So refreshing to see social media used to democratically talk about a shared public problem. What a great way to start a dialogue and align to more quickly assess, staff and accelerate the fixes.
The decrepitude of BART is just one example of our tax dollars not being put to the right kind of work. Let’s hope that this results in a bit of political change.
I thought BART was built as the underground setting for a dystopian future where all emotion was suppressed by drugs and our lives were governed by dispassionate machines of our own creation.
San Francisco County’s median family income is higher than the USA’s by 50%, higher than California’s by 30%, and higher than that of any other state.
So I think they should do what it takes to get BART modernized. But being the beneficiaries of income inequality that they are, self-funding is what I would recommend.
Ahh but see the problem is, many of those high-income individuals do not make use of BART. Anyone who is anyone drives a Tesla. Public transit is for the peasants.
The people who take BART are more likely to be on the lower end of the income spectrum than people who drive. Besides, if fewer people take BART then more people will be on taxpayer-funded roads. BART is a critical piece of public transportation infrastructure and should be funded as such.
Maybe he means self-funding via taxing the rich more?
Maybe? But he also talks about BART as if it’s just a San Francisco thing. Most of the BART system is not in the city and county of San Francisco.
I remember seeing a documentary about BART when it was fresh and young and promising. It looked like a vision of a bright utopia, similar to a documentary I saw, made a generation before, extolling the virtues of Welwyn Garden City and Metro Land. Whatever happened to the future?
BART is still a pretty good example of successful public transit, I used to take it to work every day. It just needs to be properly funded, maintained and expanded to meet modern-day demands.
The peasant is for driving the Tesla you requested from Uber because the private bus your company owns didn’t drop you off close enough to your 8k / Mo. apartment.
or taxing the rich at all.
Did they have to shut down BART for a whole day because some jumper cables lit on fire? Because that’s what happened Wednesday in DC.
This is really, really important. BART is not San Francisco’s public transit system. MUNI is San Francisco’s public transit system.
The acronym is “Bay Area Rapid Transit”. Of the 44 stations, 8 are within SF city limits. BART’s biggest problem in modernizing isn’t San Francisco (which, for all its faults, would likely work to make it happen, look at the MUNI Chinatown expansion). The problem is the huge number of smaller cash-strapped (but also ego-bound) municipalities that it runs through. It’s pretty much impossible to do anything in the Bay Area as complex as, say, naming a bridge that spans two political districts.
HA!!!
Brother, DC’s metro just shut down for 24 freakin hours the other day because of general decrepitude–if that doesn’t move federal lawmakers towards a fix, I’m not sure what will.
They’ve quit sending trains to the end of one of the lines this last week because an electrical issue at the last station on a line has damaged something like 80 train cars and their motors… How’s that?
What are real estate taxes in San Francisco are a percentage of actual value?
I suggest reading up on Prop 13 as well as remembering that BART isn’t SF as there are nine (?) counties here that BART covers.
What I mean is that the communities which are served by BART should pay for it (by whatever tax structure they please), and not ask the (poorer) rest of the USA to chip in.
I might give someone who makes a third of what I make a couple of bucks to help with bus fare, but not someone whose income is triple mine.
