From: rcarter@gaudi.nas.nasa.gov (Russell L. Carter)
Newsgroups: ca.general
Subject: Re: Long Commutes (was Jumping the Good Ship California)
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:55:41 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Well, this text is pretty hard to cut down, but I'll try:

In article <2AA8A046.15569@ics.uci.edu> mludwig@ics.uci.edu (Michael Scott Ludwig) writes:
>Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to reply to both of these related
>articles without sending out two messages.

>In general, mass transit is better where there are more people.  If people
>move away, that means less people to ride the bus and rail lines, which
>means a lower level of service.  For example, Sonoma County has a much lower
>population density than Santa Clara County (although you may need to exclude
>Santa Rosa to make this true).  And it shows in the level of bus service - I
>think Santa Clara County Transit is a good system, but I also think that
>Sonoma County Transit is definitely a hard system to use (this sentence is
>based on experience riding these systems).

I disagree vehemently.  In general, the "utility" of mass transit is better
when it is centrally coordinated into a single unified system.  The number
of people involved is off in the higher order terms.  What we have here
in the Bay Area, which isn't all that large geographically (basically
it's a doughnut) is patchwork quilt of transit agencies whose performance ratings
are not tied to the one metric they should be:  How to get from A to B
(including traversals across transit system boundaries) as smoothly, and 
quickly (and inexpensively) as possible.

>
>By the way, I have to sadly agree that a majority of the transit systems are
>managed by people who, unfortunately, don't care about the public as much as
>they should.

Welcome to the real world of beaurocratic imperatives.

>
>I think most of the mass transit systems in the Bay Area are good, but also
>that most of them are not great - i.e. that they could use some improvement.

More precisely, mass transit within particular systems is good.  But
the connections are a pain in the ass, and render the system unusuable
for those whose time==money, if they have to cross boundaries.  Really,
that is one of the major reasons the penninsula corridor has so
much traffic.

>
>Although I have recognized for a while that if a trip involves starting and
>ending points within two different bus agencies' service areas, it can often
>be hard if neither (a) nor (b) is true, where (a) is "neither BART nor
>CalTrain is convenient for the trip" and (b) is "the two agencies connect in
>San Francisco."

Gee, let's see, the train is at 4th & Townsend, the transbay terminal
is at 1st and Mission (or therabouts), BART and MUNI are at 2nd and Market,
and the Ferry terminal is at Market and the Embarcadero.  I don't
call those easy connections.  (Of course, there are connecting
buses :-( )

>
>=I commuted 40 miles each way on Caltrain for 6 months, and I chose
>=my apartment based on easy accessibility to it.  I now drive.
>=I *hate* driving.  I *despised* the connections I had to put
>=up with.
>
>Where was work?  What connection(s) was/is (were/are) bad?

Home: Townsend&Embarcadero->walk to 4th&Townsend->CALTRAIN->Castro St.
->SCT to Moffett Field.  Takes about an hour and half each way,
*if* the train and bus are both on time.  Often they are not.
I'm sorry, but that's just rotten transit.  Driving takes less 
than 45 minutes.

>
>=  Here's an interesting mass transit experiment:
>=
>=Start anywhere you like on the perimeter of the bay, and
>=circumnavigate the bay in less than one day, while visiting
>=Oakland, SF, and San Jose airports, and no fair hitchiking.
>
>Well, if you have to go around the *whole* bay, i.e. include Vallejo to Napa
>to Petaluma, then I have to say it can't be done, because (a) the
>Sonoma-Petaluma service isn't very good, and (b) there's nothing but
>Greyhound between Sonoma and Napa.
>
>But I'd bet I could do the following trip in under one day using nothing but
>busses and trains (unfortunately I don't have the schedules with me to prove
>it, but I can list which routes to use if someone wants that) :  from the
>S.F. Airport, go down the peninsula and to the S.J. Airport, then go up the

You need a bus connection from the airport to CALTRAIN, and another bus
connection to get from the train to San Jose Airport.  Trains are
sparser than you might expect, and those connections... But then, 
there's still more buses.

>East Bay (with a short stop at the Oakland Airport) to the Richmond BART
>Station, then take a bus across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, then come
>down though Marin County and S.F. and return to SFO.

I wouldn't hold my breath trying to make these connections either.  I
wager 10 bucks that you can't complete this trip in 8 hours. 

>
>
>"We have not inherited the earth    |    Michael Ludwig
>from our ancestors, but are         |
>borrowing it from our children."    |    mludwig@bonnie.ics.uci.edu
>                                    |
> - David Brower, conservationist    |    UCI and I don't agree on anything.

let me add to the quote: ...but are borrowing it from our children with our
satisfaction with the present.

Russell
Newsgroups: ca.general