Meanwhile, the 47 Muni bus that connects the Van Ness transit corridor to Caltrain has been “suspended” since 2020, and the extension of Caltrain to the transit center is still unfunded.
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
Which is a problem in and of itself, at least theoretically. I don't live in SF, but I do live in a highly balkanized area (Atlanta) where the proliferation of local governments is a weight around the neck of the region overall
There are a couple of metro areas that escaped this problem by having regional government, Mpls/St Paul, MN and Portland, OR.
Minnesota has the Metropolitan Council which derives its power from state statute and can supersede the decisions of local governments. The same people that bitch about ‘my tax dollars’ complain about the Met Council but I feel it provides a cohesive regional planing organization and they provide water, sewer, transportation, and regional parks. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Council_(Minnesota)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Council_(Minnesot...
Portland, Oregon has a similar organization called Metro that I am not familiar with, other than it is similar to the Metropolitan Council. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(Oregon_regional_government)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(Oregon_regional_governm...
You say that, but if your SF tax dollars were paying for VTA you'd probably have stronger complaints... Moreover, public transit isn't evenly distributed even within SF so I don't think the transit agency count is an important variable.
They're all tied together through Clipper, so it doesn't make a difference to end users anyway.
It matters in that it's impossible to reliably and efficiently coordinate routes across that many agencies. Even if a rider can go from South San Jose to Oakland to Petaluma in a single trip on a single fare transferring as they go, okay it's an optimal payment experience but the routing and interlocking between systems surely isn't
Check out the storied history of RM2. Taxpayers literally voted to raise sales taxes to fund a rail corridor, and the money was reallocated to a different county for an unrelated project that did not benefit the counties in question. Never mind that an actual functional Dumbarton Rail could be a huge improvement to life on the Peninsula if done well.
Imagine a genuinely fast transfer between any one of the Caltrain stations (say Palo Alto or Menlo Park) and one of the East Bay BART stations. Of course, getting the western portion past all the expensive neighborhoods in the way sounds like a real mess.
dcrazy · · focus · HN ↗
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
8f2ab37a-ed6c · · focus · HN ↗
mixdup · · focus · HN ↗
Probably has something to do with that. Why on Earth are there 27 different transit agencies in the Bay Area? Probably should be a single digit, no?
zardo · · focus · HN ↗
mixdup · · focus · HN ↗
quickthrowman · · focus · HN ↗
Minnesota has the Metropolitan Council which derives its power from state statute and can supersede the decisions of local governments. The same people that bitch about ‘my tax dollars’ complain about the Met Council but I feel it provides a cohesive regional planing organization and they provide water, sewer, transportation, and regional parks. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Council_(Minnesota)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Council_(Minnesot...
Portland, Oregon has a similar organization called Metro that I am not familiar with, other than it is similar to the Metropolitan Council. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(Oregon_regional_government)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(Oregon_regional_governm...
striking · · focus · HN ↗
They're all tied together through Clipper, so it doesn't make a difference to end users anyway.
mixdup · · focus · HN ↗
amluto · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbarton_Rail_Corridor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbarton_Rail_Corridor
Check out the storied history of RM2. Taxpayers literally voted to raise sales taxes to fund a rail corridor, and the money was reallocated to a different county for an unrelated project that did not benefit the counties in question. Never mind that an actual functional Dumbarton Rail could be a huge improvement to life on the Peninsula if done well.
Imagine a genuinely fast transfer between any one of the Caltrain stations (say Palo Alto or Menlo Park) and one of the East Bay BART stations. Of course, getting the western portion past all the expensive neighborhoods in the way sounds like a real mess.