could be worse?

The last trips I had taken were to the following places: Holland, where the entire country is serviced by a network of ultra-efficient, timely, and comfortable trains that zip you from city to city in a matter of minutes. Of course, the country is not very big, so a trip from Maastricht to Amsterdam – basically from the west to the east of the country – is only a 2 hour journey. In the main city of Amsterdam, enough trolleys are running so as to scare unwitting pedestrians, and there is also a metro system. Transportation is not an issue and you are crazy to own a car. Ecuador, where what they lack in a train system is made up for in a bus system that will take you as quickly as possible (given the shape and condition of the roads) to any corner of the country accessible by road, from any other corner of the country. And, if these busses run even a couple of minutes late for, for example, waiting at a station hoping for more passengers, the populace on the bus begin to get rowdy, demanding that the bus leave at its scheduled time, not passively submitting to the authority of the bus company and assuming that their negligent practices are in service of a higher, unknowable cause. In the cities, the busses run everywhere from large avenues, to tiny cobbled streets. While it would be nice if the emissions standards were better (pedestrians inhale, routinely, the equivalent of 20 cigarettes worth of exhaust from passing busses), the service itself is constant and damn-near door to door, as you can ask the bus to drop you off wherever you want, and you can pretty much pick it up wherever you want too. And, Sweden, where the train from the airport to the center of Stockholm whizzes you at an incredible 130 miles per hour, making a 45 or so mile journey into a 20 minute joy-ride. This train is so efficient that it has only been reported off schedule 3 times in its entire existence. The city itself has a network of trolleys and subways that are clean, friendly, timely, and that will not be thrown off schedule for anything (a sublime subway moment happened in Stockholm as Anna and I were rushing to catch a bus. We were on one of the green lines and needed to get onto one of the red lines in order to get to the bus stop. The two lines run parallel for three or so stations in the center of the city. As we entered that zone, at the first shared station, the red line closed its door and left as we pulled into the station. The next red line train was not to arrive for another 6 minutes, which was too long for us to wait – we were really pushing it with time in terms of catching the bus. Our thought was that if we stay on the green line, perhaps we would catch up to the red train, or that the red train would wait an extra second or two for us at one of the other shared stations. No luck! At each of the three shared stations, there was a repeat performance of watching the doors close and the red train pull out of the station just as we pulled in. This required a devotion to efficiency on behalf of the system, and a respect for other people’s time on behalf of the citizenry, who did not suppose that their own personal dramas were worth inconveniencing an entire train’s worth of people by holding doors open or other such nonsense. As for us, we had to get out and take a cab in order to get to our bus on time, but everyone who remained on the trains had a smooth, incident-free commute. It’s a fair trade, and it serves us right for getting a late start (for all the talk of our having a society of individuals (which is an oxymoronic concept), the result is that when everyone acts in their own individual benefit (like holding doors open on the subway to make up for lost time – a necessity created by the individual’s negligence in leaving their house late), the society loses out, and while a “socialist” country like Sweden might not value individuality in such a way that it would be acceptable for a person to hold the doors of a train, individual responsibility comes to mean acting in a way that is beneficial to all and not just selfishly, which is ultimately more dignified (a person is not dignified when they are holding the doors of a train open))). So, in embarking on our most recent trip to San Francisco, I was more than prepared to come back with a report of yet another place in the world with better system and practices. I was especially ready to file this report upon the first leg of our journey, which was a long A train ride from 207th street to JFK. A long ride made even longer by the fact that the train was running local because it was nighttime. Why? Why can’t the C run at night? The whole reason the A runs express in the first place is that it runs an absurdly long route – one that takes about 2 hours under the best circumstances. Does that change at night? Does a person traveling from 207th to Far Rockaway not deserve a means of transport that gets him home in less than 2 hours because it is night?
Anyway, I was wrong.
San Francisco has two train services – the BART and the MUNI, which are mutually exclusive companies. You cannot use BART tickets on MUNI and vice versa. In that way, they are like the Metro-North/LIRR and the NYC subway service. MUNI trains and busses, however, share ticketing. There is also the old-fashioned cable car, which is a totally different story. However, San Fancisco is not directly equitable to New York, so the fact that the relationship between BART and MUNI is similar to the Metro North and subways does not mean it is 1:1. For example, Metro North is mainly a commuter train. Yes, there are specific points in the city from which you might opt to take Metro North rather than the subway. My apartment comes to mind. I happen to live directly next to a Metro-North station. And, I happen to live in an area of the city from which it is very difficult to take subways to, say, the east side of Manhattan. Those two factors together make it so that if I have to go to the east side of Manhattan, I will most likely take Metro North – especially if it is the weekend and I can get the $3.50 fare. However, if I had to go out of my way to get Metro North, I probably would not take it within the city. And, for example, if I lived on 125th and Lexington, where there is a subway and a Metro-North stop, and I needed to get to 42nd street, where there is also a subway and Metro North stop, I would never ever take the Metro North for that trip. It would not be worth the extra money. The subway can take me that route for half the price. Yes, I would be sacrificing comfort and speed, but still, it would not be worth it. In San Francisco, BART actually competes with MUNI for destinations within the city itself. If you are at Powell street and needed to go to the Mission, then it wouldn’t make sense to take the MUNI. It is more expensive and slower. BART prices vary by distance, and within San Francisco, it is pretty cheap. It gets more expensive if you want to go to Oakland or Berkeley, or the airport, or any other surrounding-area type place. But, MUNI does not compete with BART for these destinations. Anyway, point being, you might live in New York City and never ever take Metro North, but if you live in San Francisco, you probably take BART; and MUNI.
The BART is short and squat and shaped like a giant isosceles triangle. I am just about taller than BART is. When BART enters the station it makes a noise like a screaming ghost. BART has upholstered, soft seating and wall to wall carpeting: I hope San Francisco does not have bedbugs. There is dedicated space for bikes on BART and the straphangers on BART actually hang on to leather straps. On the BART platforms, the rubber portion that tells you that you are too close to the edge, are painted both yellow and black. The black sections are where the doors open. This may seem convenient: In New York, for example, knowing where the doors open is a matter of experience, research, and luck. However, the black spots just mean that everyone crowds the black spots on the platforms and jockeys for a space in the black spot and winds up standing directly in front of the doors as they open, making it a bit of a mess for people getting out of the train. Getting out of the train station itself is a pain. Since fares increase with distance, and there are no ticket takers coming through the train as there are on Metro North (and on Stockholm’s trolleys), tickets must be entered into a turnstyle upon entering and exiting stations. There are not enough turnstyles. Lines form at each exiting turnstyle. Even if there were initially enough turnstyles, they are not equally distributed between entering and exiting. There are more turnstyles for getting in than for getting out. There may be only 2 exit turnstyles at a major station. To compound it, going through the turnstyles is not a simple act of walking through: you have to put your ticket in the machine and take it out of the machine before you can go through. People get this wrong and take even more time. One station had only its down escalator working, further servicing the entering passengers to the detriment of the exiting. Purchasing tickets is a pain. There are ticket booths that accept cash, and machines that accept cards. On the machines, though there is a keypad, there is no option for punching in the exact amount of money you would like to put on the card. The machine automatically assumes you want to put $20 on the card, and gives you the option to either increase or decrease that amount by $1 or by $.05. So, in order to buy a card worth $8.60 (the amount that will get you from the airport to Powell street), rather than touching 3 buttons (an “8”, a “6”, and a “0”), you have to touch 20 buttons to get the price to $8.60 from the default of $20. This is absurd. The BART is often held at stations for undisclosed reasons. There is only 1 BART track that runs through the entire city of San Francisco, and through most of Oakland too. There are 5 BART lines. By comparison, Metro North converges all 3 of its East-of-Hudson lines onto one track at 125th street, making it that all trains run on the same track for only 1 stop. Some BART lines run as few as 5 stops independent of other lines. This is not many.
The MUNI runs busses and 3-car trolleys throughout the city. These trolleys go underground at times too. The busses are largely electric, meaning that they produce zero emissions and that they run attached to electrical wires above, with two long poles attaching the bus to the wires sticking out of the bus’ roof. Tickets for the trolley are $2 and you pay money into a machine as you walk onto the train. The conductor then gives you a flimsy piece of paper, ripped off at a certain spot that indicates a time until which you can ride any line. This time is usually 2 hours in the future. This is a marvelous waste of time and a burden on the train conductor who has to drive the train AND rip pieces of paper. Tickets should automatically eminate from the machine into which you put money. There is also the option to buy a multi-day pass and simply scan it as you walk on. Trolleys, when running outside, are subject to traffic lights. When running inside, the all run on one track – and this happens throughout the entire area of downtown San Francisco. There are many lines and the convergence onto one track slows service.
The A train ran express when we arrived back into NYC.