>In looking at the Muni map, it seems to me that it COULD be more efficient to
>simply run some kind of loop shuttles along the J line that go to the 16th and
>24th St. BART stations, where riders with Fast Passes could zip downtown in
>minutes with trains coming along every 3 to 5 minutes during rush hour. This
>would be much faster for the rider and it would make use of excess BART
>capacity as BART trains aren't as full as Muni Metro cars.
>
Building such loops at those stations isn't going to happen in the next
six months either, Ken. Anyway, you have to factor in waiting time
when considering what is "fastest". BART may be fast, but the transfer
time may cancel out a lot of that.
I'd prefer to ban cars east of Van Ness on Market.
The overall social support/sudsidy for cars is such that I think over the
long run transit can best be encouraged by making it a free good. That's
why I agree with those who say Muni should be run as a free public
service (like fire protection, say). Public transit generally has
been on a downward ridership trend since about 1915. Small reforms
aren't going to reverse that.
Currently the alternative proposals to compensating transit for the
advantages that cars have is some sort of vehicle mileage tax or
carbon tax or various forms of so-called "congestion pricing."
The problem with this is that these essentially amount to
attempts to run poor people off the road...not exactly an equitable
policy.
Tom Wetzel
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! Tom Wetzel !
! Senior Technical Writer !
! BEA Systems, Inc. !
! 2315 North First Street !
! San Jose, CA 95131 !
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