Bay Area Flops in 14,000 Respondent Survey on Public Transit Satisfaction

It's worth noting a key difference between Seattle and San Francisco has to do with gentrification and differences between these areas in terms of where you can work and live. It's much more practical to both live and work in downtown Seattle than it is to both live and work in downtown San Francisco. Because of how San Francisco has avoided building as much new housing downtown as Seattle has, SF has forced lower income workers (that is, most people) outside of the city to live. In short, the residents of Seattle are a lot less dependent on their mass transit to survive, or dependent on it in a much different way than we are here in the SF Bay area.

One huge problem with this survey is that if you have always lived in the US (outside of NYC and maybe one or two other metros), your expectations are extremely low - so "satisfied" doesn't mean much. You first have to have experienced a city with great public transport to understand what's possible, and what you're not getting.

Pardon my french, but: no shit. The survey was conducted during the BART strikes. I really doubt people would be terribly enthusiastic about how the system functions in the midst of a cessation of service.

I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s fair to say that SF &quot;flops&quot; on public transit. Look at the map. LA, Houston, Dallas, and Philadelphia are public transit flops. San Francisco is merely mediocre.<p>And (as pointed out), this is during the BART strike. I fully expect SF&#x27;s transit system will be considered &quot;good&quot; once everything&#x27;s settled.

I currently live near D.C. and absolutely hate the public transit here. I could list a laundry list of the problems, but honestly, compared to SF it&#x27;s like a euphoric utopic vision of perfect public transport gifted by a benevolent god.<p>D.C. has many similar problems like S.F. (NIMBYism, weird property issues, right of way, long commutes) with the added fun of having to work with three different State level territories (VA, MD and DC) to get anything done.<p>Honestly the gold standard in the U.S. for public transit is NYC, and I love when I&#x27;m living&#x2F;working there (which are far too short and far between), but let&#x27;s be honest, NYC&#x27;s public transit isn&#x27;t really all that nice. What it <i>is</i> is comprehensive and not ridiculously expensive. At least as comprehensive as any major European city and less than half the price of the D.C. system on most days w&#x2F;r to fares.<p>But really you can visit any major European city and find a transit system at least as good as D.C.s...which is the second busiest in the U.S. and 3rd by length. Visit Asia and have all sense of what a good system is blown right out of your mind.<p>The level of quality in the U.S. mass transit system is really inexcusable. A nearby system, Baltimore&#x27;s, is so bad that, despite living just a couple hours away for most of my life and having visited the city numerous times, I wasn&#x27;t even aware the city had a subway system until a couple years ago - it&#x27;s virtually invisible.<p>If you consider that D.C. is bottom of the barrel then by European and Asian standards, S.F.&#x27;s is just a bad joke.

Its not just bart - the whole system sucks. As a daily commuter from alameda to mountain view - it SUCKS:<p>Bike 2 miles to bart, take either to SF or Millbrea<p>* If SF; then have to bike to 4th and king to caltrin<p>* If Millbrea - have to swap trains at balboa park<p>Take caltrain to mtn view; many times Caltrain says they are &quot;too full&quot; for bikes and wont let me on that morning train.<p>Get to mountain view, bike 2 miles to office.<p>Total time: 2.5 hours each way. Total cost: between $20 and $25 per day.<p>---<p>The services don&#x27;t connect, the trains schedules don&#x27;t match up well. Bart is filthy. Bart does a piss poor job of supporting bikes, people don&#x27;t like bikes on bart.<p>I work from home as much as possible given how bad this is.

The difference between NYC and SF was smaller than I expected

Well I know the Bay Area&#x27;s public transit kind of sucks, but I&#x27;m not sure why they&#x27;re called out here over LA.

Have definitely been considering moving my East Bay rental down to SV. BART has just not been reliable these past few months, and I&#x27;ve used Caltrain before, and even stayed a few months in East Palo Alto which is cheaper than my current Walnut Creek.

Holy cow, how can you live in NYC and <i>never</i> take public transportation?

I&#x27;m disappointed to not see Portland in this survey. I visited recently and thought the public transportation was pretty good. It would have been nice to know what the survey revealed.

While not thrilled with the BART strike, it is generally the most reliable of the options in the area. MUNI buses, on the other hand, are frustratingly bad at times.

why include all respondents who said that they &quot;never&quot; used public transportation?

I want to know how 53 percent of Austinites felt satisfied with the city&#x27;s public transportation. Outside of the immediate downtown area, it&#x27;s lackluster at absolute best, and more typically not a viable option for getting where you need to go.