From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 17:24:14 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>...
>
>BART in the San Francisco area is nominally a private enterprize, but
>it does benefit from some subsidies. It certainly could be successful
>as a private system, since it is extremely useful to residents and does
>in fact make about as much money in fares as it takes to maintain. One
>major reason it isn't, though, is that the bus and taxicab lobbies are
>fighting hard against allowing it to extend to the airport, which would
>likely double its revenues with little extra expense.
>
BART isn't private. Sorry. It's a governmental entity, even though
it's neither city, county, nor state. All the members of the BART board
of directors are public officials, either ex officio, or via direct
appointment (I don't think any are electec, unlike the bus system).
However, BART is a system built after GM lobbied successfully to uproot
the previous Key System, which was private (with lots of government
assistance). But during the 1950's GM managed to get it pulled apart,
the tracks torn up, and the cars sold off. (In southern calif. GM
actually bought control of the transit company, but I don't remember
that they had to do that with the Key system.) Still, BART is a
government entity that was put in to replace a service that had been
destroyed by private competition. The service was needed, and busses
just couldn't do the job. (It took me 4 hours to get from Berkeley to
Sunnyvale on the bus services that replaced the key system. That's
about 4 times as long as it takes if one drives. There isn't a direct
route via transit any longer.)
Footnote: The four hour trip involved AC Transit, a 7 block walk,
Greyhound, and then a wait for someone to pick me up, or a 20 block
walk. Not easy if you are carrying very much. OTOH, Sunnyvale is an
unfair example. It was designed from nearly the start to be auto
friendly. It is, or was, relatively low density housing, with few
businesses. A very poor design for a transit area. As the density
increases it becomes more hospitable to transit. (I wish it wouldn't,
but it's already too late, as the orchards are gone, and the new housing
going in is all condos.) But were a decent mass transit system in place
I estimate that it would take about an hour to make the same trip. (It
covers 2/3s of the distance, and that trip takes about half an hour,
once you reach the transit station.)
Still, this isn't a good example for mass transit. Not yet. But from
San Jose to San Francisco is. And people who make the trip regularly
tend to prefer the train, because it's faster and less hassle. (To be
fair, that should be "some people who make the trip regularly". But
enough to take a lot of load off of the highways, and to keep the tracks
quite busy.)
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