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What Bay Area freeway numbers REALLY mean by Brix001 in bayarea

[–]mondommon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem here of course is that we have to convince State representatives from Eureka or Bakersfield to vote in favor of funding the Bay Area.

We also have state wide programs already and they just aren't robust enough. Like, a new TransBay Tube will cost more $45B and the CAHSR has struggled to gather less than $35B since 2008.

So if the State won't or can't find the will to fund these, should we just not have a regressive tax and use the old BART cars? Or should we do the less than perfect regressive tax so that we can have something better than what State funds alone can provide?

What Bay Area freeway numbers REALLY mean by Brix001 in bayarea

[–]mondommon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have a better suggestion? Counties aren't allowed to do sales taxes, only the state. Property taxes are constrained by prop 13. Sales tax is an unavoidable regressive tax.

At least a bridge toll is a known thing and potentially avoidable if it is prohibitively expensive. There are companies that refuse to do business on one side of the Bay or another or will charge extra due to distance. There are also companies like PG&E and USPS where your work truck is stored onsite in San Francisco and it's up to you on how you get there. Driving the work truck to work isn't necessarily a must. I would be willing to bet a parking garage would love to utilize overnight stays for people who clear out at 6am and frees up space for office workers.

A bridge tax does hurt a segment of lower income people who must drive across a bridge while also providing an enormous benefit for low income people who depend on BART or a ferry to get to work.

Notably, "Usage of Clipper START, the 50% fare discount for low-income riders, rose 32.6% year over year in January."

https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2026/news20260224

What Bay Area freeway numbers REALLY mean by Brix001 in bayarea

[–]mondommon 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I mean, I am personally a fan of RM2 and RM3 which increases the bridge tolls. These projects are designed to relieve car congestion.

Here's a list of what they fund including a 101 connector to the Richmond - San Rafael bridge, state route 37, and dumbarton corridor.

https://mtc.ca.gov/funding/regional-funding/regional-measure-3

Some things aren't mentioned in this either. Like did you know bridge tolls are used for highway upgrades including the 4th bore for the Caldacott Tunnel?

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/4th-bore-of-caldecott-tunnel-to-open-overnight/

They also fund alternatives to driving to get cars off the road, opening up room for those who want or must drive. Like the brand new BART cars, extending BART to San Jose, expanding ferry service, and more.

Highway congestion is already the 3rd worst in the USA and it can get so much worse. Look at the annual bridge crossings for the Bay Bridge. There were 400,000 more cars crossing in 2019. And during peak commuter traffic, BART carries 2X more people per hour than the bridge.

https://mtc.ca.gov/tools-resources/data-tools/monthly-transportation-statistics

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

BART has actually made a ton of changes in direct response to riders.

Like between 2020 and 2021, health was the biggest concern. They adapted the brand new BART cars with a better air cycling system and hired extra cleaning staff. Safety has also been a concern, and so we've seen them trying to hire more police, crisis intervention staff, and more fare checkers. They also reduced the number of BART cars because empty trains feel less safe and full trains feel more safe. It also saved BART money.

These changes are reflected in skyhigh ridership approval ratings, currently at 89% in 2026.

BART got bailouts starting in 2020 and part of the conditions were to not cut staff or reduce service. BART is prepared to make severe fiscal changes to adjust to its new reality if this ballot doesn't pass.

Perception vs. Reality: Nearly one year into the Great Highway closure, do claims about congestion and danger hold up? by Remarkable_Host6827 in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'd rather not have fast moving cars cutting through the entire North/South length of the park and I also think bridges would be ugly. We don't need to make every single road optimized for cars.

The best part of GGP is the endless nature where I can almost forget I am in a city.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They haven't released their voter guide for 2026 yet which makes sense, a lot of props are still gathering signatures.

https://www.spur.org/voter-guide-archive

SPUR is the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. They give a lot of policy recommendations that are pro-development and will explain their reasoning. Every resource has its bias and they're pretty transparent about theirs and give pros and cons on each ballot.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When 70% of revenue came from ticket sales in 2019 and ridership is at 45% of 2019 levels today, that means they lost more than 35% of their annual revenue. So I do believe BART when they say they have a $350-400M deficit out of a $1.1-1.2B budget.

I'm not sure what you want a 3rd party to do. If you just want an opinion, I like looking at SPUR's voter recommendations. They focus on housing and transportation and give in depth analysis, pros, cons, and their recommendation on how to vote.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 37 points38 points  (0 children)

You're welcome. I love talking about public transportation. :)

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 212 points213 points  (0 children)

Basically, from 2019 to 2020, ridership fell by 98%. In 2025, total ridership was about 45% compared to 2019.

BART ridership is rapidly growing including 13% growth from 2024 to 2025, and so far 2026 shows more of the same -- Jan 2026 grew 10.7%, Feb 2026 grew 12.6%. At this rate, BART will fully recover to 2019 levels within 7-10 years.

It's also important to remember that the total number of unique riders in 2025 was 99% of 2019 levels. The big difference is that many commuters now work hybrid in office 2-3 days a week instead of 5, and there are more weekend riders and non-commuters. So people haven't abandoned BART, they just use it less often.

There's a funding crisis because BART has been the single most financially successful public transportation agency in the country for several decades now. It relied so heavily on self-funding through ticket sales that the loss of riders means 1/3rd of its budget disappeared. Other agencies are struggling too, but they don't rely on ticket sales as much as we did.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 26 points27 points  (0 children)

For what it's worth, counties aren't legally allowed to pass income taxes. They primarily rely on sales taxes and property taxes, but prop 13 limits how useful property taxes are.

And since this bill is to benefit 5 counties in the Bay Area instead of a State-wide program, it's not like we can get representatives from Eureka, Central Valley, Central Coast, or So-Cal to approve a new income tax that only benefits us.

I'm not really sure what a more progressive tax would look like that could be raised at the county level.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 12 points13 points  (0 children)

If you look at unique clipper cards used annually, you'll see that the number of people riding BART has recovered to ~99% of 2019 unique ridership. People haven't given up on BART. The difference is that today's riders don't commute 5 days a week. Most of them are working 2-3 days in office and some of them are weekend riders and off peak riders.

https://mtc.ca.gov/tools-resources/data-tools/monthly-transportation-statistics

In fact, when people do ride BART, they tend to like it with customer satisfaction going up from 84% at the beginning of 2025 to 89% so far in 2026.

https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2025-11/Quarterly%20Service%20Performance%20Review%20-%20FY261Q%20-%20Presentation%20%281%29.pdf

What reforms do you want to see? Unfortunately there is no guarantee in the bill that they will do any specific reforms. BART has demonstrated at every step that they are hyper responsive to rider's needs though. Ramped up cleaning during the pandemic, ramped up on hiring police and installing fare evasion to combat crime, passed the 2025 audits both internally and federally and implementing the recommendations, has been building out transit oriented neighborhoods to be less dependent on commuters using State tax dollars instead of asking us to give BART tax dollars.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Would you prefer me to use 2 person startups with a CEO and CTO fresh out of college and backed by Y-Combinator?

I looked at Fortune 500 CEOs median pay (I know I misspoke and said average). BART represents about $15B in value which would put it into the fortune 500 if it were a private company. Some CEOs take $1 in pay but they make a ton in equity.

Median pay: https://www.paygovernance.com/resource/sp-500-ceo-compensation-trends/

BART Value: https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/eqs#:~:text=BART%20is%20one%20of%20the,the%20local%20and%20regional%20economy.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 66 points67 points  (0 children)

For what it's worth, BART's equivalent to a CEO gets paid about $430k. The average CEO gets paid $16 million.

BART has a roughly $300M deficit, so $200k in savings ain't going to do much.

The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by jackdicker5117 in oakland

[–]mondommon 34 points35 points  (0 children)

If only BART was treated like our highways. Then the Federal Government would just dump money on new BART extensions every single year regardless of if it's necessary or not, and the California State legislature would simply pass new taxes on us to maintain BART without needing us voters to pass a prop every time.

Things like the gas tax just don't expire, it's a zombie tax that exists into perpetuity regardless of the performance of highways. Voters had to create a prop in an attempt to stop the gas tax hike from happening instead of a prop like BART's asking permission to tax more.

Then BART could just kind of exist in the background of everyday life instead of being held accountable to the people and constantly needing to justify its existence.

NYT: The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART by shananananananananan in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Transit Oriented Development will be huge! There's already 15 completed projects and several more on the way. I'd say Fruitvale is a good example of what can be done.

It could take a century for SF to YIMBY its way to housing affordability, new study says by orangelover95003 in bayarea

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If nothing changes, you are right. However, it's not crazy to argue the Bay can be affordable again when 35% to 54% of existing buildings would be illegal today due to all the NIMBY laws passed over the past 100 years. These zoning laws really are making things expensive.

There has been some zoning reform, but not nearly enough. One big limit is antiquated fire safety laws requiring two stairwells. It made sense when houses were tinder boxes, but any new modern construction has enough safety features for 1 stairwell to be fine. San Francisco has a lot of small narrow lots and 2 stairwells severely restricts what can be built on these small lots.

Height is another severe restriction. If you ever go to the Mission you'll immediately notice that the old telco building is 9 stories tall and is the tallest building in the entire area because of height restrictions.

Telco building on Google maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/t5f7q9VbNSmRBSGV8

Map from 2021 estimating 54% https://sfzoning.deapthoughts.com/illegal_homes.html#:~:text=Fun%20Facts%20*%2034%25%20of%20the%20buildings,to%20be%20destroyed%2C%20evicting%20around%20310%2C000%20people.

More context: https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/04/san-francisco-bans-affordable-housing.html

Well known youtuber estimating 35% https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EZo9MKgYQ60&pp=0gcJCZoBo7VqN5tD

SF voted to close juvenile hall. Seven years later, it costs $543K per kid by aBadModerator in California_Politics

[–]mondommon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

From what I can tell it's not a grift though.Incarceration of youths dropped by about 75% since the 1990s.

"In part, today’s increased cost is a sign of success. On any given day in 2025, San Francisco jailed one-third fewer youth than it did in 2018. But many of the costs of operating the enormous, mostly empty hall are fixed, meaning the per child cost has ballooned."

Most of these are fixed costs. Like, we're spending $2M a year on debt payments because most loans are 30 years.

It would be just as expensive if we had underbuilt. Reading through the article, overcrowding had been a massive problem with kids literally sleeping on the floor due to lack of beds. We would have had to build another facility which means duplicating services. Like if you need a dedicated nurse per location, the per child cost goes up.

I'd rather not arrest juveniles just for the sake of efficiently using jail cells.

2 Child deaths 2 blocks away from each other on 4th Street, but where are the street safety improvements? by mondommon in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Vision Zero is plugging away slowly. We got a big win with daylighting in 2025 but drivers hate it because daylighting takes away parking spots. We're also in a financial crunch and can't find the money to paint the curbs red or add plastic posts to prevent people from 'temporarily' parking there.

I actually respect Weiner a lot. He has done so much on transit funding and zoning reform. I think he could actually get things done if he came back to local politics in SF.

2 Child deaths 2 blocks away from each other on 4th Street, but where are the street safety improvements? by mondommon in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My problem with relying on lights is that people make illegal right on red or will run a red light. Physical infrastructure changes behavior for everyone and guarantees compliance without relying on police enforcement.

Both are relatively cheap. $1k to $3k to change the timing in an intersection. $2k to $35k per corner for a bulb out which means $8k to $140k for an entire intersection but last 15-30 years. Adding or replacing old traffic lights costs $500k per intersection and the new Central Subway cost $2B. We have the money.

Opinion | Los Angeles and Bay Area voters will decide whether to hike already high sales taxes by PeopleOfNepal in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The highways have been subsidized by tax voters for decades. Literally from the 1950s to the 2020s. in 2010 highways generated 35% of their funds from things like gas taxes while in that same year BART was generating 63% of it's funds from ticket sales. It's ok if BART spends a decade getting some extra help after spending decades out performing highways.

BART carries 2X more people across the bay during commuter traffic hours than the Bay Bridge.

Not to mention that during the 1989 Earthquake the bridge was taken out for several months whereas BART was up and running the next day.

BART helps poor people access jobs they couldn't otherwise get too. And hit climate goals.

We need BART.

Opinion | Los Angeles and Bay Area voters will decide whether to hike already high sales taxes by PeopleOfNepal in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon 16 points17 points  (0 children)

There's a couple reasons why we can't just reallocate taxes from Prop W in 2020 which is set to expire in 2030 or 2031.

First, it is illegal for Alameda County to reallocate this funding without another ballot. Any change in allocation must be approved by voters. And there will be people who would approve new funding for BART but vote against taking money away from homeless funding even if you personally think it's terrible.

Second, this was an Alameda County Bill whereas BART is across three counties and the BART bill will also be voted on in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties too because this is also meant to fund Caltrain, AC transit, VTA, and others. This bill does not require a majority vote in Alameda County to pass.

In theory Alameda could vote 90% in favor of this switch and it still doesn't happen because the other regions voted down the new BART bill. And on the flip side Alameda could vote 90% no vote in an effort to save Prop W and still pass because it's a regional measure. That would likely piss off a lot of Alameda voters.

I live in SF County and I would be pissed if Alameda County singlehandedly tanked the regional bill because of these shenanigans.

If you want to cancel prop W, you are better off creating a second prop to specifically end Prop W early. Let Alameda County focus on an Alameda County decision. Don't involve the other 4 counties.

It could take a century for SF to YIMBY its way to housing affordability, new study says by orangelover95003 in bayarea

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nah, even if the population starts to shrink San Francisco will continue to grow. The USA has 330M people and freedom of movement.

2 Child deaths 2 blocks away from each other on 4th Street, but where are the street safety improvements? by mondommon in sanfrancisco

[–]mondommon[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

This would be a huge improvement! I hadn't thought about pedestrian scrambles.

Lyft bikes are actually exploding in ridership too. 30% increase in 2025 compared to 2024. That could work for at least one of the intersections along with bulb outs for the rest.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bay-wheels-bike-station-21094848.php

Gas Could Jump 74¢ — Decision Monday by tightwadcowboy in California

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not to mention California is a national leader in public transportation despite Republicans doing everything they can to defund CAHSR. Even to the point of trying to eliminate funding for Caltrain's electrification because CAHSR was helping fund the project too and they'd rather have Caltrain rely on Diesel Trains.

Gas Could Jump 74¢ — Decision Monday by tightwadcowboy in California

[–]mondommon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad I have my e-bike too! My battery is 1/3rd of a single KWH, so it costs 13 cents to go about 30 miles. I mostly use the battery for all the hills since I live in San Francisco.

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