As someone who lives in the Bay Area we already have trains, and they're literally past the point of bankruptcy because they (1) don't actually charge enough maintain the variable cost of operations, (2) don't actually make people pay at all, and (3) don't actually enforce any quality of life concerns short of breaking up literal fights. All of this creates negative synergies that pushes a huge, mostly silent segment of the potential ridership away from these systems.
So many people advocate for public transit, but are unwilling to deal with the current market tradeoffs and decisions people are making on the ground. As long as that keeps happening, expect modes of transit -- like Waymo -- that deliver the level of service that they promise to keep exceeding expectations.
I've spent my entire adult life advocating for transportation alternatives, and at every turn in America, the vast majority of other transit advocates just expect people to be okay with anti-social behavior going completely unenforced, and expecting "good citizens" to keep paying when the expected value for any rational person is to engage in freeloading. Then they point to "enforcing the fare box" as a tradeoff between money to collect vs cost of enforcement, when the actually tradeoff is the signalling to every anti-social actor in the system that they can do whatever they want without any consequences.
I currently only see a future in bike-share, because it's the only system that actually delivers on what it promises.
> they (1) don't actually charge enough maintain the variable cost of operations
Why do you expect them to make money? Roads don't make money and no one thinks to complain about that. One of the purposes of government is to make investment in things that have more nebulous returns. Moving more people to public transit makes better cities, healthier and happier citizens, stronger communities, and lets us save money on road infrastructure.
>Why do you expect them to make money?
I don't.
That's why I said "variable cost of operations."
If a system doesn't generate enough revenue to cover the variable costs of operation, then every single new passenger drives the system closer to bankruptcy. The more "successful" the system is -- the more people depend on it -- the more likely it is to fail if anything happens to the underlying funding source, like a regular old local recession. This simple policy decision can create a downward economic spiral when a recession leads to service cuts, which leads to people unable to get to work reliably, which creates more economic pain, which leads to a bigger recession... rinse/repeat. This is why a public transit system should cover variable costs so that a successful system can grow -- and shrink -- sustainably.
When you aren't growing sustainably, you open yourself up to the whims of the business cycle literally destroying your transit system. It's literally happening right now with SF MUNI, where we've had so many funding problems, that they've consolidated bus lines. I use the 38R, and it's become extremely busy. These busses are getting so packed that people don't want to use them, but the point is they can't expand service because each expansion loses them more money, again, because the system doesn't actually cover those variable costs.
The public should be 100% completely covering the fixed capital costs of the system. Ideally, while there is a bit of wiggle room, the ridership should be 100% be covering the variable capital costs. That way the system can expand when it's successful, and contract when it's less popular. Right now in the Bay Area, you have the worst of both worlds, you have an underutilized system with absolutely spiraling costs, simply because there is zero connection between "people actually wanting to use the system" and "where the money comes from."
You're definitely right on (2) and (3). I've used many transit systems across the world (including TransMilenio in Bogota and other latam countries "renowned" for crime) and I have never felt as unsafe as I have using transit in the SFBA. Even standing at bus stops draws a lot of attention from people suffering with serious addiction/mental health problems.
1) is a bit simplistic though. I don't know of any European system that would cover even operating costs out of fare/commercial revenue. Potentially the London Underground - but not London buses. UK National Rail had higher success rates
The better way to look at it imo is looking at the economic loss as well of congestion/abandoned commutes. To do a ridiculous hypothetical, London would collapse entirely if it didn't have transit. Perhaps 30-40% of inner london could commute by car (or walk/bike), so the economic benefit of that variable transit cost is in the hundreds of billions a year (compared to a small subsidy).
It's not the same in SFBA so I guess it's far easier to just "write off" transit like that, it is theoretically possible (though you'd probably get some quite extreme additional congestion on the freeways as even that small % moving to cars would have an outsized impact on additional congestion).
Well then invest in those things, then. It would probably cost less than the amount they're spending to make a Waymo World Model.
Lighting money on fire by funding an extremely expensive system that most people don't want to use is not an "investment." It's just a good way to make everyone much poorer and worse off than if we'd done nothing. The only way to change things is to convince the electorate that we actually do need rules and enforcement and a sustainable transportation system.
This isn't just happening in America. Train systems are in rough shape in the UK and Germany too.
Ebike shares are a much more sustainable system with a much lower cost, and achieve about 90% of the level of service in temperate regions of the country. Even the ski-lift guy in this thread has a much more reasonable approach to public transit, because they actually have extremely low cost for the level of service they provide. Their only real shortcoming is they they don't handle peak demand well, and are not flexible enough to handle their own success.
> most people don't want to use
I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but this is a common NIMBY refrain. The argument of "This thing being advocated for that I'm fighting against isn't something people want anyway". And like walkable neighborhood architecture, extremely few Americans have access to light rail. Let alone light rail that doesn't have to yield to car traffic.
Regardless, the cost arguments fall apart once you take the total cost society pays for each system instead of only what the government pays. Because when you get the sum of road construction & maintenance, car acquisition, car maintenance, insurance, and parking, it dwarfs the cost of the local transit system. Break it down on a per-consumer basis and it gets even uglier. New York City is a good example to dive into, especially since it's the typical punching bag for "out-of-control" budgets.
Quick napkin math pins the annual MTA cost at $32-$33 billion and the total cost of the car system between $25 and $44 billion per year. Since the former serves somewhere around 5.5 million riders, and the latter only about 2 million, the MTA costs $5,300-6,600 per user annually where the car system costs $12,000–$22,500 per user annually.
People want to use it everywhere in the world
People want to have their cake and eat it too.
Maybe not BART but the new Caltrain electrification program seems to be a success and ridership and revenue are up
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/caltrain-says-could-clos...
It's worth noting that, at least for bart, the reason that it is facing bankruptcy is precisely because it was mostly rider supported and profitable, and not government supported.
When ridership plummeted by >50% during the pandemic, fixed costs stayed the same, but income dropped. Last time I checked, if Bart ridership returned to 2019 levels, with no other changes, it would be profitable again.