Meanwhile, bay area has companies with market cap of 30T (50T?), has nonexistent/incompatible and the slowest public transit.
1) BART 'works' for a subset of the population.
2) ACE train is one route only, from Stockton to San Jose.
3) Caltrain is one straight line. Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles.
4) There is a ferry service for some parts of north bay.
There are probably dozens of other bus systems and ferries and what not, all incompatible and disconnected.
When people from bay area (and the big tech companies) tell you they are the greatest minds on the planet solving (or going to solve) world problems, look at their public transit and think. Then weep/laugh.
Source: I lived in the North bay, East bay and South bay.
Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work. Planning and building cities and public transport is something the public sector is better at solving. Clean, nice and walkable cities with a good working public transport system, is important for the local economy to work. City planning is the art of compromises - no body get’s what they want, but overall everybody is better off in the end.
> Like making food supply work
Producers make what will sell but without any incentives, subsidies or regulation this would be a mess of profit chasing, unsafe practices and fragile supply chains.
In my view, the value of the public sector is in setting the rule of the game for private actors in exactly this kind of way (rules and incentives) instead of the politics of picking winners and losers directly or making direct decisions about what to build where, etc. Rule makers play the meta-game of designing how the game works and they leave agents free to play as they wish.
> Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work.
Is there any food market in the developed world that is not heavily subsidized by the state?
New Zealand and Australia have very minimal subsidies.
I do wonder what it would be like if our system was designed to feed people rather than to make money.
It's baffling that in Florida the land of oranges you see little cups of pealed that say product of Spain and packaged in Thailand. I know supply chains are complex and labor costs are a big factor but still.
Just FYI, the orange industry in Florida is almost at zero now, due mostly to citrus greening. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/nx-s1-5771748/florida-farmers...
I grew up in Florida and that's been a rough situation for a while. Crazy that they haven't been able to figure anything out over the decades it's been going on. I grew up with many citrus trees just around the neighborhood. I wonder if those have got it too.
Its natural for companies to push boundaries for better and better profits. It's sort of their nature.
Things might be fine in Australia and NZ right now, but as the hydric crisis deepens we might see a need for government to step up.
I think a problem is that, if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impossible task. This happened with banking, it is happening with consulting in the UK and big tech in the US. Not to mention big pharma pretty much everywhere.
So I think its a very careful balance of carrot and stick that the government needs to have over its industries.
>if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impossible task.
It's also said that four companies control 85% beef market in the US, which normally should make people rather queasy I would think.
If including tax breaks, New Zealand and Australia are not subsidized in total terms.
But the level of efficiency achieved thanks to the development of technology by private companies is what keeps them efficient around the world.
. Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles.
San Jose Didrion to SFO (4th and Townsend} is 48 miles highway distance.
You will not beat the bullet train during rush hour. It would like take you an hour and a half if lucky, probably closer to 2 hours driving
The transit times seem long, but often beat driving times especially during rush hour
Thw CalTrain being “one line” makes perfect sense because it runs parallel to the Valley
No the system is not perfect, but it is still one of the best in the country, except for NYC and maybe Boston
>No the system is not perfect, but it is still one of the best in the country, except for NYC and maybe Boston
I mean, there are a lot of poorer countries (especially in europe) that manage to solve this in a much better way, so this kind of proves OP point that raw purchasing power is not equivalent to the standard of living.
BART alone was confusing before they made the trains actually match with the colors on the map, circa 2016. Used to insist on only designating trains by endpoint, except the endpoints changed as they expanded lines, and also changed depending on the day/time. So even a year into daily riding BART to/from work, I took the wrong train a few times.
I went to NYC and also various other countries, easily understood the train/subway system even if it was in a language I don't understand. Except for Italy.
The morning "bullet" trains (503/507/511) from San Jose Diridon take 1hr to go 48miles with 10 stops. I think electrification and widening to 3 tracks improved times and reduces the likelihood of delays. Certainly, they run more often now, about every 10 minutes at rush hour and every 30min off hours and weekends.
https://www.caltrain.com/?active_tab=route_explorer_tab
SF Bay Area (land) has population density of a third of New York metro area or an eight of Tokyo metro area. The population density does not justify a world class public transit system. Not to mention there's a large body of water in the middle, which precludes building a lot of connections.
The two things you reference are very loosely related. I studied Transportation Engineering in the Civil department at UC Berkeley. I have always been very interested in public transportation. But I work as a Data Scientist in Silicon Valley rather than at one of the public transportation agencies. Because it pays roughly 10x as much. Every single one of the smartest people I went to school with is also now working in tech in Silicon Valley. A lot work on stuff like advertising optimization. Sigh.
Why would anyone prefer public transit over a self driving comfortable personal car?
Because public transit, done well, is the fastest way to move around. It gets you everywhere, even to places personal vehicles can't reach. It's a lot cheaper. It generates hubs of activity that keep cities lively and relevant. It doesn't get stuck in traffic. It doesn't need to be parked.
The benefits of good public transport are so mind blowing that it's difficult to explain unless you have lived on a city that has it.
Key words: "done well" and "good public transport".
Whenever I see discussions like this, I always feel the standards that most public transportation advocates consider "good" or even "acceptable" are far lower than mine.
Mine - Seoul, Tokyo, other East Asian cities.
Most public transportation advocates - Maybe NYC, many even lower.
Factors - reliability, cleanliness (both cars and stations), reach, safety (both actual and perceived, and both violent and non-violent).
Give me the Seoul or Tokyo subway and I'll gladly ditch my car (actually...no, but I'd only use it for excursions outside the city).
Hmm I disagree. I lived in Madrid. In fact in one of those cities that this article mentions from the new subway construction. Subway takes 1h15min to reach the city center. Car only takes 30 minutes.
This is because when you are building a subway every one wants their station. The map above may look like straight lines, but if you look at the real map, the north of line 10 is not straight at all, it's more zig zag.
We are trying to make transportation work for everyone and we end up with transportation that works for no one.
Also, the subway closes at midnight, and by Spanish standards, that's early. I was stranded twice (because different stations close at different times) until i decided that I would never take public transport in Madrid again
I also lived in Madrid. 1h15 means you were not in Madrid, but in one of the surrounding towns. 30 minutes in a car is enough to get from any point in Madrid to any other (assuming clear traffic).
It's obvious that people outside of the areas where transport is dense enough won't enjoy all the benefits. This is a usual complain about all dense public transport areas, but it simplifies to the fact that you were not in the area with dense coverage. In the case of Madrid, Metro is only dense enough in areas surrounded by the Circular line. There's also a very dense bus network that covers everywhere within M-40 and even some areas outside it (some bus lines can be hindered by traffic though, there are bus lanes in most critical spots but there's always some unpredictability).
Also, you're wrong on the closing time, it's been 1:30 AM for a long long time. That's the time where the last train departs on each line, so it's possible to catch trains at almost 2 AM depending on where you are. By Madrid standards, if you are out and about at 1 AM it means you are in a bar or in a party, and it's time to decide whether to continue through the night and get back when Metro opens again at 6 AM, to use a taxi to get back home, or to use the night bus network if you're lucky to be near a stop and willing to wait for it.
> Car only takes 30 minutes
That is not rush hour time, though.
Oh yeah, I'm talking about recreationally. I would never accept a job offer that requires a commute to the city.
100% agree that commuting to work in public transport is way better
I work in NYC but live in the inner suburbs, as does most of my social circle.
For most of us, when it comes to commuting for work, it's always public transportation.
But when it comes to going into the city for leisure, it's always the car.
It takes 30 minutes to reach my workplace by bike, or alternatively 50 minutes by public transport.
In addition to the other good reasons also raised, PT has much more optimal land-use than private cars. Train stations or metro stations take up relatively little land and can be integrated with business and services or have nice public plazas and small parks. Compared with multi-lane highways, parking lots, giant intersections that are hostile to pedestrians and active transport.
Because it’s available to everyone, including kids and elderly, and does not need high upfront payments.
I can just move to Madrid and move anywhere in the city for around 1-2€ per trip without upfront investment of 20.000€ for a car, plus insurance, maintenance, fuel and taxes.
Trains don't get stuck in traffic, and some of them have restrooms and space to walk around in. They're also better for the people outside of the vehicle.
Well, first of all, there is no such thing.
However, even if such a thing did exist, you still have to contend with traffic and total road capacity. So, for instance, taking local systems (details will vary by city, but not much), a double-decker bus is ten meters long and takes ~100 people. A tram is 55m long and takes about 550 people. A commuter train is 160m long and takes a thousand people (and doesn't share roads, of course). A car is 4-5m long and typically carries one or two people. Take any large city, attempt to replace the public transport with private cars, and there simply _will not be space_.
Fully-segregated metros in particular can also be much faster than cars in urban areas; they don't have to contend with traffic or intersections at all.
Why would anyone prefer a car that YOU have to drive over an autonomous all terrain comfortable personal horse?
A horse knows how to navigate any kinds of terrain, while a car requires constant microsecond attention, extremely stressful, if you lose focus, might end up dead, worse kill a lot of other people! Horses don't need roads to be built, or the elaborate supply chains of fossil fuels, and trillions of dollars per year in subsidies.
Because of the lesser impact on land usage, fuel usage, noise, ...?
Why would anyone prefer a self driving comfortable personal car over teleportation?
Well, trains and underground public transit usually are impervious to traffic.
Even buses get exclusive lanes in some cities.
You can zip over people trapped in traffic on their personal cars. It is quite satisfying.
Collectively (as in, the collective action problem):
- Areas with few/no cars are nicer to be in. To breathe, to talk quietly and hear others talking, to walk around safely.
- Transport moves more people in less space and less overall investment. Toronto Highway 401[1] is an eighteen lane road and it moves fewer people per day than Metro line 1.
- Low car areas are better for local economies. People object to reducing traffic saying it will hurt local businesses, and the opposite is true. Where it's nice to exist outside of a car, that attracts people, and local businesses thrive.
- Reduced costs on health services from reduced pollution. Fewer doctor and hospital visits and prescriptions, for lung infections, breathing problems, asthsma and COPD in London after Low Emissions zones.
- Reduced environmental impact of fewer cars, fewer trips taken by car.
- Many people can't drive; all children, many injured or disabled people, many poorer people, many elderly people (can't or shouldn't), some people with e.g. DUI convictions. Some 20% of households in the UK have no access to a car. A matter of fairness and not prioritising the wealthy car owner.
Personally:
- No need to find parking, return to that carpark.
- Transit is more spacious. Being strapped into a carseat, elbows hitting doors, head hitting roof, knees hitting steering wheel, shins hitting dash, feet constrained in footwell, surrounded by explosives "for your protection" is a really unpleasant place to be.
- Less concentration needed. Driving requires constant attention. Even when transit is crowded, you don't have to do anything.
- Implemented well, transit takes priority over cars at turnings, crossings, junctions, roundabouts, and moves faster. Toronto trams do this especially poorly, apparently.
- Freedom. No need for a government approved license and ID. Not beholden to dragging a ton of steel boat-anchor around everywhere with you.
[1] https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IRDiOiNYl9s/UEwAA79O2NI/AAAAAAAAG...
You describe some of the best possible transit scenarios and compare it to the worst possible car scenarios. That can easily be flipped.
My daily experience with transit is that you're far more likely to be standing, jam packed like sardines with your nose up someone's armpit. The train/bus is constantly heaving and shaking. You have to be always be concentrating not to stumble or fall into the person next to you.
This is a problem that still exists with some of the best transit systems, and is even more pronounced on the ones that aren't quite so nice.
Why would anyone prefer airline transit over a comfortable private jet?
Why would anyone prefer to drive when you can be driven?