Take the Train?

It’s a truism in America that public transportation is cheaper than driving one’s own car – and, in fact, many people are convinced that public transportation is ridden exclusively by those people who can not afford to drive. Of course, riding a bus or train is usually slower than driving, but most people will assure you that the amount you save on parking, gasoline, car repairs and insurance more than makes up for the time you are spending. Environmentalists praise public transportation, claiming that the lower emissions of one bus compared to 40 cars (or one train compared to 300 cars) is more than enough motivation for riding it. Some people will go so far as to praise the lower stress involved in riding over driving, or cite the ability to read, study, nap, or whatever during this time. But what happens when the country is in the grips of the worst recession in a generation, and the price of riding public transit isn’t cost effective?

A story reported this week in the Mercury News tells the sad tale of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known in Northern California as BART. Often hailed as California’s greatest public works project ever, BARD connects most of the communities in and around the San Francisco Bay Area in a network of trains and subways convenient to both main airports and most of the business districts. But despite the pro-environmental and anti-big-business nature of the Bay Area, the BART system is currently losing on the order of $130 to $140 million each year – which has led to price hikes in an attempt to stem the losses, which has lowered ridership even further. People were reluctant to use BART when it was priced competitively – citing commutes that were as much as 8 times longer, in terms of minutes in transit, than driving a car – but with price hikes making driving cheaper, the system is doing even worse…

Some of the problem is political – the contract the city signed with the bus and train operator’s union is so disadvantageous for the city it’s surprising there haven’t been riots – and some of it is simple bureaucracy – none of the people who could change the situation has any personal or financial motivation for doing so – but most of it is just poor management. The city needs to encourage ridership any way it can, and placing various nuisance fees (what is an SFO round-trip surcharge, anyway? And in what world is it a good idea to more than double it when your ridership is already dropping?) on riders who are already dubious about your service is no way to run a railroad. Or, in this case, a public transit system…

In the long run, the City and State will continue to support the BART system, but with California’s budget already at the breaking point, the last thing they need is to put more strain of the highway system, run up costs for road repairs and bridge maintenance (above the levels those things are already at), and shovel more money into an inefficient public works project. Unless somebody in the City by the Bay wakes up and smells the smog, things are about to get worse for our friends in Northern California…