Waymo pays you $2.85 in Waymo credit to take the train
(Waymo takes $2.85 off your next ride if you take the train)
I live in East Bay, and I often take gratuitous Waymo trips all the way across the city to Embarcadero Station to ride BART back home. I do this because I like seeing the pretty skyscrapers and the bustling city and the pretty townhomes painted interesting colors. They may want to rethink their reward structure a bit to avoid paying out to people like me.
A trick I learned from an east bay friend is that (when possible) the bus across the bridge is way nicer than the BART under the bay, especially around sunset.
I've heard multiple times Americans complaining about being on the bus.
Genuine question, what's up with being on the bus?
I lived in Vancouver BC, I can't see anything wrong with their bus. Not perfect, but yeah... It's a bus, goes from stop to stop. Anything special about bay area buses?
Yeah. I took the bus in NY and SF and I’m also not sure why the complained. Maybe because I’m a tourist but especially in SF I had always nice interactions with the driver. Mind you I took the Bus in the City Centers. Is it that much worse in the outskirts or is it just the concept of taking a Bus with multiple other people the problem?
We were discussing riding the bus to a place that depending on traffic is a 20 minute car ride from SF, or a 2 hour car ride in the worst case scenario traffic.
There are a few bridges that connect SF to other places across large bodies of water, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. These bridges do not provide a dedicated lane for the buses. These bridges act as a choke point for traffic. As a result, the buses are not reliably on time, because the traffic is hard to predict and it depends on whether or not people have a car accident that evening.
As I mentioned in another comment, these buses do not have bathrooms inside. So you are spending an unpredictable amount of time standing at an unsheltered bus stop, often with no bench to rest on, followed by an unknown amount of time on the bus.
The buses come infrequently enough that if you go find a restroom after waiting a while at the stop, and the bus comes while you are gone, it will be a decent chunk of your life spent waiting for the next bus to come as well.
This might be fine if you're on vacation and you just wanted to explore the Bay Area, but if you live here and work here, this is just too much time!
If you have a car, there is essentially no upside to taking the bus in this situation, which means if you are greedy and choose to drive instead you contribute to traffic by taking up more space on the road.
In contrast, if you choose to take the train, you know exactly how long the trip is going to be, because there's no variable traffic disrupting the schedules. It's predictable. It's convenient. Sometimes the train might get stopped for one reason or another, but the trains come so frequently that this is rarely an issue.
Before your trip, you're also inside a train station, which is sheltered, has seating, and even often has bathrooms.
There's a sign telling you clearly how long until the next train arrives, you don't have to count on something on your phone to find out.
My understanding of the initial commend “But then you are on a bus” was a negative one to buses and or public transport in general.
I know the geology of SF and drove both bridges a few times myself but was always lucky to not end up in traffic. I would also always prefer the train over the bus. But currently where I live this also is put to the question. I live in Berlin and we have a great public transport network which at the moment struggles a bit on multiple fronts. This happens every few years at least in my experience.
I like to try out the public transport situation in different cities for my own comparison. Funny enough one of the best times I had was driving the metro in D.C. Met a very energetic metro employee who explained the machines and the system :).
novia · · focus · HN ↗
(Waymo takes $2.85 off your next ride if you take the train)
I live in East Bay, and I often take gratuitous Waymo trips all the way across the city to Embarcadero Station to ride BART back home. I do this because I like seeing the pretty skyscrapers and the bustling city and the pretty townhomes painted interesting colors. They may want to rethink their reward structure a bit to avoid paying out to people like me.
evmar · · focus · HN ↗
novia · · focus · HN ↗
alex_duf · · focus · HN ↗
Genuine question, what's up with being on the bus?
I lived in Vancouver BC, I can't see anything wrong with their bus. Not perfect, but yeah... It's a bus, goes from stop to stop. Anything special about bay area buses?
larusso · · focus · HN ↗
novia · · focus · HN ↗
There are a few bridges that connect SF to other places across large bodies of water, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. These bridges do not provide a dedicated lane for the buses. These bridges act as a choke point for traffic. As a result, the buses are not reliably on time, because the traffic is hard to predict and it depends on whether or not people have a car accident that evening.
As I mentioned in another comment, these buses do not have bathrooms inside. So you are spending an unpredictable amount of time standing at an unsheltered bus stop, often with no bench to rest on, followed by an unknown amount of time on the bus.
The buses come infrequently enough that if you go find a restroom after waiting a while at the stop, and the bus comes while you are gone, it will be a decent chunk of your life spent waiting for the next bus to come as well.
This might be fine if you're on vacation and you just wanted to explore the Bay Area, but if you live here and work here, this is just too much time!
If you have a car, there is essentially no upside to taking the bus in this situation, which means if you are greedy and choose to drive instead you contribute to traffic by taking up more space on the road.
In contrast, if you choose to take the train, you know exactly how long the trip is going to be, because there's no variable traffic disrupting the schedules. It's predictable. It's convenient. Sometimes the train might get stopped for one reason or another, but the trains come so frequently that this is rarely an issue.
Before your trip, you're also inside a train station, which is sheltered, has seating, and even often has bathrooms.
There's a sign telling you clearly how long until the next train arrives, you don't have to count on something on your phone to find out.
larusso · · focus · HN ↗
I know the geology of SF and drove both bridges a few times myself but was always lucky to not end up in traffic. I would also always prefer the train over the bus. But currently where I live this also is put to the question. I live in Berlin and we have a great public transport network which at the moment struggles a bit on multiple fronts. This happens every few years at least in my experience.
I like to try out the public transport situation in different cities for my own comparison. Funny enough one of the best times I had was driving the metro in D.C. Met a very energetic metro employee who explained the machines and the system :).