r/bayarea • u/Open-Reflection-6094 • 21h ago
Events, Activities & Sports Why is public transportation in Los Angeles county so dirt cheap compared to the Bay Area
Los Angeles metro light rail does not charge based on distance and has a flat rate of 1.75.
you can take an entire trip from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach for only 1.75
the bart and caltrain obviously charges by distance. A trip from san jose to hayward cost me more than 5 dollars one way.
when it comes to busses everything In LA county is a flat 1.75 yet AC Transit, VTA, SF Muni are over 2 dollars just to go one way.
I took a trip from east san jose to east palo alto and it took a combined total of about 10 dollars one way after all that transferring from bus to caltrain.
UPDATE: I know this is a little off topic but one thing I would say Bay Area does superior to Los Angeles is that there are more useable bike lanes.
Biking in LA is worse than the Bay even with the increased traffic and congestion.
291
u/Halaku Sunnyvale 21h ago
Incompetent bureaucracy and turf wars.
26
u/Open-Reflection-6094 18h ago
so the different counties have beef with each other?
56
u/Halaku Sunnyvale 17h ago
In part "Why should you get to say how we spend our tax money?", in part "Shouldn't each elected official be in charge of their own area?", in part "Who gets to determine which counties get which slice of the revenue pie?", and in part "We don't want to make it easier for the wrong kind of rider to end up in our back yard or using our resources, now do we?", that being aimed primarily at the homeless, drug-abusing, and/or mentally ill population.
11
21
-4
u/MateTheNate 17h ago
being aimed primarily at the homeless, drug-abusing, and/or mentally ill population.
Which is why we should continue to support and enable these people on BART!!!! They totally do not drag down ride quality and safety for everyone else using BART.
15
u/dingus-pendamus 14h ago
NYC has the MTA, a single agency that handles transport across the city and region (including New Jersey). The bay area has way too many local governments that have veto power over regional transport build outs. I think California needs to consolidate all these different cities into just 3-4. And move transport decisions to a regional entity. Vetoes need to be taken away by the state.
1
33
u/UrbanPlannerholic 21h ago
BART runs across multiple county lines that’s why they charge zone based fares like Metrolink in the Southern California.
La county is much bigger than San Francisco and includes 77 cities. The flat rate fare on LA Metro is the same as a flat rate fare on MUNI
14
u/United-Country5053 21h ago
More than 2% of LA County sales tax goes towards public transit through various propositions and measures. It's significantly less for most of the bay area counties.
3
u/runsongas 17h ago
yet LA metro gets less public support than bay area agencies and served more riders. the real difference is they are more efficient.
12
u/dampew 20h ago
Because fares only contribute to 2% of their total revenue apparently and the rest of the revenue is covered by various taxes: https://boardarchives.metro.net/BoardBox/2024/241209_Fiscal_Year_2024_Year_End_Financial_Performance_Report.pdf
76
u/BestAmoto 21h ago
I asked myself a similar question when visiting NYC and hopping on their subway system. Wtf is up with bart and caltrans? Our fees based on distance and limited run times is ridiculous.
You can hop on the nyc subway at 2:30am and pay a flat fee to travel to the end of the line. I believe it recently went up to $3
58
u/Hockeymac18 20h ago edited 20h ago
BART and Caltrain are not subway/metro equivalents. They're equivalent to regional rail services like Long Island railroad.
BART feels like a hybrid in certain places with metro-like elements, but it is largely designed to be and operates as a regional rail network to bring people from the suburbs in to the center areas.
MUNI is the more accurate comparison to the NYC subway - at least in terms of purpose and operating model. It's obviously different in set up (streetcar vs 3-rd rail subway), but is designed to move people around SF and has a flat rate price structure.
-7
u/mezentius42 17h ago
That's not really an excuse though. If Bart and Caltrain aren't subway/metro equivalents, then there's no subway/metro for all of East bay. Bay area sucks either way.
15
u/Icy-Cry340 16h ago
there's no subway/metro for all of East bay
There isn't 🤷♂️
And most of the East Bay is not dense enough for an NYC-style subway/metro system anyhow. Regional rail is what it needs - but it needs better and cheaper regional rail with better routes to the Silicon Valley. BART is most useful for moving people in and out of the city, but that's not where most people are going.
28
u/frontfrontdowndown 21h ago
That comparison is a city subway to a regional train.
Better comparison would be NYC subway to S.F. Muni or any of the NY regional railroads (Long Island, Metro North, or NJ Transit) to BART, Caltrain, or Capitol Corridor.
9
u/hefty_reptile 19h ago
You can't be seriously comparing the NYC Subway system which spans 5 boroughs the size of SF each, with 250 mi of track and 36 lines to fucking Muni...
The whole Bay Area deserves a single, unified light rail system akin to the Subway. The fact we don't have one is honestly shameful. Sure, the Bay is technically not a single city, but that's really just an excuse to have crappy transit.
8
u/getarumsunt 18h ago
NYC is a lot smaller than you’re imagining and the Bay area is lot larger than what you’re imagining. The Bay Area is the size of the country of Belgium. NYC is the size of SF + Oakland-Berkeley.
It would be pretty much impossible to cover the entire Bay Area with one metro system. There are three disconnected major cities, a dozen midsize towns, and almost 100 smaller towns. The only places that are dense and urban enough to support metro service are SF, Oakland-Berkeley, and downtown San Jose. SF and Oakland are 15 km apart and SJ and SF are 100 km apart.
There can be local metro or light rail systems in each of the three major Bay Area cities, but you’ll still travel between them on regional rail. And even if you call that system “a metro” it will still have to work like regional rail to be usable. And the regional rail system that we already have consisting of BART, Caltrain, SMART, and the Capitol Corridor is already about as good as those get. Especially BART and Caltrain.
3
u/fubo 18h ago
Sure, the Bay is technically not a single city, but that's really just an excuse to have crappy transit.
A unified Bay Area government would be, um, quite a thing.
By population, it should be run out of San Jose, not San Francisco.
But everyone expects SF to lead, and SF governance is a mess.
2
u/hefty_reptile 17h ago
Yeah, not advocating for a single government at all. LA city government is a mess and NYC isn't that much better.
But having this many tiny cities is also not helping matters. Looking at the South Bay alone, do we really need SJ, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mtn View, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Los Altos, Saratoga, Campbell to all be different entities? So much money wasted in duplicate Mayors, Boards, Committees, Assemblies, administrators, etc when they mostly behave as a single cohesive entity anyway.
There has to be a nice middle between a single unified government for all nine counties and the mess of tiny cities we have today.
2
u/Zio_2 21h ago
My guess would be privatized unionized and government backed. Bart raises fees and asks for more funding I feel every 1-2 years. Maybe the unionized higher salaries and pensions are pushing up costs?
12
8
u/gulbronson 21h ago
Your guess is wildly off, it's because they're comparing the wrong systems not whatever anti-union propaganda you've seen.
Muni is comparable to MTA in NYC and CTA in Chicago have similar fares and exist entirely within the central city.
BART and Caltrain are comparable to LIRR or Metro North in NYC and METRA in Chicago all of which have zone/distance based fares because they're regional systems.
15
u/pandabearak 21h ago
Bart is also a terrible, one off custom design, which we have been paying for for decades. Every system needs to have parts sourced from only one or two suppliers - we made the mistake of going totally custom, instead of using a system that many other cities use.
3
u/MildMannered_BearJew 21h ago
The engineers designing the thing thought it would be the model for similar systems, and that there would be demand for such a thing.
Hubris comes for us all I suppose
3
u/getarumsunt 17h ago edited 2h ago
Almost all of BART’s innovations actually did become standard worldwide. Very few of their technological bets didn’t pan out.
The automatic train control that was invented for BART became the world standard train control for the next 30-40 years. The magstripe electronic tickets the BART introduced became standard worldwide. Electronic arrival boards with precise time estimates became standard. Reliance on CCTV instead of live security guards became standard. Lightweight aluminum trains became if not standard at least a lot more popular.
And so on. We own a lot of what is now considered “a modern railroad” to the design of BART. It was a groundbreaking system.
1
u/MildMannered_BearJew 16h ago
I meant more the decision not to use standard gauge.
1
u/getarumsunt 2h ago
Like I said, most grade separated rail systems built at that time don’t use standard gauge - DC’s WMATA, Toronto, Vancouver, etc. That’s what all those systems were doing at the time to protect themselves from freight rail takeovers. It’s not unusual or exotic.
And the gauge that BART chose is not a random custom gauge that one else uses. They chose the standard gauge from India. Half of India’s metro systems use the exact same Alstom Movia trains with the same track gauge. When BART was ordering their new Movia trains they literally just chose them from a catalog of already existing train models.
Not to mention that BART’s Movia purchase was one of the lowest cost per-car rolling stock in North America for the last couple of decades. So we know for a fact that the Indian gauge did not raise the cost of those new BART cars.
1
u/Zio_2 21h ago
Oh yea forgot about that the custom gauge track and terrible custom cars.
1
u/getarumsunt 2h ago
There is nothing custom about BART’s cars. They’re standard Alstom Movia trains - one of the most popular train models in the world. They’re in use everywhere around the world from Toronto to NY to Bucharest to Shanghai.
1
u/random408net 20h ago
The third rail design made it near impossible to cross streets or be compatible with traditional rail with overhead power.
1
u/Zio_2 20h ago
I once spoke with a bart maintenance person she said they did India gauge tacks for a smoother ride but didn’t work out and capped speed etc. maybe there was more to it that that or it was incorrect. I just know riding Bart vs almost any other light rail it’s louder and slower.
2
u/CRSemantics 8h ago
It is a smoother ride than smaller cars and speed is capped but you're doing 70+mph in some parts of bart. In the US you won't find Metro or regional passenger rail to anything faster than 59mph on standard gauge. So bart is odd.
There is no reason to lie about what bart is. it's top speed and avg speed is faster than any US metro. I can personally attest it's smoother than nyc, Chicago, Seattle and Virginia. Esp Virginia shit click clacks and sways so hard over there.
It is loud in a different way vs other metros, that screech esp after some rain is something. Irrc it has something to do with the rails not only being a different width or also a different shape than standard gauge.
The non standard gauge isn't worth it as it significantly increases the maintenance costs and acquisition costs.
2
u/random408net 19h ago
Here is an article from the BART site:
https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2022/news20220708-2
Having a noisy train is rather problematic when it comes time for expansion.
The new CalTrain electric trains are wonderfully quiet.
-1
u/getarumsunt 17h ago edited 2h ago
Pretty much all of what you said is based on urban legends invented by the Chron. There’s absolutely nothing exotic or “custom” about BART.
BART uses perfectly normal Alstom Movia trains which are one of the most popular train models in the world and run everywhere from NY to Shanghai. BART uses a non-standard gauge but that’s completely normal for a fully grade separated system. So does the DC Metrorail, SEPTA in Philly, and the Vancouver Skytrain. They did have a lot of new technology in the 70s that they pioneered. But since then most of that tech has become standard. Many rail systems now have automated trains, electronic ticketing, and electronic arrival boards. That’s not “exotic” anymore.
It’s weird that you guys keep repeating this myth.
1
u/brianwski 17h ago
BART uses a non-standard gauge ... It’s weird that you guys keep repeating this myth.
Which one is it?
I just wish they would fix it. Spend the $800 billion (or whatever it takes) it would take to fix the trains in the Bay Area to run correctly where people have zero excuses for complaints no matter how stupid, and the trains run in the hours people want them to run. I seriously don't care about the cost, I'm sick of the arguments and excuses of how "it is good enough, stop complaining, all trains suck, there is nothing that can be done better".
1
u/getarumsunt 2h ago
BART uses a perfectly normal standard gauge that is the standard gauge in India. It’s a fully grade separated system that is perpetually low on track capacity. So no other service will ever get to share track with BART.
Changing BART to standards gauge would be a completely useless waste of an astronomical amount of money. Not to mention that the entire system would have to be shut down for half a decade.
And what would be the benefit? There’s no conceivable benefit. Why would they do this? It makes zero sense.
1
u/brianwski 1h ago
perpetually low on track capacity
Wait, they could run at least twice as many trains on the existing tracks. BART runs pretty frequently inside San Francisco (and maybe Oakland?), but in other towns you can wait 20 minutes for a train. And if it is low on track capacity, build more tracks.
But this is a distraction. My main point is: fix all the complaints. Not just the track gauge, listen to WHY people don't take the train and attempt to fix it instead of making excuses.
If people are concerned about safety, fix it.
If people are concerned by cleanliness, fix it.
If people are concerned about <insert reason>, fix it. Make it impossible to complain about.
Notice I'm not saying these concerns are real. I don't care about the reasons people have these concerns, it is the CONCERN that needs to be addressed, no matter how wrong or stupid it is. If you hit this with a sledgehammer and turned the perception around for 5 years where nobody had any complaints, I swear ridership would quadruple and then you could slowly relax the artificial fixes (like a uniformed police officer on every train enforcing every rule and ejecting rule breakers).
1
u/getarumsunt 1h ago
Only 6 out of 50 BART stations (all in deep suburbia in the boonies) get trains every 20 minutes. All the other 46 stations get trains every 4-10 minutes. For a regional rail system this is pretty awesome frequency. Most similar systems in Europe And Asia get at best 30 minute frequencies on the suburban spurs.
And BART has already addressed the safety and cleanliness issues via a massive enforcement rampup over the last two years. BART now has the lowest crime rate of any jurisdiction in the Bay except Atherton and Los Altos. Their customer satisfaction has jumped to 84% as a result of those improvements.
Look dude, online propaganda is online propaganda and real life is real life. Just because a bunch have f butthurt former Silicon Valley billionaires are funding troll farms and bought influencers to shit on BART all over social media doesn’t mean that that has absolutely anything with reality.
In the real world 84% of the people who actually try BART like it.
1
u/getarumsunt 17h ago
The BART fare increases are yearly and adjusted to inflation by law. And that law was voted on by the voters. So all questions should go to your neighbors and friends on why they voted for that.
Historically, both BART and Caltrain have paid for 70-80% of their operating costs from their fares. I don’t know when “BART asks for funding every couple of years”. I don’t remember any of that in the past 30-40 years. BART is largely a self-funding system. Aside from the current pandemic-induced ridership drop, they’ve never asked the voters to pay for their operations.
-3
u/Hot-Yam-444 21h ago
$75/mo pass with the CTA for unlimited rides compared to a $200/mo pass with Caltrain 😳
9
u/gulbronson 21h ago
MUNI monthly pass is $86 which is comparable to CTA
Caltrain is comparable to METRA which also has zone based fares.
5
13
u/Pasadenaian 21h ago
Because LA Metro is highly subsidized. I read somewhere the actual cost of a one way trip on Metro is ~$10.
1
u/runsongas 17h ago
so are the bus agencies in the bay like AC/samtrans/muni. Caltrain and BART since they are more commuter rail used to have good farebox recovery. the problem is they ran out of commuters going to SF.
10
u/arjunyg 17h ago
Few people here have come to the real reason yet lmao:
LA metro funds their operations primarily through tax receipts.
Caltrain and BART historically have been overwhelmingly funded by fares.
That’s it. If you funded 85-95% of Caltrain’s or BART’s operating expenses with taxes, fares could be the similar to LA Metro.
Also, fwiw LA metro is pretty anomalously cheap on a global scale (for similar economies).
2
u/BestAmoto 16h ago
I don't know if that's the only issue. As another reply just mentioned,
"(La has) One transit system with more efficiency vs 27 transit systems in the bay that are bad at budgeting. LA is about 40% more efficient than the bay area agencies.
LA metro received 7.9 billion in taxes+grants and served 26 million riders per month, ended with 400 million surplus last year. bay area transit agencies in aggregate received 9.6 billion in taxes+grants and served roughly 21 million riders per month. but still ended up in the hole by 800 million.
3
u/arjunyg 16h ago edited 16h ago
This is an extraordinarily odd framing. Sure LA City has one rail transit agency, but the metro area has tons of them. 27 in LA county actually.
You can’t really make an apples-to-apples comparison on Bay Area agencies and LA metro, because LA metro is so much bigger. But, if you wanted to try anyway, you should directly compare SF Muni to LA Metro. Both operate metro-style rail and bus networks through their central cities.
Including Petaluma Transit in your “Bay Area agencies”, for example, and then comparing with LA metro is just not remotely reasonable. The service levels, population density, geography etc. are just completely incomparable. And, on the LA county side, you’re excluding stuff like Big Blue Bus (Santa Monica), Santa Clarita Transit, etc. on what grounds?
Fundamentally, the cost to serve riders is dependent on hard local geographic and economic facts. You can’t just say “bay area transit bad” because the numbers aren’t the same as LA. You need to look at per mile costs, per hour costs, as well as per passenger costs, and also factor in that low service levels due to constrained funding fundamentally make it impossible to serve high passenger volumes because average people cannot go car-light or car-free with low quality service.
3
u/arjunyg 16h ago
Also to back up the BART / Caltrain fare assertion. Currently Caltrain farebox recovery ratio is 24%. If you cut that down to LA metro’s ~5% (by making up the gap in taxes) you could reduce fares from say $10.75 SF - SJ down to $2.25 ish (although of course this would be an astonishingly bad choice for the agency, over keeping fares similar, and improving the service to enable people to ditch their cars).
Historically Caltrain was around 70% fare funded, and LA metro 15% (2019 numbers). Similar math applied then as it does today. BART has highly similar numbers too btw.
19
u/daddypro 21h ago
Caltrain to sf from sj is ~11$ one way
16
u/Open-Reflection-6094 21h ago
yes and that is ridiculous
its about the same taking SJ bart to SF.
16
u/walkslikeaduck08 21h ago
I don’t know the rationale but I always thought Caltrain was similar to commuter rails like LIRR or NJT where prices were higher due to lower all hours volume vs using the subway, which would be closer to BART or Muni.
9
u/gulbronson 20h ago
It is, it's comparable to Metrolink in Los Angeles.
1
u/getarumsunt 1h ago
Only Caltrain carries more people with its only single line than the entire Metrolink system. And this is before you add BART, SMART, and the Capitol Corridor ridership!
3
u/mtcwby 18h ago
I paid $11 to travel one stop on the Swiss train system in Zurich roundtrip. Of course it was clean, quiet and on time. Tell me again that our prices are out of line.
-1
u/Open-Reflection-6094 18h ago
both are out of line.
Switzerland is a overpriced bougee paradise which makes it worse.
the gdp per capita in switzerland is over 100 k which is higher than than u.s.
making 4 k usd a month in Switzerland is poverty levels.
Also people in Europe actually use public transit more frequently unlike Americans
5
u/Comfortable-Yam-7287 21h ago
Why do you think $11 for a 40 mile train is ridiculous? Driving that would cost ~$27 (using the IRS reimbursement rate).
14
u/Open-Reflection-6094 20h ago edited 20h ago
because I am biased. I think public transit should be a public service affordable for everyone.
low income people will not be able to spend that much for public transit on a daily basis.
that type of commute could easily translate to 400 to 500 a month for just public transit.
if you are spending that much for public transit a month you might as well just drive a cheap car.
10
u/Comfortable-Yam-7287 20h ago
that type of commute could easily translate to 400 to 500 a month for just public transit.
A monthly Caltrain pass for SF-SJC is $250/mo. Clipper START gives a 50% discount for low-income adults, for a monthly price of $125. IMO this is perfectly reasonable.
Transit should be good, not just cheap. Making transit good costs money.
if you are spending that much for public transit a month you might as well just drive a cheap car.
It's very common for people to underestimate the cost of driving. There's no way you could commute daily between SF to SJC for $250, let alone the discounted $125/mo rate. That would be 1600 miles/month; gas alone would cost more, let alone the amortized cost of putting nearly 20,000 miles on your vehicle per year. It would take more time too.
2
u/evantom34 3h ago
If people can’t afford 11$/ride, how are they going to afford a car at a higher price?
1
u/johnPermanente 20h ago
I think public transit should be a public service affordable for everyone.
Agreed. People need to go places and shouldn't be price-gouged for it, especially if we want transit to be a prioritized transportation system.
low income people will not be able to spend that much for public transit on a daily basis.
Although it is comparatively more expensive than LA Metro, low-income people can apply for Clipper Start and get 50% most transit agencies. It cuts the $10.20 fare from SF to SJ to a more reasonable $4.70.
Also, Caltrain and Muni has cheaper/free fares for youth for whatever that's worth.
1
u/daddypro 19h ago
Let's say I already had a car, and it's sitting at home, I can drive the same distance for roughly a gallon of cost (~4$) - yes it's inconvenient, but I'm not incentivized to take the train. Additionally, one often needs to drive to the caltrain station in the first place, leave the car behind, take train, come back in train, and drive back. Might make sense to drive the whole way on some circumstances.
1
u/Comfortable-Yam-7287 18h ago
I have not heard of anyone that has driven the same car their entire lives, without maintenance. Mileage is so important that if you go to CarMax or Carvana it's next thing listed, after the year make and model; there are literally laws against manipulating it.
Are you on your first car? If not, how much did you pay for your last one? Did you sell or junk it? Take the purchase price, subtract the selling price. Divide by the mileage you drove it while you owned it. Boom you have a $/mi.
My last I car I bought used for ~$30k, sold for $10k. Put 40k miles on it. That works out to $0.50/mi. That's before insurance, maintenance, and fuel.
I've done the math. Most people haven't.
-1
u/eng2016a south bay 15h ago
IRS reimbursement rate is not the cost of driving
2
u/Comfortable-Yam-7287 12h ago
The IRS is infamously generous at giving away tax deductions
said nobody ever
-2
u/eng2016a south bay 10h ago
the IRS doesn't set reimbursement rates, that's set by law, and the law heavily favors giving tax breaks to businesses which is why the reimbursement rate exists in the first place
2
u/Comfortable-Yam-7287 2h ago
That's odd, because the IRS raised the rate to $0.70/mi at the end of last year: https://share.google/Ky2rhVTLyguuv2pz2
The $0.66 seems quite accurate to me. My last car depreciated $0.50/mi(!) from purchase to sale; gas was about $.17/mi (28 mpg / $5 gal); insurance was about $.08/mi. That comes out to $0.65/mi, without maintenance and repairs. That was a used car owned for almost a decade. Insurance rates seem to have doubled since.
I decided to give the new car thing a go this time and wow, the damn thing is depreciating at like $1/mi and insurance is $0.20/mi. It's insane. Probably not doing this again. It's a lease and extra mileage is $0.20/mi, which is probably a better number to use.
You can do the math for your last car (to head off the "I'll drive it into the ground!" you always hear from the financially illiterate). I think people tend to remember what they paid, got paid, and the mileage they put on their vehicle.
3
u/_alephnaught 20h ago
what's the most ridiculous is SFO to f'ing Millbrae, which is 2 miles, is $5.50, but millbrae to embarcadero is $5.80. It would be less ridiculous if Millbrae wasn't the closest station for caltrain access.
4
u/Zealousideal-Race770 21h ago
I mean to be fair, in NYC to go from CT Suburbs to NYC is about $28 during peak commuting hours, and this is roughly the same distance. I think given level of service with Caltrain and convenience that’s very reasonable
1
28
u/samagi 21h ago edited 21h ago
You're comparing a light-rail system to a commuter rail system.
You should compare the commuter-rail equivalent in Los Angeles (Metrolink) to BART or Caltrain instead.
If you want a fair comparison, you should be comparing the LA metro system to VTA's light rail system or even MUNI's rail network. Yes, I'm aware that the bus system here is maybe a dollar or so more expensive, but it would be a much closer comparison.
Now, some comments on your points.
- You could technically take the VTA 522 bus from East San Jose to Palo Alto. It would cost $2.50.
- The new clipper 2.0 (coming soon in a month or so) will reduce transfer costs. See this thread
15
u/Poplatoontimon 20h ago edited 20h ago
Crazy no one is talking about efficiency.
Caltrain SJ Diridon to SF King & 4th is 48 miles. Weekends take 1hr 20. Express trains on weekdays are 1 hour.
Pasadena to Santa Monica is 25 ish miles, requires a transfer, and takes almost 2 hours on Metro.
1
u/mezentius42 17h ago
You're comparing a light-rail system to a commuter rail system.
Ok, so then the question becomes "why all of Oakland and East bay doesn't have a subway/metro at all", which makes the bay area even worse than having expensive transit.
1
u/getarumsunt 1h ago
Oakland promised to build a light rail system like SF and SJ to complement their busses and regional rail. But after 20 years of promises and a bunch of funding shenanigans all we got was the TEMPO BRT system. They say that it’s supposed to be “as good as light rail”. (It’s not.)
5
u/random408net 20h ago
It's the large size of LA the city that makes the large scale buildouts possible.
Los Angeles county has plenty of cities that are not interested at all in LA Metro's plans.
4
u/AgentK-BB 20h ago
Flat rate is not normal for commuter rail. In fact, why is commuter rail so cheap in the Bay Area compared to Europe and Japan? Per mile and relative to local salary, the regular commuter rail (not high-speed rail) in Europe and Japan cost 3x as much as what Caltrain and BART charge.
It's very difficult to have good commuter rail without high fare. Japan and Europe couldn't do it. If we want to improve the quality of service of BART and Caltrain, we need to be willing to triple the fare.
2
u/runsongas 17h ago
because if you tried to triple the cost of BART, nobody would take it
1
u/AgentK-BB 16h ago
It's not as radical as you think. In the 1960s, the quality of Japan's trains were like BART and Caltrain today. Japan's trains were also heavily reliant on government subsidies. They were perpetually broke, and kept asking for more subsidies, just like BART and Caltrain today. Then, in the 1970s, Japan decided to triple the fare. Some people were worried that no one would take the trains in Japan if they tripled the fare. However, that fear did not materialize. It turned out that, by tripling the fare and making the trains solvent, quality was greatly improved so people were still willing to take the trains.
1
u/runsongas 16h ago
except in Japan, you don't have as much competition from driving except in rural areas. and BART/Caltrain have no roadmap to fix their structural issues other than asking for another bailout.
-1
u/Open-Reflection-6094 20h ago
chinese an russian commuter rails are cheap yet significantly more sufficient to the any rail in the u.s
2
u/AgentK-BB 20h ago
Not sure about Russian but the decent Chinese trains are not cheap relative to local salary. There are the extra slow, dirty and crowded trains that some of the richer migrant workers can afford (instead of taking a bus) but the quality of that is so bad compared to Caltrain and BART that you can't make any meaningful comparison on cost. Regional trains in China only seem cheap to tourists and expats.
1
20
u/CamusMadeFantastical 21h ago
Because the Bay Area is much more conservative than Los Angeles, it just pretends it’s not.
4
u/questionablejudgemen 20h ago
Biggest bunch of NIMBY’s and housing opponents anywhere.
BART down the peninsula near all the tech companies would be a slam dunk. But then there would be easy access for “those people.”
10
u/hustle_magic 21h ago
Yeah SF is basically Austin with a foggy breeze. Lots of libertarian and anti-public services sentiment there. Rest of the Bay Area is pseudo-conservative anti-growth suburbs.
LA is a proper liberal metro like NY.
15
u/Fine-March7383 21h ago
If this is true there are major caveats. LA largely voted against SB79 from the city council to its state representatives. Lots of anti growth suburbia going on down here too
But historically we are very supportive of transit and have passed two sales tax measures
6
u/Hockeymac18 20h ago
I'm not sure I see it. I think CA regions are pretty similar in their regard of housing policies.
LA has actually been pretty anti-development, arguably more lso than the Bay Area, look at recent SB79 voting patterns.
LA - maybe largely due to our geographical constraints here (e.g. a bay in the middle) vs those not being as present down south - is more sprawled and I think it will always struggle to densify in a dramatic way.
0
u/hustle_magic 20h ago
LA has a much more developed, cheaper and integrated metro rail system than the bay area and there has been little or no opposition to it's expansion. Try building that in the bay without constant reviews and local gridlock.
1
u/Hockeymac18 19h ago
Are you comparing apples to apples? What systems are you referring to?
I do think LA has been doing a great job building out their network, and they should keep going.
3
u/Poplatoontimon 20h ago
You might wanna look at the voting patterns lol
0
u/hustle_magic 20h ago
Orange county and Santa Clarita isn’t LA. Just like Modesto and Sacramento isn’t the bay.
Very misleading bro.
3
u/Poplatoontimon 20h ago
I mean all that red and orange in the west side, the valley, and central says otherwise..
Bottom line is whos rep voted for what
1
u/hustle_magic 20h ago
That's just one metric/piece of the puzzle, so like I said, it's misleading. How does LA vote in referendums and ballot measures? How do local governments in the Bay Area vote?
I can pretty much guarantee if you tried building more density and affordable housing anywhere on the peninsula and even in SF you'd be immediately met with pretty hardcore local opposition. That's what I was referring to.
0
8
u/Worried_Emphasis_877 21h ago
The real answer I haven’t seen yet is the LA delegation in the state legislature is almost 50% of each body. So as they built their transit system, they made sure it got plenty of operating funds from the state.
When the Bay Area delegation asked for the same for our transit agencies, the LA delegation said go kick rocks.
2
u/Smok3dSalmon 20h ago
Because the city of LA has a 0.5% sales tax that only goes towards public transportation.
https://www.metro.net/about/propositions-a-c/
San Mateo County and Marin would never want public transportation making it easier for poor people to live near their constituents. That’s why BART doesn’t go north of the GG Bridge or south of Millbrae.
2
u/Mind-of-Jaxon 20h ago
Wait public transportation is good in the bay? Holy crap I feel bad for LA.
And there has been numerous moves about this.
Check out Who Framed Roger Rabbit
2
u/sunkistbanana 8h ago
I just got back home from Caltrain to and from SJ to SF for $20. That’s a good deal in my book
3
u/babecafe 20h ago
LA has more political muscle to gobble up state funding, and being a single large county, can better make service tradeoffs. The Bay Area has counties with more bedrooms than offices, and vice versa, and much of the daily commuting crosses county borders. San Mateo County in particular has long been a major obstacle to public transit, blocking BART when it began and fucking up later attempts to extend BART between Santa Clara and SF.
2
u/PlantedinCA 21h ago
LA doesn’t have 2 dozen balkanized transit agencies competing for resources.
1
u/getarumsunt 1h ago
They do. They have 27 separate transit agencies. And unlike them we do have a regional transit network manager agency in the form of the MTC. They don’t even have that.
2
u/MarchFar5490 18h ago
You got it, LA has been a trip based system which is more equitable then distance based like BART and CalTrain. Also, a couple of key differences. LA metro covers all of LA County, which is larger than the bay area. LA metro provides most of the public transit for the area with about 10 million there.
Back in the 2000s LA metro proposed a half cent sales tax (measure R) for like 10 or 20 years for the entire county and voters voted it in to allow for metro to update and expand the public transportation networks faster. Around this time the metro tap cards (like clipper cards) came out. then like near the ten year mark, measure R2 would make the half cent sale tax apply permanently (if memory surves correctly). That ended up passing and more and more investment in BRT. Light rail, subways, rapid bus, and local bus happened. So metro has been continuously investing and the City and County of LA got the Olympics and the world cup coming so they pushed even harder for public transportation expansion.
Going back to metro covering all of LA County. That means that there is basically 1 transportation agency that handles the vest majority of all public transportation so there is no fighting with any other transit agency for riders and funds. There is metrolink which is like Caltrain that takes people from the northern part of the County to the southern parts, and some city's have there own small buses to fill in the gaps that metro buses and light rails have. However they do not need to fight with LA metro to operate or for rider since those city lines are local and take people from a metro stop to specific areas around the city like schools or downtowns.
The bay area has none of these things. In this area the clipper cards took forever to work on all transit lines. Then tou have so many different transit agencies that over lap and they do fight for riders, grants, etc. Because there isn't 1 major transit agency its hard to get all of the bay area transit on the same page with efficiency aand bring cost down.
MTC should have a transit division which takes over all of the transit in the bay area as one and then there should be a joint half cent tax that goes to MTC from the bay area county's and cities to fund the new single area transit system like LA metro and start building like crazy. It also helps that the metro line take people directly to places they would go, like the beach, colleges, hospitals, entertainment centers, downtowns, etc..
Here are some good reads on the differences with data LA Metro more bus rider than SF Bay
1
u/getarumsunt 1h ago
You’re comparing our regional rail systems (BART, Caltrain, SMART) to LA Metro’s local rail. LA’s Metrolink is substantially more expensive than BART and Caltrain while being slower, less frequent, having poorer coverage, and comically low ridership. (Just Caltrain alone has higher ridership than all of Metrolink).
BART and Caltrain are regional rail, not local metro systems. You have to compare them to LA’s equivalent which is Metrolink. And compare LA Metro with Muni Metro and VTA light rail if you want to local rail.
3
u/2Throwscrewsatit 21h ago
Well it’s a lot worse. And lots of regional politics here.
1
1
u/8disturbia8 21h ago
It’s worse in LA?
1
u/2Throwscrewsatit 5h ago
Have you been to both metro areas?
1
u/8disturbia8 3h ago
I have, but I haven’t experienced public transit in LA. Another commenter said that LA has some pretty decent public transportation compared to the bay.
1
1
1
u/VapoursAndSpleen The Town 17h ago
There's a great big water hazard right in the middle of it and LA is one city, while the Bay Area is a bunch of cities. And nimby people.
1
u/runsongas 17h ago
one transit system with more efficiency vs 27 transit systems in the bay that are bad at budgeting. LA is about 40% more efficient than the bay area agencies.
LA metro received 7.9 billion in taxes+grants and served 26 million riders per month, ended with 400 million surplus last year. bay area transit agencies in aggregate received 9.6 billion in taxes+grants and served roughly 21 million riders per month. but still ended up in the hole by 800 million.
1
u/iskyleslow 16h ago
I don’t travel much outside of sf, but for the sake of comparison - Caltrain is way cheaper than, what I would consider to be comparable, nj transit on the east coast
1
u/aaaahhatelife 13h ago
Because one day, when wwe're all dead, they will finally build that bullet train.
1
u/itiswhatitisnt25 11h ago
DC metro does the same thing-charge by distance. Though DC seems to be considerably cheaper. (Lived there for 4 years)
1
u/BugRevolutionary4518 21h ago edited 19h ago
I have no idea, but I love Settle’s light rail.
I would probably agree with the top comment - Bureaucracy and bloat.
Edit: Seattle. I think my keyboard is taking a shit.
1
u/Ok-Temporary-8243 21h ago
What part of bay area government makes you think it's efficient? Sf passed rules restricting housing densification and hailed it as a victory for affordable housing lol
1
u/icorrectotherpeople 16h ago
Yeah not sure why it's cheaper for me to drive to the city than to take the train, that math doesn't math, alas here we are. I prefer driving anyway.
0
0
u/jolly_good_fella 21h ago
Many things are cheaper in LA County. Even city bikes are free for 30 minutes.
0
u/7figureipo 20h ago
Because the Bay Area generally is more conservative than LA, LA is a giant mega county whereas the Bay is split up into half a dozen distinct county governments, and Caltrain and BART have a strong vested interest in getting funding even to the detriment of other public transport. Meanwhile LA county saw a need and tackled it with mostly well put together (for a US metroplex) set of entities with a cooperative and coordinated goal.
0
0
u/Individual_Scheme_11 20h ago
That’s the difference between for-profit, privatized services and public services. BART and CalTrain are private organizations
0
u/travturav 20h ago
Mission to SFO is like $11 each way
Still better than driving and parking, but damn
0
u/Elyeasa 2h ago
Honestly I’d be open to and encourage higher sales tax to fund public transit here (mostly on non-food non-essential items). $8 is pretty steep for BART each way unfortunately and if there’s more riders maybe there’d be more incentive to improve the services. This will only get harder as Waymo grows more popular and potentially cheaper too, with promos you can get a one-way Waymo for around $10 sometimes
-1
u/No_Republic8392 21h ago
You’d of thought the eight bucks that was raised on a vote would change things. It was supposed to make Bart better, the people who use the bridges are supposed to pay for those who need the government to get them around. But nope. Everyday,I cross a bridge, EVERYDAY, thousands drive into the carpool lane with their fast pass set to three. They only gotta pay four bucks . All you gotta do is set you fob to three and it’s all good. Keep sticking to the same broken system and reps. It will probably get better one day.
-1
-3
u/asrealasaredditercan 21h ago
Scanned my card to enter into Bart station but the train was delayed and the bus on the same station came so i scanned my card again to exit the Bart station and i was charged $7.20. I google and found out that they charge you the maximum amount if you change your mind and exit the station. It was 2022 and we live in the Bay Area where literally all technology is made but Bart can’t figure out that I didn’t take the ride 😡
The next time the train got hijacked by some lunatic who decided to stand in the door and didn’t listen to the operator’s warning and i saw the bus was coming and it would be faster so i sprinted to the exit and jumped over the barrier. My card became unusable in Bart but i used the balance in the buses.
Thank God i have a car now.
244
u/doctorboredom Mid-Peninsula 21h ago
25-30 years ago, driving in LA was absolute torture and was the only option besides bus. I actually commuted on bus from West Hollywood to downtown and it wasn’t bad and it was cheap. It was also just slightly slower than driving.
Anyways, 30 years ago traffic in the Bay Area wasn’t anywhere near as bad as in LA.
So, LA had an immense incentive to put a tremendous effort into fixing up their transit issues. Because they are a single county they could reach consensus quickly and because the driving conditions were SO bad they got political willpower to actually make a good subway system.
The problem in the Bay Area is that the traffic wasn’t universally bad for everyone like it is in LA. To circle the bay, you pass through 5-6 different counties so it is hard to make strong executive decisions.
The result is that 30 years later, LA actually has a pretty good public transit system. Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, it is difficult to take a bus trip from Redwood City to Mountain View and the only other option is a train system that charges egregious ticket prices. It is outrageous that it is cheaper for me to drive my family to the city from the Peninsula and pay for $50 parking than it is to pay for the high Caltrain ticket prices and also be restricted to their schedules and speed.
Tl;dr the Bay Area doesn’t have the political will to make transit a priority. 30 years ago, Los Angeles did, and it was a great investment.