They don’t even address the homeless hotel factor, the drug use factor, the cigarette smoking, the seats in the cars that are so beat up they belong in the trash and the constant stream of ppl scouring seat after seat for small change or anything that may have fallen out of someone’s pocket.
At least you get to feel superior, think about. How could you have so much disdain for the public if their were no public resources. If it wasn’t BART you would probably be complaining about how our tax dollars are being used on sidewalks that homeless people sleep on or parks that drug addicts. At least you can see them everyday instead of going to park to complain and collect grievances.
@@williamcondon7729 You’re spinning it out of context from the start, so you obviously have an agenda. This makes what you say invalid. BART has huge issues they window dressing address, and that’s the truth. I used to walk the tenderloin to get to work and if you did too you’d stfu about drug addiction.
I absolutely agree. I work in transportation and also have been using public transportation for many years, so I have a bit of and obsession with it. I even made public transportation my subject of study for my Master's Degree. I have long said that one of the biggest keys to solving the transportation crisis is that we have to also solve a significant portion of the homeless problem as well. Interestingly, the homeless problem happens to be another of my obsessions. Another mistake people make is that they treat the homeless problem as if it is one unified problem. It isn't. Only between 15 and 30 percent of the homeless are either drug addicted or mentally ill or both. The problem is depending on the mental illness someone who is severely mentally ill can pose a danger either as a physical threat or a hygienic threat to those who are around them. They aren't morally responsible for it, but that doesn't change the fact that the threats are real. And the addicted can also be a potential threat. Recognizing a problem is not the same as assigning blame for the problem. Another group of homeless are ex-convicts that have served their time and have been released from prison. They have a hard time finding people who are willing to hire them, and that may lead to them having to accept lower wages than most people. And even when they finally do get a job, many landlords are unwilling to rent to them. In my home state any landlord that rents to a known ex-con even has to pay an extra fee for doing it. Another category of homeless are what I call the financially homeless. These are people that would love to have a home, but based on financial issues they can't afford it. Maybe a member of the family got sick and the crushing cost of medical bills made the family homeless. Or maybe a single mother who got pregnant when she was 16 and was kicked out of the family and never got a high school diploma and gets no support from the birth father is working two jobs in the Bay Area, and due to the astronomically high rents in the area she is unable to pay the rent when it goes up and is evicted. And another category of homeless are the people that I call homeless by choice. These are people that want to get out of the rat race and want to save money and who maybe feel like housing is overpriced and they want to protest that. These might be people with almost no money, but this group might even potentially include millionaires. Why do I mention all of these different categories? It's because I believe the solution for each of these categories has to be different. I also believe the impact of these different categories of homeless is going to be different on the public transportation system. A person who is homeless by choice who has a gym membership and regularly bathes and has access to a bathroom and can afford to do laundry at a laundromat and who isn't violent or mentally ill or addicted is probably not causing any problems on public transportation. If they happen to take a ride on the bus to get access to A/C you probably won't even be able to distinguish them from other passengers. Interestingly, these kinds of homeless are actually often good for security. I know of someone who lives this way who told a business that he was living out of his truck and asked if he could park in their parking lot, and because they knew him and knew he was reliable they were thrilled because they had had recent problems with breakins during the night, and they knew having him sleeping in the parking lot at night was basically extra free security for them. I believe the same principle applies on buses, especially at night. If you knew that every night bus has 5 homeless people who have had background checks who are mentally healthy and non-violent riding wouldn't you feel a little safer on the bus? However, as much compassion as I feel for those who are mentally ill and/or addicted, in constrast I feel less safe if I know 5 mentally ill, addicted homeless people are riding every bus at night. Plus even if they don't attack anyone on the bus, and while I'm sure it's not politically correct to say it I also fully expect the buses to smell absolutely terrible and for the riders to potentially be exposed to extra diseases and for those riders to leave things like trash and used needles on the bus. We definitely need solutions for these real people, but the solution to live at train/bus stations and to ride the train/bus all day just isn't the right solution for a certain percentage of the homeless population, and trying to make it the solution is costing the transportation system a ton of extra money and is driving potential riders off of public transit and into personal vehicles. Once they are in the safety and comfort of their personal vehicles, they suddenly act like they start caring about the poor mentally ill and addicted who are homeless and seem to think keeping the status quo of allowing them the suboptimal solution of destroying public transit is the most compassionate thing society can do. The idea of actually providing real solutions as alternatives certainly isn't a priority. And yet I doubt many of those people are so compassionate that they would allow the homeless mentally ill and addicted to live in their personal car all day.
Holly, you are quite right and thank you for the validation. Do you know I am the author of “The End Of Homelessness.”? So far, I have pitched it to: The Governor, Warren Buffet and Sylvester Stallone. Zero reply or follow up with all three. Since I had proven the concept solving homelessness was a profitable venture, I took it to a Silicon Valley pitch fest. They read the executive summary, looked at me and said, “You’re right. This will make money. Just not enough for us.” There you have it. Thank you again. Sincerely, The Lone Comic ®️
@@TheLoneComic I haven't heard of "The End Of Homelessness," but it definitely sounds like something I would like to know about. Do you have a link where I can get more information? Sadly, that response doesn't surprise me in the least. The more I have studied about homelessness the more I genuinely wonder if it is true that at least in some states/cities there are people getting rich and/or powerful off of the homeless issue who are actively working behind the scenes to make sure the problems can't be solved. There are two stories in California that made me particularly sick. One was a case where a donor planned to build a homeless shelter to house 1,000 homeless on Skid Row. The homeless were already living on Skid Row, so for once there wasn't a big uprising of neighbors to block the project. The donor had found the land and planned to pay for everything and do all the work himself. All he needed was permit to build it. The government refused to give him a permit. The second story hurt even more. A man had found a way to build tiny homes for roughly I think it was $2K per home. They weren't much, but they were big enough for someone to sleep at night protected, and they even had a small solar panel that was enough to power a cell phone. The homes were also on wheels, so they could be moved if needed. These homes were making a huge difference. You could tell the people living in them were taking pride in them and were decorating them and even giving them house numbers. And then one day with no warning the city came in and seized the homes. As the person doing the project said, if he had been given notice he at least could have moved all of the homes since they were on wheels, but all of his hard work and investment were just destroyed by the city. I can't describe in words how mad that story made me. I really got the impression that the motive for this wasn't just a bunch of Republicans wanting to keep the homeless out of THEIR neighborhood. First, the government that did it was almost 100% Democrats anyway. But there was just something about the whole situation that made my gut scream that these tiny homes were a threat to someone because they were actually working and someone could see the homeless problem was about to get better, and that meant they might lose either money or power or both. Another one that really bothers me in Salt Lake City. I happen to live in Salt Lake City. For awhile we had an initiative that was called Housing First. It wasn't perfect, but it was making a HUGE impact. It was so successful that our Mayor was even being asked to go around the world to lecture on the program. I had huge respect for that mayor. To understand the problem better, he chose to live as a homeless man for I think it was a week to be able to understand the system first-hand. Anyway, what made me absolutely livid was as soon as he was out of office the entire program was ended and REVERSED. The huge gains that had been made in the homeless scene were all reversed practically overnight. Locally, there was also a ton of talk that the reason the new program had been put in was because some of the governor's friends were contractors, and they were given a very lucrative contract to basically knock down the existing homeless shelter and build several new shelters. There were more new shelters, but the total number of beds in all of the new, expensive shelters was fewer than the total beds in the old shelter. Shelters aren't the only thing that was changed, but the point is that it looks like the motive for the new policies was to enrich the friends of the governor, and he was so unworried about being held accountable for his actions that it was an open secret. This proves to me that corruption surrounding homelessness occurs in both the Democrat and Republican Parties, which certainly is not a surprise to me. It seems like corruption is more likely to occur when a state is not a swing state, which is also not a surprise to me. A Republican in Utah can get away with almost anything and is only vulnerable if someone in the same party dares challenge them in the primary, which if they are high up in the party is unlikely to happen. A Democrat in California can get away with almost anything and is only vulnerable if someone in the same party dares challenge them in the primary, which if they are high up in the party is unlikely to happen. Anyway, I'm starting to get off topic. My point is on one hand I'm convinced many that have the power and resources to do something won't do it because of laziness and disinterest. Many also don't do it because I personally believe they are corrupt and are finding a way to profit off of the problem so they don't want the problem to go away. However, I also solidly believe there are real solutions and many people who actually do want to see those solutions put into place, and while I don't think we have the power to change things tomorrow if we band together the incurable optimist in me believes we actually can make a difference. I would love to hear your ideas on this subject, and if you are interested in connecting off-line so we can coordinate our efforts let me know that as well.
All the high fees & money go into the politicians & top bureaucrats. Most bart stations are full of crimes, the bart staffs are rude & unhelpful. It is becoming a scary experience to "enjoy" bart!
As someone who works in transportation, I seriously wonder how many of these problems are caused directly by the agency and mismanagement and how many of these problems are caused by those who regulate the agency. We regularly have usually well-meaning regulators dictating to us programs that we have to do that we know in advance won't work, but because the regulator dictates it we have no choice but to do it. For example, we had someone volunteer to donate I think it was 16 buses as long as we paid for the tires. We knew the buses were poorly made and estimated the cost of maintainence in the first year alone would be more than the cost of buying a brand new bus and begged not to have to buy them, but they didn't really listen because they were so enamored with the idea of the buses being free, so we were forced to buy them. Due to climate change activists, we also have legal limits on the size of our fleet, so buying those buses prevented us from buying buses that actually worked. Those buses were constantly in the shop when they weren't breaking down driving their routes, and passengers were absolutely impacted. Another time we were forced to buy a system that a college student had designed to supposedly help with climate change. It was just an experiment, and a completely untested, expensive experiment at that. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to the student for thinking of it, and it does eventually need to be tested somewhere, but we knew the odds of it meeting its goals were quite low. It is usually best to test these things at a small scale and work out the kinks before testing it with real passengers that are potentially going to get stranded when the system doesn't work. Also, when you are two years in and you realize the program is actually using MORE energy than the original system and is also costing about three times as much as expected you'd think you would be allowed to abandon the project, but the problem is too many regulators buy into the Sunk Cost Fallacy and they always think, "Well, we paid to build the system, we should at least keep using it until what we have bought stops working." On paper that sounds reasonable, but if the total cost of buying a new bus or train and running it for three years is less than the cost of just running the old bus for its remaining three years and the new buses are more climate friendly it shouldn't matter that you already own the old bus. The correct decision is obviously to retire the old bus and invest in new buses. Once again, I actually do understand the desire to experiment. That actually is really important. But you debug before you go live with customers, and when it is clear that an experiment has failed completely you need to be willing to abandon it if that is the obvious correct decision. Anyway, my point is that in my experience usually the front line people know what is actually going on, but everyone assumes the front line people are greedy and stupid, so regulatory agencies that are not part of the day-to-day operations are brought in to make all of the meaningful decisions. Those people almost always have special pet projects they want to try to make their big impact on solving everything. Occasionally those pet projects work, but I would guess those projects have success rates under 1% because those people aren't working on the front lines and don't understand the actual constraints and difficulties front line workers face. Instead, those pet projects usually result in interrupting the customer service experience while also bankrupting the annual budget meaning important projects such as regular maintenance has to be put off until another year when the budget can handle the expenses. Of course, that's only when those with regulatory power are genuine. There are also plenty of selfish crooks that manage to get regulatory power that find ways to bankrupt the system while making sure a portion of that money ends up in their own pockets or the pockets of their friends. Maybe it really is the front line workers in this scenario that messed up, but I absolutely would love to see how much of this is actually the agency's fault and how much of the fault belongs to those at the very top of the agency or those who have been assigned to oversee the agency.
BART is an absolute joke. From OAK airport to Orinda takes 90 minutes after waiting 28 minutes for the Richmond bound train then another 28 minutes for the Antioch bound train. Pathetic!!!
OAK to Orinda takes 42 minutes by BART. If that's what you got it must have been because of an equipment problem or delay in the system. There are no transfers with 30 minute wait times on the system. All the BART transfers are either timed cross-platform or are under 10 minutes if they're not cross-platform. Did you get off at a designated transfer station? They're marked on the BART map.
Lol last time I pointed out the maintenance issues and the refusal to work by the yard workers from Bart they took down my complaints like with the heat kink issue that has been going on in Concord that they claimed to have fixed a few months ago was never actually worked on I live next to that section of track and they did not work on a single day they sat around it but never actually worked on it
That’s BART saying they fixed it when they didn’t and it happened a second time; shady, shady, shady. Poor people having to wait at PH for bus to Concord in 105+ degree heat.
Measure RR? LOL BART will always suck. Dorothy was the best manager they had. Every night, the commute was longer and longer because of police activity, delays. Gavin wants people not to drive but CA mass transit sucks and isn’t safe.
I don't believe any under developed countries have this kind of problem. To me, equipment problems is the least of the problem. Iam afraid I may get killed by criminals and thugs during travel by BART. I have visited many poor countries and nothing was every so disgusting as BART and Caltrain. How can a developed country transit system with stations that have no toilets? ONly they effed up US. It is the US that is the rotten country on the planet. Russia and China have lot more common sense and decency than the US. It si time somebody beats the US and make it s real 3rd country that it is.
Anyone can tell that Bart has failed in all facets just by the contact with its front line station agents who are rude and incompetent. The new trains are nice though but they are depreciating to become the dirty old trains really fast. Fat salaries all around. Public transportation in the Bay Area is one of the highest in the nation.
Yeah, those workers get the same crap I do. Why should anyone get a retirement, what is this the 1950s? Pay them peanuts and surely service and maintenance will get better, has to get better.
That is so dumb man, if you dramatically reduce the salaries of those you maintain the system the incentive that they will have to maintain the system will be non existent, because the cost of loosing their job for not being efficient enough isn’t very high because they’ll be able to go to another transit agency or corporation or state operated program / enterprise and get paid more for their skills there, or so the theory goes in a quote on quote fair market place lol.
Do you get better service at a 5 star restaurant where the staff is highly skilled and paid well for those skills, or do you get better service when you go to Popeyes when the employees might be college students capable of giving you good customer service and food but won’t care to do so because doing that offers them nothing because it gives them no real opportunity for advancement in Popeyes. If you don’t pay workers fairly for their skills and offer them merit based opportunities for advancement the quality of the service that those workers help to provide will inevitably be reduced I would think.
equipment and service problems can be fixed. Teens robbing tourist and passengers and Teen mob mass looting is what BART doesn't want to fix. Enforce the fare and no more crime on BART.
Sounds like a lot of the problems the MTA deals with on a day to day basis but miniaturized. Every day there are impacts on multiple lines due to maintenance or due to a track or signaling failure.
Probably cant afford the maintenance cost because they pay their drivers $95000/yr just like SEPTA. Our EL cars are only 20 years old and they have way to many probolems.
@@chromebomb Nope. Consistently punctual and reliable with Japan's bullet trains (and profitable too). In Japan, they are so accountable that they apologize for either being slightly late or leaving slightly early.
BART management is incompetent and the parade of public officials are simply mouthpieces to their incompetence. The big pay increase they got a couple years ago didn’t improve the system. The pandemic caused a slowdown in ridership, which should have given these guys more opportunities to conduct maintenance, repairs, and cleaning. Now that the local economy is coming back, all the deterred systems that did not get adequate attention are coming to bite them. They know the root causes. They need new management.
This is everyday happening now and not on time and a lot delayed cancel. They so slow when you get to Pleasanton going to Pittsburg and Antioch. I think they do it purpose they so they could get more money or budget.
This is unfortunately nothing new Bart as a system is so old that a total and complete overhaul is what is going to be needed they can't keep putting bandaids on and slapping on temporary repairs if something is broke it needs to be fixed completely so that it does not break down again and unfortunately Bart doesn't have that type Goal when it comes to equipment failure or breakdown's in service
This report is BS. The "Independent Institute" has a total hard on to privatize everything in our society. Everything. Transit, policing, roads, bridges, social security, the military and everything else. They are a Libertarian think tank so I don't know how that counts as non partisan. Where does crime on Bart come from? The communities that it services. It is a transit agency not a police service. Passengers are what make the trains filthy, people jump in front of the trains of their own accord, Bart doesn't invite them to do so. Passengers are in a hurry to get home, not make police reports that might help fight crime. It's easy to attack transit systems as dirty, dangerous and in need of being shut down but what would the region do without transit? The Libertarians have an answer and it will cost as much or more because they definitely want their profit and for those profits to grow year on year.
They don’t even address the homeless hotel factor, the drug use factor, the cigarette smoking, the seats in the cars that are so beat up they belong in the trash and the constant stream of ppl scouring seat after seat for small change or anything that may have fallen out of someone’s pocket.
At least you get to feel superior, think about. How could you have so much disdain for the public if their were no public resources. If it wasn’t BART you would probably be complaining about how our tax dollars are being used on sidewalks that homeless people sleep on or parks that drug addicts. At least you can see them everyday instead of going to park to complain and collect grievances.
@@williamcondon7729 You’re spinning it out of context from the start, so you obviously have an agenda. This makes what you say invalid. BART has huge issues they window dressing address, and that’s the truth. I used to walk the tenderloin to get to work and if you did too you’d stfu about drug addiction.
I absolutely agree. I work in transportation and also have been using public transportation for many years, so I have a bit of and obsession with it. I even made public transportation my subject of study for my Master's Degree. I have long said that one of the biggest keys to solving the transportation crisis is that we have to also solve a significant portion of the homeless problem as well. Interestingly, the homeless problem happens to be another of my obsessions. Another mistake people make is that they treat the homeless problem as if it is one unified problem. It isn't. Only between 15 and 30 percent of the homeless are either drug addicted or mentally ill or both. The problem is depending on the mental illness someone who is severely mentally ill can pose a danger either as a physical threat or a hygienic threat to those who are around them. They aren't morally responsible for it, but that doesn't change the fact that the threats are real. And the addicted can also be a potential threat. Recognizing a problem is not the same as assigning blame for the problem. Another group of homeless are ex-convicts that have served their time and have been released from prison. They have a hard time finding people who are willing to hire them, and that may lead to them having to accept lower wages than most people. And even when they finally do get a job, many landlords are unwilling to rent to them. In my home state any landlord that rents to a known ex-con even has to pay an extra fee for doing it. Another category of homeless are what I call the financially homeless. These are people that would love to have a home, but based on financial issues they can't afford it. Maybe a member of the family got sick and the crushing cost of medical bills made the family homeless. Or maybe a single mother who got pregnant when she was 16 and was kicked out of the family and never got a high school diploma and gets no support from the birth father is working two jobs in the Bay Area, and due to the astronomically high rents in the area she is unable to pay the rent when it goes up and is evicted. And another category of homeless are the people that I call homeless by choice. These are people that want to get out of the rat race and want to save money and who maybe feel like housing is overpriced and they want to protest that. These might be people with almost no money, but this group might even potentially include millionaires.
Why do I mention all of these different categories? It's because I believe the solution for each of these categories has to be different. I also believe the impact of these different categories of homeless is going to be different on the public transportation system. A person who is homeless by choice who has a gym membership and regularly bathes and has access to a bathroom and can afford to do laundry at a laundromat and who isn't violent or mentally ill or addicted is probably not causing any problems on public transportation. If they happen to take a ride on the bus to get access to A/C you probably won't even be able to distinguish them from other passengers. Interestingly, these kinds of homeless are actually often good for security. I know of someone who lives this way who told a business that he was living out of his truck and asked if he could park in their parking lot, and because they knew him and knew he was reliable they were thrilled because they had had recent problems with breakins during the night, and they knew having him sleeping in the parking lot at night was basically extra free security for them. I believe the same principle applies on buses, especially at night. If you knew that every night bus has 5 homeless people who have had background checks who are mentally healthy and non-violent riding wouldn't you feel a little safer on the bus? However, as much compassion as I feel for those who are mentally ill and/or addicted, in constrast I feel less safe if I know 5 mentally ill, addicted homeless people are riding every bus at night. Plus even if they don't attack anyone on the bus, and while I'm sure it's not politically correct to say it I also fully expect the buses to smell absolutely terrible and for the riders to potentially be exposed to extra diseases and for those riders to leave things like trash and used needles on the bus. We definitely need solutions for these real people, but the solution to live at train/bus stations and to ride the train/bus all day just isn't the right solution for a certain percentage of the homeless population, and trying to make it the solution is costing the transportation system a ton of extra money and is driving potential riders off of public transit and into personal vehicles. Once they are in the safety and comfort of their personal vehicles, they suddenly act like they start caring about the poor mentally ill and addicted who are homeless and seem to think keeping the status quo of allowing them the suboptimal solution of destroying public transit is the most compassionate thing society can do. The idea of actually providing real solutions as alternatives certainly isn't a priority. And yet I doubt many of those people are so compassionate that they would allow the homeless mentally ill and addicted to live in their personal car all day.
Holly, you are quite right and thank you for the validation.
Do you know I am the author of “The End Of Homelessness.”?
So far, I have pitched it to: The Governor, Warren Buffet and Sylvester Stallone.
Zero reply or follow up with all three.
Since I had proven the concept solving homelessness was a profitable venture, I took it to a Silicon Valley pitch fest.
They read the executive summary, looked at me and said, “You’re right. This will make money. Just not enough for us.”
There you have it. Thank you again.
Sincerely,
The Lone Comic ®️
@@TheLoneComic I haven't heard of "The End Of Homelessness," but it definitely sounds like something I would like to know about. Do you have a link where I can get more information?
Sadly, that response doesn't surprise me in the least. The more I have studied about homelessness the more I genuinely wonder if it is true that at least in some states/cities there are people getting rich and/or powerful off of the homeless issue who are actively working behind the scenes to make sure the problems can't be solved. There are two stories in California that made me particularly sick. One was a case where a donor planned to build a homeless shelter to house 1,000 homeless on Skid Row. The homeless were already living on Skid Row, so for once there wasn't a big uprising of neighbors to block the project. The donor had found the land and planned to pay for everything and do all the work himself. All he needed was permit to build it. The government refused to give him a permit. The second story hurt even more. A man had found a way to build tiny homes for roughly I think it was $2K per home. They weren't much, but they were big enough for someone to sleep at night protected, and they even had a small solar panel that was enough to power a cell phone. The homes were also on wheels, so they could be moved if needed. These homes were making a huge difference. You could tell the people living in them were taking pride in them and were decorating them and even giving them house numbers. And then one day with no warning the city came in and seized the homes. As the person doing the project said, if he had been given notice he at least could have moved all of the homes since they were on wheels, but all of his hard work and investment were just destroyed by the city. I can't describe in words how mad that story made me. I really got the impression that the motive for this wasn't just a bunch of Republicans wanting to keep the homeless out of THEIR neighborhood. First, the government that did it was almost 100% Democrats anyway. But there was just something about the whole situation that made my gut scream that these tiny homes were a threat to someone because they were actually working and someone could see the homeless problem was about to get better, and that meant they might lose either money or power or both.
Another one that really bothers me in Salt Lake City. I happen to live in Salt Lake City. For awhile we had an initiative that was called Housing First. It wasn't perfect, but it was making a HUGE impact. It was so successful that our Mayor was even being asked to go around the world to lecture on the program. I had huge respect for that mayor. To understand the problem better, he chose to live as a homeless man for I think it was a week to be able to understand the system first-hand. Anyway, what made me absolutely livid was as soon as he was out of office the entire program was ended and REVERSED. The huge gains that had been made in the homeless scene were all reversed practically overnight. Locally, there was also a ton of talk that the reason the new program had been put in was because some of the governor's friends were contractors, and they were given a very lucrative contract to basically knock down the existing homeless shelter and build several new shelters. There were more new shelters, but the total number of beds in all of the new, expensive shelters was fewer than the total beds in the old shelter. Shelters aren't the only thing that was changed, but the point is that it looks like the motive for the new policies was to enrich the friends of the governor, and he was so unworried about being held accountable for his actions that it was an open secret. This proves to me that corruption surrounding homelessness occurs in both the Democrat and Republican Parties, which certainly is not a surprise to me. It seems like corruption is more likely to occur when a state is not a swing state, which is also not a surprise to me. A Republican in Utah can get away with almost anything and is only vulnerable if someone in the same party dares challenge them in the primary, which if they are high up in the party is unlikely to happen. A Democrat in California can get away with almost anything and is only vulnerable if someone in the same party dares challenge them in the primary, which if they are high up in the party is unlikely to happen.
Anyway, I'm starting to get off topic. My point is on one hand I'm convinced many that have the power and resources to do something won't do it because of laziness and disinterest. Many also don't do it because I personally believe they are corrupt and are finding a way to profit off of the problem so they don't want the problem to go away. However, I also solidly believe there are real solutions and many people who actually do want to see those solutions put into place, and while I don't think we have the power to change things tomorrow if we band together the incurable optimist in me believes we actually can make a difference. I would love to hear your ideas on this subject, and if you are interested in connecting off-line so we can coordinate our efforts let me know that as well.
the price of bart doesnt equate to the quality of service.
because most of the money goes to union payroll
Parking has gotten too expensive and they cut the size of the lots in favor of ugly stacked and packed cargo container type housing. 😡
All the high fees & money go into the politicians & top bureaucrats. Most bart stations are full of crimes, the bart staffs are rude & unhelpful. It is becoming a scary experience to "enjoy" bart!
Just look at sac rt price you would understand
As someone who works in transportation, I seriously wonder how many of these problems are caused directly by the agency and mismanagement and how many of these problems are caused by those who regulate the agency. We regularly have usually well-meaning regulators dictating to us programs that we have to do that we know in advance won't work, but because the regulator dictates it we have no choice but to do it. For example, we had someone volunteer to donate I think it was 16 buses as long as we paid for the tires. We knew the buses were poorly made and estimated the cost of maintainence in the first year alone would be more than the cost of buying a brand new bus and begged not to have to buy them, but they didn't really listen because they were so enamored with the idea of the buses being free, so we were forced to buy them. Due to climate change activists, we also have legal limits on the size of our fleet, so buying those buses prevented us from buying buses that actually worked. Those buses were constantly in the shop when they weren't breaking down driving their routes, and passengers were absolutely impacted. Another time we were forced to buy a system that a college student had designed to supposedly help with climate change. It was just an experiment, and a completely untested, expensive experiment at that. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to the student for thinking of it, and it does eventually need to be tested somewhere, but we knew the odds of it meeting its goals were quite low. It is usually best to test these things at a small scale and work out the kinks before testing it with real passengers that are potentially going to get stranded when the system doesn't work. Also, when you are two years in and you realize the program is actually using MORE energy than the original system and is also costing about three times as much as expected you'd think you would be allowed to abandon the project, but the problem is too many regulators buy into the Sunk Cost Fallacy and they always think, "Well, we paid to build the system, we should at least keep using it until what we have bought stops working." On paper that sounds reasonable, but if the total cost of buying a new bus or train and running it for three years is less than the cost of just running the old bus for its remaining three years and the new buses are more climate friendly it shouldn't matter that you already own the old bus. The correct decision is obviously to retire the old bus and invest in new buses. Once again, I actually do understand the desire to experiment. That actually is really important. But you debug before you go live with customers, and when it is clear that an experiment has failed completely you need to be willing to abandon it if that is the obvious correct decision.
Anyway, my point is that in my experience usually the front line people know what is actually going on, but everyone assumes the front line people are greedy and stupid, so regulatory agencies that are not part of the day-to-day operations are brought in to make all of the meaningful decisions. Those people almost always have special pet projects they want to try to make their big impact on solving everything. Occasionally those pet projects work, but I would guess those projects have success rates under 1% because those people aren't working on the front lines and don't understand the actual constraints and difficulties front line workers face. Instead, those pet projects usually result in interrupting the customer service experience while also bankrupting the annual budget meaning important projects such as regular maintenance has to be put off until another year when the budget can handle the expenses. Of course, that's only when those with regulatory power are genuine. There are also plenty of selfish crooks that manage to get regulatory power that find ways to bankrupt the system while making sure a portion of that money ends up in their own pockets or the pockets of their friends.
Maybe it really is the front line workers in this scenario that messed up, but I absolutely would love to see how much of this is actually the agency's fault and how much of the fault belongs to those at the very top of the agency or those who have been assigned to oversee the agency.
BART hires NY rejects.
BART is an absolute joke. From OAK airport to Orinda takes 90 minutes after waiting 28 minutes for the Richmond bound train then another 28 minutes for the Antioch bound train. Pathetic!!!
OAK to Orinda takes 42 minutes by BART. If that's what you got it must have been because of an equipment problem or delay in the system. There are no transfers with 30 minute wait times on the system. All the BART transfers are either timed cross-platform or are under 10 minutes if they're not cross-platform.
Did you get off at a designated transfer station? They're marked on the BART map.
Lol last time I pointed out the maintenance issues and the refusal to work by the yard workers from Bart they took down my complaints like with the heat kink issue that has been going on in Concord that they claimed to have fixed a few months ago was never actually worked on I live next to that section of track and they did not work on a single day they sat around it but never actually worked on it
That's because most BART workers are lazy. Station Agents? They love to play hide and seek.
That’s BART saying they fixed it when they didn’t and it happened a second time; shady, shady, shady. Poor people having to wait at PH for bus to Concord in 105+ degree heat.
Don't take the bart if you are reading this. Watch out for groups of young tall skinny black kids.
you gotta stay strapped or get clapped, it's quite unfortunate but that's the reality of living in the bay area
What about the fat ones?
Measure RR? LOL BART will always suck. Dorothy was the best manager they had. Every night, the commute was longer and longer because of police activity, delays. Gavin wants people not to drive but CA mass transit sucks and isn’t safe.
I don't believe any under developed countries have this kind of problem. To me, equipment problems is the least of the problem. Iam afraid I may get killed by criminals and thugs during travel by BART. I have visited many poor countries and nothing was every so disgusting as BART and Caltrain. How can a developed country transit system with stations that have no toilets? ONly they effed up US. It is the US that is the rotten country on the planet. Russia and China have lot more common sense and decency than the US. It si time somebody beats the US and make it s real 3rd country that it is.
Anyone can tell that Bart has failed in all facets just by the contact with its front line station agents who are rude and incompetent. The new trains are nice though but they are depreciating to become the dirty old trains really fast. Fat salaries all around. Public transportation in the Bay Area is one of the highest in the nation.
How much money have they received yet from the infra bill?
A lot that’s the only way they can operate, govment handouts/subsidies keep it running , ridership DOWN
Easiest reason for the BART financial problems. They overpay their employees and provide overgenerous benefits, including retirement.
Yeah, those workers get the same crap I do. Why should anyone get a retirement, what is this the 1950s? Pay them peanuts and surely service and maintenance will get better, has to get better.
That is so dumb man, if you dramatically reduce the salaries of those you maintain the system the incentive that they will have to maintain the system will be non existent, because the cost of loosing their job for not being efficient enough isn’t very high because they’ll be able to go to another transit agency or corporation or state operated program / enterprise and get paid more for their skills there, or so the theory goes in a quote on quote fair market place lol.
Do you get better service at a 5 star restaurant where the staff is highly skilled and paid well for those skills, or do you get better service when you go to Popeyes when the employees might be college students capable of giving you good customer service and food but won’t care to do so because doing that offers them nothing because it gives them no real opportunity for advancement in Popeyes. If you don’t pay workers fairly for their skills and offer them merit based opportunities for advancement the quality of the service that those workers help to provide will inevitably be reduced I would think.
Not to mention that its disgusting filthy!! And dangerous!
Should be investigating all the insane high salary's BART employees are paid
As long as you start at the top and work your way down.
equipment and service problems can be fixed. Teens robbing tourist and passengers and Teen mob mass looting is what BART doesn't want to fix. Enforce the fare and no more crime on BART.
Bart is an epic failure on literally all levels
Sounds like a lot of the problems the MTA deals with on a day to day basis but miniaturized. Every day there are impacts on multiple lines due to maintenance or due to a track or signaling failure.
Yet they want more money for tickets meanwhile to have Nasty trains. The new train is cool but already dirty and graffiti.
How do the trains get nasty? The passengers.
@@haggeoromero
Don't be stupid.
Billions in payments to these jokers 👎🏾! Unreliable at times!
Probably cant afford the maintenance cost because they pay their drivers $95000/yr just like SEPTA. Our EL cars are only 20 years old and they have way to many probolems.
Laziest group/organization of people since the 90's.
How about we outsource this to Korea, Japan or Hong Kong? Every two weeks, there is something going on with Bart.
wow great reporting you looked at twitter
people are still riding this 50 years old system
SAD
Japan has bullet trains 50 years ago
is it sad in japan too
@@chromebomb Nope. Consistently punctual and reliable with Japan's bullet trains (and profitable too). In Japan, they are so accountable that they apologize for either being slightly late or leaving slightly early.
*BART = BEING A RAT TRAP*
BART management is incompetent and the parade of public officials are simply mouthpieces to their incompetence. The big pay increase they got a couple years ago didn’t improve the system. The pandemic caused a slowdown in ridership, which should have given these guys more opportunities to conduct maintenance, repairs, and cleaning. Now that the local economy is coming back, all the deterred systems that did not get adequate attention are coming to bite them. They know the root causes. They need new management.
DC Metro is experiencing the same thing? I wonder why. Hm......... what would be the common denominator?
Maintenance is easy when the project is new.
Drug usage, Bart having the heater on during the day, old tracks, trains, and price hikes. Why pay?
This is everyday happening now and not on time and a lot delayed cancel. They so slow when you get to Pleasanton going to Pittsburg and Antioch. I think they do it purpose they so they could get more money or budget.
Wow glad I am always prepared
that ev car switch is going to be a disaster.
Bart they do that on purpose delayed not on time so they could ask for more money.
How does that make any sense?
People still ride Bart?
Traffic sucks.
Uh Oh Bart better tighten up
Now? 🙄
@@Khultan
Yes, now!
I though you're always talking about crime and junkies everywhere. But your own thumbnail and footage shows everything is fine lol.
USA is Off Track
If NTSB gets involved I’m sure they will shut it down for maintenance work and upgrades just like Dc metro and Boston T
How about worrying about Pm than to go on strike for more pay!!!!!!!!!!! Remember.....what happened to NUMMI
This is unfortunately nothing new Bart as a system is so old that a total and complete overhaul is what is going to be needed they can't keep putting bandaids on and slapping on temporary repairs if something is broke it needs to be fixed completely so that it does not break down again and unfortunately Bart doesn't have that type Goal when it comes to equipment failure or breakdown's in service
Yet people in the youtube comments continue to defend BART whenever i comment how Bart is inferior to the NYC metro and how Bart should be privatized.
Being from dc please do not compare us with Bart your trains are every 20 minutes
F bart
Since when old infrastructure is an issue 🙄
Just take an hour early train and you won't be late
Ixolated incidents??? Yeah right!!!.
I'll agree with the grass fire being an isolated incident. The maintenance problems are not isolated incidents. They occur over and over again.
Where’s the gay guy, buti judge, it’s he the transportation secretary?? Why doesn’t he do SOMETHING??
Bart is a rip off. It should be free
I agree, it's the general public and their aversion to taxes that stand in the way.
This report is BS. The "Independent Institute" has a total hard on to privatize everything in our society. Everything. Transit, policing, roads, bridges, social security, the military and everything else. They are a Libertarian think tank so I don't know how that counts as non partisan. Where does crime on Bart come from? The communities that it services. It is a transit agency not a police service. Passengers are what make the trains filthy, people jump in front of the trains of their own accord, Bart doesn't invite them to do so. Passengers are in a hurry to get home, not make police reports that might help fight crime. It's easy to attack transit systems as dirty, dangerous and in need of being shut down but what would the region do without transit? The Libertarians have an answer and it will cost as much or more because they definitely want their profit and for those profits to grow year on year.