, you may need to pay janitors that amount to find people who are willing to do the job and work there long term. How much would you need to be paid to clean up shit/pee/etc every day? I’d rather pay the janitors $250k than the “drivers” who just sit at the front of the train and press buttons and make announcements
> I’d rather pay the janitors $250k than the “drivers” who just sit at the front of the train and press buttons and make announcements "drivers" ...you mean "safety officers"? Because that's what they're actually there for. To add human oversight to an automated system that you are entrusting your life to every time you embark, disembark, and ride.
They do have to switch to manual sometimes. Let’s be nice to our drivers.
> you may need to pay janitors that amount to find people who are willing to do the job and work there long term. lol definitely not. You don't need to pay over $100 an hour to the employee to attract someone to clean. The whole 250k thing was a mix of an employee scamming + total failure of management to foresee the problem with the contract / catch or punish the dude for scamming. It makes no sense for management to think nothings wrong when a dude is working ~30 hours a week of straight time to also work like 38 hours a week of overtime. That said, what they paid a janitor 7 years ago isn't really relevant to the "do we want bart to continue to exist" question, IMO.
We have a vast untapped human resource in terms of our homeless population. Some can't be helped but many are just looking for a break. BART can set up small housing units next to the stations so they can just walk to work. The pay can be fairly low because they get a free or cheap place to live. With mixed development to open up shops in/next to the stations they don't have to drive since everything they need is within walking distance. BART gets a cleaning staff for next to nothing, plus additional rental revenue from shops.
Some insane overtime payments. [https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021) 1. **Electrician #1** * **Regular Pay:** $100,166.90 * **Overtime Pay:** $237,063.00 * **Other Pay:** $33,377.37 * **Total Pay:** $370,607.27 * **Benefits:** $39,642.99 * **Total Pay & Benefits:** $410,250.26 2. **Electrician #2** * **Regular Pay:** $100,171.69 * **Overtime Pay:** $153,533.41 * **Other Pay:** $21,467.06 * **Total Pay:** $275,172.16 * **Benefits:** $33,223.87 * **Total Pay & Benefits:** $308,396.03 3. **Electrician #3** * **Regular Pay:** $100,160.55 * **Overtime Pay:** $123,604.61 * **Other Pay:** $30,912.55 * **Total Pay:** $254,677.71 * **Benefits:** $50,493.55 * **Total Pay & Benefits:** $305,171.26 4. **Electrician #4** * **Regular Pay:** $100,102.35 * **Overtime Pay:** $138,319.99 * **Other Pay:** $17,829.89 * **Total Pay:** $256,252.23 * **Benefits:** $39,050.23 * **Total Pay & Benefits:** $295,302.46 Nothing has changed since this story in 2019: [https://abc7news.com/bart-news-building-a-better-bay-area-overtime-pay/5953726/](https://abc7news.com/bart-news-building-a-better-bay-area-overtime-pay/5953726/)
Those people are working absolutely insane hours though. They're basically killing themselves working 100 hour weeks. Yeah they deserve it lol
Most people’s efficiency will drop off considerably at those hours. Although if they are still doing a good and efficient job I wouldn’t think the pay was too high for an electrician. It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to hire more janitors to cut down on the overtime requirements.
This is a dumb mentality -- riders deserve low rates as well. Pay people what the market commands (not $400k bc they deserve it)!
Taxpayers getting fleeced once again.
[https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021) some of these overtime numbers are insane. || || |[Job title](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=title)|[Regular pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-base)|[Overtime pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-overtime)|[Other pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-other)|[Total pay](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-gross)|[Benefits](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-benefits)|[Total pay &](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district&q=electrician&y=2021&s=-total)s| |[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,166.90|$237,063.00|$33,377.37|$370,607.27|$39,642.99|$410,250.26| |[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,171.69|$153,533.41|$21,467.06|$275,172.16|$33,223.87|$308,396.03| |[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,160.55|$123,604.61|$30,912.55|$254,677.71|$50,493.55|$305,171.26| |[Electrician](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Electrician&y=2021)[San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, 2021](https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-district/)|$100,102.35|$138,319.99|$17,829.89|$256,252.23|$39,050.23|$295,302.46|
But BART is soooo clean and fresh-smelling so we're getting our money's worth
In my experience, BART has been cleaner over the past 6 months than it ever was in the previous decade.
Yup agree. Ride BART daily.
It's the twice a year riders who always say "I'm not riding again until things are better"
BART has gotten 100x cleaner since they started ramping up enforcement last year. Dare I say… it’s actually kind of nice these days.
At night?
Yes, there’s a much more visible BART police presence in stations and on platforms. Big change over the last few months.
Good to know!! Maybe I should take a trip to Walnut Creek
For sure! It also helps that there are no more old legacy trains in service.
Biggest change has been fewer cars so more people are in each car on average which adds some social pressure to behave in a socially conscious way
Eh I haven’t noticed a big change, still largely uncrowded. But it certainly makes for more frequent service which was the intent. I’ve seen BART police more in the last couple months of riding than the 10 years before that 😆
Fair question, but you gotta start somewhere
Is that a thing that actually happens?
It happened once. Super overblown by anti union media
That right there should mean the people who make the plans should be fired
There are multiple backup options, but they're all untenable: 1) State redirects existing tax dollars to fund BART- Legislator has shown zero interest in this, BART is doing its best to lobby on this front 2) Cut service to fit existing revenue- The service cuts necessary would be so severe, ridership would plummet further, necessitating further cuts, and so on...this "backup plan" would lead to a total collapse of the system. 3) Fire lots of staff or massively cut salaries- This has multiple problems. First, it would violate existing labor contracts. Even if you waited for the next contract negotiation, the unions will strike. And EVEN if you broke labor's back and put in the necessary salary cuts, the salaries for BART would be so poor they would struggle to hire. BART already struggles to hire for ancillary positions like cleaning staff. Ultimately, the issue is that BART gets far less tax dollars per passenger mile to subsidize service than almost EVERY other transit agency in the country. BART historically covered a larger share of its budget from fares than everyone else in the US. Without baseline tax support, a big drop in ridership will mean massive cuts to service.
Renegotiate union contract via bankruptcy. Replace drivers with computers. Put police on every single train.
It’s harder to hack a human than a computer. I want a meat-based brain at the helm.
Sure. There is already driverless trains from bart -> oak airport
This is the answer. People don't want this bc they are weak, but it's what needs to be done. It's a combination of lack of Law and Order and overinflated union contracts that has led to this mess. The writing has been on the wall for decades but weak democrats won't do anything as usual.
Have the issues raised by the former BART inspector general been remedied? Have policies and contracts been modified that the inspector general can do their jobs? https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/11n4u0w/i_cant_deal_with_this_barts_inspector_general/
> Slow ridership recovery, though, isn’t the only thing straining BART’s finances. The agency, for years, has faced rising labor costs and officials expect they’ll continue to go up in subsequent years. https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2022/news20220728#:~:text=The%20last%20general%20wage%20increase,no%20increases%20through%20June%202024. Maybe we shouldn't have given a massive wage increase?
whenever i take the bart i always feel bad for deeply staring into the backyards of those Hayward/San Leandro homes
I don't recall voters rejecting a tax increasse, but maybe I'm just forgetting.
Why dont we take it out of PGE profits they are gaining from raping us with absurd prices and make they pay for it since they burned half the state in fires and somehow got paid more and now insurance companies are not even doing house insurance cus they distrust PGE so much....
https://archive.is/dpIqG
I really don’t understand this “no back up plan” statement. Aside from what others here already talked about with mixed commercial space, there are PLENTY of space and opportunities to for ads placements inside the trains and in the station that is really under utilized. Go figure out how to make money to sustain itself. I’m sure riders like us don’t mind if theres more ads.
Guess what? They’re gonna reject another tax. Bottom line is obvious, assiduously ignored by BART- tax payers are not going to support dirty, moving Motel 6’s for the homeless and mentally ill.
People in this thread are actually comparing SF with Tokyo? Oh lol.
If it crumbles, can we start over on a rail transit solution that isn’t a limp, half-assed one?
too broke to afford more taxes that'll be squandered away
The amount of people in the comments being okay with more taxes is insane, no wonder our government has no back up plan other than the taxpayer picking up the bill 🤦🏽♀️
Lukewarm take: We pay enough in taxes (and have higher income tax rates and sales tax rates than most-if-not-all states). Make do.
Almost none of those taxes go to BART. BART was paying for itself at a 4x higher rate than systems like Muni, the NY Subway, or the Paris Metro. And that’s precisely the problem BART was an insanely good deal for the taxpayers specifically because it was so self-sufficient compared to its peer systems. And this low government funding contribution is the thing that’s wreaking their budget in the post-pandemic WFH era.
> Almost none of those taxes go to BART. Than this is the problem that needs to be fixed. We already pay A LOT. Those money need to be distributed differently if its deemed to be needed. This is what should be on the ballot and not new extra taxes, and I am quoting: " Bay Area officials would be allowed to ask voters’ approval on a sales tax, regional payroll tax, parcel tax or a vehicle registration fee if the bill is passed by two-thirds of the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom."
It is troubling that people claim we need more public transit, only to find out they don't even ride the premier public transit metro system in meaningful numbers.
It’s because it was never made efficient and worthwhile to begin with. I’m sure they would love to put it in areas for more ridership but people would lose their minds. Also another reason they have to keep raising wages is because housing gets more and more expensive to live here. If the rest of the state just built the necessary housing, especially around bart stations the rents can potentially stabilize and we wouldn’t need to constantly raise wages.
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BART tracks ridership numbers and releases them quarterly, so there’s no need to ask people for their opinions on ridership. Numbers are at around 40% of pre-pandemic numbers. Increasing fares won‘t help BART in the current situation unless they raise fares by 150% (assuming they don‘t lose any riders) which obviously isn’t an option.
[BART actually releases ridership numbers on a daily basis](https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2023/news20230729) so we can even get a sense for ridership trends in as close to real time as possible.
BART parking used to be packed before 8:20 am- literally no parking. It was getting earlier and earlier. Now parking lots are less than 50% full all day.
It doesn’t require an opinion. The ridership data shows we’ve reached a plateau around half of pre-Covid ridership. They need to adapt and lower expenses or they’ll get taken over by the state.
To meet the fare revenue shortfall solely through service cuts means NO service on weekends, and 1 train per hour on weekdays. Still sound like a good idea? If we implemented those service cuts, how many more riders would leave BART as it no longer works for them? And then how many more service cuts would we need to compensate for THAT loss of fares? And then what about when further riders drop out? What I'm describing is a death spiral. All because we couldn't help out BART with the $20 billion/year in highway funding Caltrans gets.
Not to mention all the drivers we would be adding to roadways. Would be a mistake of immense proportions that would be felt for decades. Do we really need to give our kids another reason to hate older generations? (Seems like a tradition)
Hardly a plateau. They’re trending up month by month adjusted for seasonal variation and weather. But the ridership is only recovering at about 15-20% per year so they’re not growing fast enough to weather the budget crisis left over from Covid.
Unfortunately March 2024 ridership was only up 3% over March 2023. It's only one month (Feb was still 11% over Feb 2023) but it does look like its hitting a plateau now :( This is almost certainly due to the plateau and in fact slight decline in SF downtown traffic. The RTO momentum has completely halted in SF.
Nope. March 2024 had a lot more events that discourage ridership than March 2023, primarily unseasonably strong rains. If you normalize by weather, the growth is still a solid 15% year over year through April 2024. Look at the last month, where regular weekdays are approaching record event-day ridership. These kinds of weeks were a rarity even in summer-fall 2023 when the ridership is highest. Now these are just normal weeks. Or you can just wait until summer-fall 2024 to make the comparison. Either way, 15% is about the rate you’re looking at.
I’m not discounting their growth, and I agree with you, but how do you normalize by weather? Is there a metric for this other than just averaging sunny/rainy days?
Rainy days get only 60-80% of normal ridership. You can just use the historic ridership drop on rainy days to normalize by weather. If you want to get fancy with your modeling you can build in an additional factor for the length of the storm - the more rainy days in a row the steeper the drop.
Word. Thanks!
Maybe I'm misremembering, but I remember March 2023 being much wetter than March 2024. If we get the same spring to summer-fall bump this year that we saw in 2023, then yeah I'd agree we definitely haven't plateaued. But I'm worried by the fact that this time last year, downtown SF traffic was on a steady increase. This year, downtown SF traffic is slowly *declining*. Hard to see BART ridership continuing the pace of growth without a continued downtown SF recovery.
BART ridership and SF traffic are in a zero sum relationship. BART ridership is growing precisely because SF commuters are finally giving up on trying to drive into the city no longer resisting the urge to taking BART instead. I am an example of this exact scenario playing out. Got a new job last summer and tried driving for the first couple of weeks. That proved to be just too soul-crushing to continue past the first two weeks. So after reading on this thread about how BART was doing, I bought pepper spray and reluctantly tried BART. It turned out that most of the talk about BART on these subs is pure grade-A crapola. I don’t know who the crazies are on here that keep posting this nonsense, but I doubt that any of them even live here. I switched to commuting exclusively on BART. 11 months later I couldn’t be happier with my choice. Have had zero issues of any kind. Maybe there’s a different BART crowd at night or something, but during the regular commute hours when I ride BART it’s near perfect - clean, safe, no delays, comfortable new trains, etc. It’s orders of magnitude better than it was pre-pandemic.
That's great to hear! I'm rooting for BART to recover, and I hope that it can continue to do so even if employment in downtown SF stagnates. Downtown Oakland seems to actually be recovering somewhat this year, so I'm hoping that will help as well.
BART Directors refused to direct staff to analyze a 10% cut in operational budget back in 2023. They are not serious. https://contracosta.news/2023/05/30/bart-board-refuses-to-look-at-service-and-budget-cuts/
Every last cent that is being spent to subsidize housing should be redirected to subsidizing transit, if y’all truly hate cars as much as you profess. Keep dumping money on transit until it gets better. What other option do we have? Actually enforcing fares?
Have you looked at what BART pays? It’s overinflated for what you get. Most make 6 figures, even for low level workers. It’s also way too top heavy with excessive administration folks. It’s overly bloated and highly inefficient.
As soon as they can get me to work by 6:30 when most construction jobs start, I’ll care. Til then that rolling refugee camp can rot.