15 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car”

  1. Back when they locked up nutcases, addicts, and vagrants everyone was better off including the nutcases, addicts, and vagrants. And there seemed to be of fraction of today’s nutcases, addicts, and vagrants.

  4. So …the wife and I decided to TRY the new $47B, 2-1/2-mile BART extension to the Oakland Airport and then onto BART for a ride home … instead of using UBER … after arriving home from a recent trip.

    Walked to the BART terminus, we rode the escalator to the elevated platform. The OPEN platform which happened to freezing cold on a windy, foggy, evening in the Bay. Had to endure a police action removing someone with a bicycle which is not allowed on the BART airport link. The bicyclist was not going quietly. Transferred to the BART station at the Oakland Coliseum (ghetto). Got on the train with our bags, and were immediately being oogled by a pair of sketchy-looking black men who immediately put me into a defensive (checking my surroundings and escape options) posture. Rode with this pair till we transferred at the 19th Street station in the heart of Oakland. We were pushed and shoved by urgently-running passengers scrambling up the escalators to change trains. Hopped onto another smelly train, with stained and torn fabric seats. Ahh the aroma of urine, vomit, and industrial strength cleaning products. Wonderful. Also, many of the seats have been torn out to “accommodate” bicycles … so seating options were quite limited despite very light crowds And simply-put, boarded another train filled with “those people” … not “my people”. Our train stopped dead on a couple occasions on the ride home … seems BART’s AI Control System STILL sees “phantom trains” on the line and STOPS our train to avoid a phantom collision … or some dysfunctional reason.

    Riding BART … almost … $cost the same amount our UBER ride would have cost. An UBER ride without the smell, crowds, criminals, and annoyance of MASS transit. True … our UBER driver is 97% likely to be one of “those people” … however the comfort, efficiency (getting home MUCH faster) and ease of UBER (an Automobile) is far, far, better than using mass transit. That was our FIRST and LAST use of the $157B (or whatever outrageous $$ it cost) BART Airport extension. It’s suitable for PIGS … nobody else.

    I NEVER “believed” the projected ridership of CA’s “high speed” train between San Francisco, Sacramento, and LA. Riding that train would be a MUCH GREATER hassle than simply flying to LA (for about $79) than riding a train which cost MORE and was much SLOWER.

    BTW … my son just returned from an extended trip to Japan where he and his fiancé(?) rode multiple high speed trains and inner city transit. Every train, every seat, every detail of the Japanese trains were spotless and each passenger treated like a First Class patron. He uploaded multiple pics and videos of every single train they rode (even the Hello Kitty train in Taiwan). The Hello Kitty train even had freshly laundered headrest covers on each of the luxurious seats. By comparison … BART … is a pig-sty, operated by pigs (the BART board of directors) … and used by pigs. The Japanese and Taiwanese trains are run by … “my people”. BART is operated and used by … “those people”.

    1. Kenji:

      You must be anxiously awaiting the Oakland A’s new stadium, complete with a gondola ride in and out……….

      1. Truth be told … the current city of Oakland doesn’t deserve a MLB team anymore. I wish they’d move to Salt Lake City … or even Las Vegas … sheesh. The Coliseum Board are functionally brain dead goof balls, and city government? The city government cannot even clean-up a warehouse monstrosity, dangerously built by clap trap “artists” who incinerated 26 people. OMG!

        The A’s are gonna build a new “green” stadium, that looks like 5th grader’s drawring of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? No. Thank. You. And nope. The new stadium won’t be …uh … quite downtown. But it will be CLOSE! The A’s will be moving from one ghetto to another … accessible via tram. Ohhh gawwwd … it’ll be just like riding the gondolas at Squaw Valley on Presidents Day weekend. The new stadium is already a JOKE … and the final drawrings aren’t even finished. Uggh.

        1. Gosh, so sad. I commuted on BART from the peninsula not long after it first opened and hated every minute of it but parking downtown had gotten to $200 a month, probably cheap today. The trains ran to schedule and were clean. The passengers were other business people. I used to ride by myself to see Reggie Jackson over at the coliseum with few issues. While living in SF itself, I used the streetcars and buses which were absolute freak shows. Being very shy, trannies boarding in costume and accosting the straights was a horrifying event. Sexual deviants seemed to prefer buses, so I started avoiding them but my sister couldn’t. Boy, she had stories.
          The train system in St. Louis opened while I was there. Ridership was several times higher than predicted. It was convenient to my neighborhood in the Central West End. But, it was so crowded, I went back to the car. Wonder what kind of hellhole it is today.

    2. Gee, and people say the Japanese are racists and that may be true, but a lack of piss, shit and blood in their everyday world seems to be a bona-fide reason.

  8. At least New York has a functional subway—a relic of a time when infrastructure actually got built and performed as promised.

    Ottawa doesn’t even have that. Jim the Fairy was counting on riding the O-Train to the Ontario Liberal leadership. He’s not the only one upset that neither he nor the train is going anywhere.

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