I rode all the San Francisco Bay mass transit systems in one day

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Matthew H Fish

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
May 28, 2019
Messages
499

First, I guess the title is a bit of a lie, since I didn't actually manage to ride all the systems---no ACE or SMART! But I rode a circle of trains around the Bay Area.
I had this idea a while ago, and when I first had it, it seemed like it was just a wild idea---but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it wouldn't be too difficult, even coming in from another state, to circle around the Bay Area using all its different transit systems in a day, and then to get back on an Amtrak long distance route. So this Friday, I did just that! Coming into San Jose-Diridon on the Coast Starlight, I took the VTA, Caltrain, BART, MUNI, San Francisco Ferry, San Joaquin, ending up in Martinez so I could get back on the Coast Starlight going north. It actually wasn't at all difficult, and even with spending some time visiting some places, I managed to complete it in 9 hours.
The most interesting thing is how technology and community needs interact: or in some case, fail to do so. There are many places where multiple modalities coexist, for example Caltrain heavy commuter rail and BART metro are both ways to get from Millbrae to downtown San Francisco. In many cases, as far as I can tell, systems with the same basic routes are often the legacy of developing technologies, but at the same time, I think that jurisdictional issue are also at play here---sometimes probably having to do with historical political differences that would be very hard to understand. There are also cases where transit modes were developed when a city had a very different demographic pattern, for example, when the VTA light rail was being planned, San Jose was not the country's 10th biggest city. I am sure that at least a few people watching this can probably fill me in on a lot of history, and explain the technical and service model differences between Caltrain and the Capitol Corridor (which I ended up not taking, instead taking the San Joaquin).
From a user perspective, the trip was pretty easy. All of the systems I rode (except for the San Joaquin) use the Clipper Card, which is an integrated fare payment service accepted on trains, buses and ferries across the region. There were differences in how the card is used on different systems, for example on the VTA you pay before boarding, on the MUNI, after boarding. But in general, it was a pretty smooth experience, even for an addled tourist.
Another thing to mention is that the San Francisco area is still very active, despite some statements to the contrary. Although transit ridership has fallen off since the pandemic, apparently, most of them still had many riders, and in San Francisco proper, the trains were full. Also contrary to some reports, things were clean, and I felt safe during my trip. The transit personnel I interacted with were competent and courteous. It was a great trip!
I know the video is a bit long, but feel free to skip around.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
Another thing to mention is that the San Francisco area is still very active, despite some statements to the contrary. Although transit ridership has fallen off since the pandemic, apparently, most of them still had many riders, and in San Francisco proper, the trains were full.
Click to expand...
Funny you should bring that up. Just last night, I saw a local news YouTube wherein the director of MUNI said ridership is at 75% of pre-pandemic levels, and "all of us transit agencies that serve downtown SF are facing ... a fiscal cliff!" Seems they've been surviving on federal pandemic aid, which is about to end.
 
joelkfla said:
Funny you should bring that up. Just last night, I saw a local news YouTube wherein the director of MUNI said ridership is at 75% of pre-pandemic levels, and "all of us transit agencies that serve downtown SF are facing ... a fiscal cliff!" Seems they've been surviving on federal pandemic aid, which is about to end.
Click to expand...

Well, here I have to make a few comments about politics---but only as they apply to transit. Its kind of unavoidable to mention them.
Different groups have different reasons to exaggerate San Francisco's problems.
For conservatives, San Francisco is an obvious target, because it is a liberal city, and transit specifically is a service where the government is spending a lot of money. So portraying San Francisco as a "failing" city that is being "abandoned" is obviously going to score points. Especially if they can further make the point that transit is a waste of money.
And for the people running the services, they want to make their situation look more dire than it is, in hopes of getting more money. "Fiscal cliff" certainly sounds more serious than "25% decrease in ridership".
Not to say that things aren't really changing---the beginning of remote work has changed the necessity of very dense downtowns. The city, and area has lost population for the first time in decades. But at least from what I saw, it was more an adjustment---there are still many people in the Bay Area, and while some of the transit systems I rode had minimal riders, on some systems, and on some stretches, they were very busy.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
"In many cases, as far as I can tell, systems with the same basic routes are often the legacy of developing technologies, but at the same time, I think that jurisdictional issue are also at play here---sometimes probably having to do with historical political differences that would be very hard to understand. "
Click to expand...
As far as BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) history goes, it is my understanding that the voters in some counties (Marin. San Mateo and Santa Clara come to mind) either refused to join or subsequently withdrew from financing in their counties, and that but for their short-sightedness, BART might have circled the San Francisco Bay and made your and millions of other citizens' lives a lot easier.
 
GAT said:
As far as BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) history goes, it is my understanding that the voters in some counties (Marin. San Mateo and Santa Clara come to mind) either refused to join or subsequently withdrew from financing in their counties, and that but for their short-sightedness, BART might have circled the San Francisco Bay and made your and millions of other citizens' lives a lot easier.
Click to expand...
Yes, I don't know the history, but I am curious about it.
Sometimes it might also be for technical reasons: continuing BART into Marin County seems like it could be a challenge. But I can also imagine that some people in what were then more suburban regions could have objected for other reasons.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
Yes, I don't know the history, but I am curious about it.
Sometimes it might also be for technical reasons: continuing BART into Marin County seems like it could be a challenge. But I can also imagine that some people in what were then more suburban regions could have objected for other reasons.
Click to expand...
i just looked up Wikipedia to refresh my memory. It's quite interesting. There's a full discussion of the history in the "Origins, planning, and geographical coverage" section. Bay Area Rapid Transit - Wikipedia
 
GAT said:
i just looked up Wikipedia to refresh my memory. It's quite interesting. There's a full discussion of the history in the "Origins, planning, and geographical coverage" section. Bay Area Rapid Transit - Wikipedia
Click to expand...
A lot of the problem seems to be a "Prisoner's Dilemma" type problem. In order for a transit system between jurisdictions to work, they all need to know they are going to commit to it. If everyone contributes, this isn't a problem, but if just one partner steps away, the cost burden on the other partners gets to be too high. So according to that article, San Mateo County pulled out and then Marin County couldn't afford to stay in, so it was left with just the big three counties.
But also, especially in the San Francisco Bay area where the terrain and settlement pattern is diverse, it makes sense that communitie would choose different things. Especially with San Mateo County, which is pretty large and only is very dense in the north, it might have seemed like a bad decision to spend money on something that was far away from most residents of the county.
I should also point out that for the purposes of my trip, I purposely drew things out. I could have taken Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco and gotten there at least two hours earlier.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
And for the people running the services, they want to make their situation look more dire than it is, in hopes of getting more money. "Fiscal cliff" certainly sounds more serious than "25% decrease in ridership".
Click to expand...
25% drop in ridership is not some minor change. For systems that are heavy on farebox that would mean cutting large parts of their service.
AC transit is only around a 20% farebox so if they were down 50% of riders they'd need to cut about 10% of all service hours. That is not some minor change.
BART, caltrain and a few others are really on a cliff, they were at ~75% farebox ratio and so with less riders they'll need to cut service drastically. Which then can start a death spiral where less people ride it so they keep cutting service to try and balance the books.
Matthew H Fish said:
Yes, I don't know the history, but I am curious about it.
Sometimes it might also be for technical reasons: continuing BART into Marin County seems like it could be a challenge. But I can also imagine that some people in what were then more suburban regions could have objected for other reasons.
Click to expand...
BART to Marin county got killed when golden gate bridge officials lied and did everything in their power to stop it. They even hired someone to make a completely false engineering report saying the bridge couldn't support it. It would now never get built as the ridership vs cost just isn't there. so much cheaper to just run a ferry or more buses.
 
GDRRiley said:
25% drop in ridership is not some minor change. For systems that are heavy on farebox that would mean cutting large parts of their service.
AC transit is only around a 20% farebox so if they were down 50% of riders they'd need to cut about 10% of all service hours. That is not some minor change.
BART, caltrain and a few others are really on a cliff, they were at ~75% farebox ratio and so with less riders they'll need to cut service drastically. Which then can start a death spiral where less people ride it so they keep cutting service to try and balance the books.

BART to Marin county got killed when golden gate bridge officials lied and did everything in their power to stop it. They even hired someone to make a completely false engineering report saying the bridge couldn't support it. It would now never get built as the ridership vs cost just isn't there. so much cheaper to just run a ferry or more buses.
Click to expand...
A 10% cut can be horrible if done all at once. We did that at Edmonton Transit when City Council could not bring itself to adjust for the Energy Crash in 1982-83. Finally, a fiscal cannon was pointed at them and on one day we laid off 150 operators. Management layoffs followed more quietly.

RTD in Colorado also made a 10% reduction as a result of the Energy Crash as it hit the U.S. By getting to work on it quickly and then having the resources to spread it out over almost two years of changes, no one was laid off. However, it did lead to some public cynicism that "they're always cutting services." The gradual cutback did have less effects on ridership than the blitzkrieg cuts.
 
GDRRiley said:
25% drop in ridership is not some minor change. For systems that are heavy on farebox that would mean cutting large parts of their service.
AC transit is only around a 20% farebox so if they were down 50% of riders they'd need to cut about 10% of all service hours. That is not some minor change.
BART, caltrain and a few others are really on a cliff, they were at ~75% farebox ratio and so with less riders they'll need to cut service drastically. Which then can start a death spiral where less people ride it so they keep cutting service to try and balance the books.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I might have been making some stuff up there.
I was more talking about what a user would see while riding. There were places where the transit felt empty (The BART leaving Millbrae, the MUNI leaving Balboa Park), but in many places it was well-used, especially in San Francisco proper. I am mostly contrasting a certain narrative about San Francisco (that people are "fleeing" it) with what I saw on the ground--- a vibrant, busy town.
I am not saying that changing transit patterns are not a thing, and that there isn't a possibility of a bad feedback loop. And I think that this decade will continue to see reverbations from the pandemic. But San Francisco is still a busy city with a lively downtown, and a lot of transit riders.
 

This also probably belongs here:
While I was visiting San Francisco, I visited Salesforce Transit Center, which is a relatively new transit center located in downtown San Francisco. It is a three level building, with city buses stopping at street level, and with intermediate buses along the second floor. The third floor is Salesforce Park, a rooftop garden with full grown trees, fountains, a restaurant--- its stunningly gorgeous. As I say in the video, the whole thing feels like Star Trek.
The only thing that is missing from this transit center is...transit. None of the rail lines (BART, MUNI or Caltrain) serve the transit center. Most of the bus lines are intermediate lines from places like Santa Rosa. So its a great building but somewhat iffy as a transit center.
(This is also where the Amtrak shuttle to and from Emeryville stops)
 
Matthew H Fish said:
Sorry, I might have been making some stuff up there.
I was more talking about what a user would see while riding. There were places where the transit felt empty (The BART leaving Millbrae, the MUNI leaving Balboa Park), but in many places it was well-used, especially in San Francisco proper. I am mostly contrasting a certain narrative about San Francisco (that people are "fleeing" it) with what I saw on the ground--- a vibrant, busy town
Click to expand...
BART or muni near all its ends is not very busy. People aren't fleeing it, theres still a very strong demand to live in or near it.
Matthew H Fish said:
But San Francisco is still a busy city with a lively downtown, and a lot of transit riders.
Click to expand...
SF downtown is pretty dead on Monday and Friday because most of the office workers try and stay home on those days. weekends its going to feel pretty lively.

clipper card is planning to get better in the next few years with some free transfer between agencies proposed mattering on what comes out of the legislator this year we could see a region wide pass as part of consolidating services.
Matthew H Fish said:
The only thing that is missing from this transit center is...transit. None of the rail lines (BART, MUNI or Caltrain) serve the transit center. Most of the bus lines are intermediate lines from places like Santa Rosa. So its a great building but somewhat iffy as a transit center.
(This is also where the Amtrak shuttle to and from Emeryville stops)
Click to expand...
Caltrain and CAHSR plan to reach it with Downtown extension (DTX), its a super expensive project tunnel the few miles from 4th and king to the transbay terminal but it will likely happen given the ridership gains expected. Muni is there just no muni metro or muni streetcar lines.
BART coming is a possibility with the 2nd transbay tube. That is still in the early planing stages. 2026 or 2028 will be when a whole family of projects under the Link 21 name will likely end up on the ballet to fund them.
 
The Bay Area has some serious "misconnection" issues with different transit modes at various points. BART and Amtrak don't really connect in Oakland (they do connect in Richmond and to the south of downtown, but those stops aren't served by any of the LD trains). Most of the issue seems to be different agencies as much as anything.
 
Anderson said:
The Bay Area has some serious "misconnection" issues with different transit modes at various points. BART and Amtrak don't really connect in Oakland (they do connect in Richmond and to the south of downtown, but those stops aren't served by any of the LD trains). Most of the issue seems to be different agencies as much as anything.
Click to expand...
There is ~30 agencies in the bay area who run transit. A consolidation down to 8-10 is badly needed and may come as the strings with state funding for operations.
Mattering on which projects get picked Oakland could get a much better connection but San Jose if they can get funding will have a good one at Diridon.
BART, Caltrain, ACE, Capital corridor, Coast Starlight, Coast daylight (if that finally starts), VTA light rail and bus will all be a short walk in San Jose
 
GDRRiley said:
There is ~30 agencies in the bay area who run transit. A consolidation down to 8-10 is badly needed and may come as the strings with state funding for operations.
Mattering on which projects get picked Oakland could get a much better connection but San Jose if they can get funding will have a good one at Diridon.
BART, Caltrain, ACE, Capital corridor, Coast Starlight, Coast daylight (if that finally starts), VTA light rail and bus will all be a short walk in San Jose
Click to expand...
Honestly, all of the commuter trains should probably be under one roof. I can sort-of see the case for Capitol Corridor to land elsewhere, but I think that's dubious given the local context (it's perfectly possible to put a cafe car and different seats in one agency's equipment vs another; being able to order commonly-specced equipment would probably allow for cost efficiencies). A standard, pooled set of bus orders might help as well, but so much bus service is painfully local (while the other stuff inherently crosses jurisdiction lines).

[Muni is also a mess given the specialized equipment constraints that saved a few of the trolley/streetcar lines from bustitution.]
 
Anderson said:
Honestly, all of the commuter trains should probably be under one roof. I can sort-of see the case for Capitol Corridor to land elsewhere, but I think that's dubious given the local context (it's perfectly possible to put a cafe car and different seats in one agency's equipment vs another; being able to order commonly-specced equipment would probably allow for cost efficiencies). A standard, pooled set of bus orders might help as well, but so much bus service is painfully local (while the other stuff inherently crosses jurisdiction lines).

[Muni is also a mess given the specialized equipment constraints that saved a few of the trolley/streetcar lines from bustitution.]
Click to expand...
Theres really only 1 commuter line ACE. Capital Corridor and Caltrain are more regional rail and that will only grow more.
A standard type of bus also isn't a big deal already the big ones like AC transit and Muni run mix fleets while most of the smaller ones have picked 1-2 brand in a few styles based on route type. You'll just see stuff ordered by use. Likely a mix of low floor 30ft, 40ft and 60ft plus 45ft coach buses and double decker coach. Some of the 40ft could also be in a more freeway style for longer trips.
 
GDRRiley said:
There is ~30 agencies in the bay area who run transit. A consolidation down to 8-10 is badly needed and may come as the strings with state funding for operations.
Click to expand...
On a philosophical level, this is kind of the main issue with American government--- does independence allow communities to adjust their services to their own needs, or does it lead to disorganization and wasted resources?
But also, on a more practical level, a lot of those local transit agencies are dealing with their own settlement patterns and demographics. Especially in the Bay Area, where you have lots of water and mountain dividing communities.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
On a philosophical level, this is kind of the main issue with American government--- does independence allow communities to adjust their services to their own needs, or does it lead to disorganization and wasted resources?
But also, on a more practical level, a lot of those local transit agencies are dealing with their own settlement patterns and demographics. Especially in the Bay Area, where you have lots of water and mountain dividing communities.
Click to expand...
I mean, HRT (Hampton Roads) seems to do a decent job - it's one agency covering six or seven cities (with a few 1-2x daily runs going out-of-area), but service levels vary a lot. So I feel like forcing a bunch of localities into contracting with one agency (and limiting any odd markups from that agency for service contracts) might be a "happy medium".
 
I had some more things to say about my trip, but while I am remembering what they were, I thought I would post the two videos, showing my trip to and from the Bay Area on the Coast Starlight.



This was a very intense trip, to say the least: it was 48 hours in all. About 18 hours each way, and 12 hours for the trip between San Jose and Martinez. By the time I was finished, I was having lots of "train motion" hallucinations where I felt like I was still moving after I stopped moving.
 
Matthew H Fish said:
Yes, I don't know the history, but I am curious about it.
Sometimes it might also be for technical reasons: continuing BART into Marin County seems like it could be a challenge. But I can also imagine that some people in what were then more suburban regions could have objected for other reasons.
Click to expand...
Marin refused to fund it. I think it was put to a proposition vote for a bond.
 

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