On BART during commute hours seats are usually taken so you can not sit and read a paper but must stand and hold on. No coffee, no views. BART is also not terrifically reliable. A rodent chews through a cable and the system goes down. A car catches on fire from a sticking brake and an entire line stops.
Software hangs up and the cars slow to manual speed.
We have not had a ferry adrift yet. Live on an island 20 min. from San Francisco. If you will be working in SF you might take a look at some San Francisco newspaper articles. To show how serious the locals take the subject, all are front page articles. They chose Alameda over the others.