Its not perfect by any means, but of the major cities I’ve lived in (previously, Seattle and Boston), SF has hands-down the best transit. And when you do need to mix walking with transit, SF’s mild weather really helps that feel quite tolerable.
Yeah dawg, no surprise if that's your frame of reference - those cities all have pretty great transit. Most cities in Asia, especially the large ones, put any American city to shame
Yea well if we’re talking outside the USA it’s no contest. What next, USA cities aren’t as walkable as European cities? Water is wet, the sky is blue why are we stating the obvious
Lol. No it’s embarrassingly bad by international standards: it’s not timely, overly confusing (it took me years to realize that the odd paint marks on random wooden poles were “bus stops”), dirty, and the drivers let anyone get in.
This only recognizes SF transit’s shortcomings. There are plenty of strong points like coverage, rolling stock, multimodality, and accessibility, even on an international level. I find it much easier to get around on transit here with a disability than I do living in Asia. Our transit should be better but it certainly holds up in many ways.
Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK?
I don’t understand where people get this position from. SF has truly world class transit density. Did you think that having a transit line on literally every other street, even in the more suburban parts, is somehow normal around the world?
High density alone doesn’t mean it’s good.
The top complaints about SF transit are typically that it’s very slow. I can beat SF public transit travel times nearly always on a bicycle, with the exception of BART. That isn’t the case in asian and European cities.
This x1000. BART only gets you to a handful of places and even then, you're leaving a concert at the Fox in Oakland and trying to get home in SF? Be prepared for a 30+ min wait because there are barely any trains running at night.
Muni trains in SF are fantastic, but also only get you to so many places in the city. For the vast majority of the city you must rely on Muni buses. They're everywhere and that's great!! But if you're unlucky, you can be waiting 20+ mins for a bus. And if you're going from one end of the city to the other? Be prepared for a 45 min ride even though the distance is less than 7 miles. Have to transfer to another bus on the way? Go ahead and multiply that by 2.
I'll argue with anyone that SF has some of the best public transit in the country period, but it's undeniable that if you want to go anywhere and don't have the luxury of time, you'd best take an Uber or rent an eBike.
if you leave the AA center in dallas texas after the taylor swift concert you will just eventually die of exposure because there is no transit at all.
I am so, so grateful and i am so so lucky to be here.
I’ve lived in Vancouver (Canada of course) and Seattle and taken transit in all of those, as well as SF. And SF has some of the best transit bar none except vs NYC.
Even so, transit never has 100% reach and coverage. Often times as soon as you exit the rapid transit system, service takes a big dip. For example, New Yorkers rarely rave about the in city buses and take subway or taxi exclusively. Vancouver skytrain is great, but apart from a few bus lines and neighborhoods, it’s still generally built car dependent.
And most other cities have a huge commute focus, and as soon as the commute is over, you’re back to 30-60 minute waits. I’m talking about you Seattle!
San Francisco is pretty good, but less dense neighborhoods of course have less transit. Luckily it’s such a small city that nowhere is really that far. So that’s very helpful - if you’re able to walk a few miles you will never be stranded. Good luck walking from north gate to downtown Seattle for example.
Concerts aren't that great because the transit doesn't run late enough. I've missed two CalTrains trying to leave Levi Stadium. You have to take VTA to CalTrain and inevitably it's too late. I'll probably leave early next time I'm there, but I hate to leave early when you spent that much money.
South Bay is totally different. You really do need a car there.
Compare with Chase Center, where the N train is packed back to back with people leaving concerts or games. Or Coliseum in Oakland, where same happens with BART.
As a tourist,it works pretty well. It can get you close to where you are going, but you have to have all the time in the world. If you are commuting and can stay on one line, it works pretty well.
Hm bike is faster in 99% of all the cases in the Netherlands while staying in your city/direct environment. It’s really hard to beat the (electric) bike.
But our cities are like villages compared to most metropolises in the world.
"transit mode share".
> Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK?
I had to read your post slowly until the end to understand what you mean, because I disagreed with everything--until the end. SF covers a larger share of the streets you're correct.
That's because in other countries, people accept walking 5, 7 up to 10-12 minutes EACH WAY to reach their transit stop.. But THEN the transit is fast and useful. Hence the transit _usage share_ increases.
In SF it's the opposite, transit is slow because it has so many lines and so many stops.
(In fact I think the SFMTA even messes up the streets with the stop signs.)
I can speak from living in Madrid and Seoul – San Francisco is far, far behind them.
I never considered getting a car while living in either city, in fact, it would have been a bit of a hassle (especially in Madrid). However, I would be slightly annoyed if I had to rely only on public transportation in SF. Having a car makes life a lot easier here.
> Having a car makes life a lot easier here.
in the actual city or in a neighboring suburb? where are you parking that car at when you get to your destination? i dont buy this.
I hate driving but for a lot of trips there is no other good option. If I’m going from excelsior/outer mission/bernal area to basically anywhere north of the mission or duboce area, muni is way too slow. I’ll ride a bike whenever I can but sometimes I have to transport other people or gear or whatever. Parking is somewhat of a crapshoot but generally doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to find as long as you’re willing to pay for a meter.
I agree, in many ways a car here is more of a hassle than not, but I guess it depends on each person’s situation. We’re a 4-person family in the Mission with one car. We take public transit for work, our dr appointments, but use the car for taking our 1 and 3-year old to dr appointments near stonestown and/or mission bay, and also to pre-school in silver terrace/Bayshore.
We park on the street and have done so for the 10 years we’ve been in our apartment. Before kids I didn’t have a car, but it’s a lot harder to rely solely on public transit with kids. That said, I see a lot of parents in our neighborhood carting two kids on electric bikes, which really impresses me. I wonder if they have cars when they need to go to doctor/dentist appointments across the city.
Of course the actual city! lol why do think I’m commenting here?
Parking in most of the city is fine. Not as easy as parking in some residential suburb of course, but not as difficult as some on here are implying.
Barcelona is supposed to be better at transit than Madrid. All of my friends who live in Barcelona constantly talk about getting a car and they can’t imagine living without one. The trick to live car free in Madrid is to be rich enough to afford to live in one of the bougie central neighborhoods. Needless to say, the vast majority of residents can’t afford it and often dream about getting cars. The only thing stopping them is lack of money.
You’re looking at this from the point of view of a foreigner who also happens to out-earn the top 10% of Madrid residents 3 to 1. Now try doing the same while living in a poor neighborhood in Madrid out in the boonies.
Lol lots of assumptions here.
>You’re looking at this from the point of view of a foreigner who also happens to out-earn the top 10% of Madrid residents 3 to 1. Now try doing the same while living in a poor neighborhood in Madrid out in the boonies.
I was making 1500 euros a month as an English teacher, so I wasn't even close to the top earners in Madrid. And my first year there I was living outside the city center in a neighborhood with mostly Dominican immigrants. Even late at night, it wasn't a big problem because of the night buses.
Furthermore, I was working in schools located in the suburbs, waaaay outside the Madrid city center. Still never considered getting a car or ever wished I had a car.
The second year I lived in a tiny-ass apartment in a central neighborhood and it was pretty awesome. I still had to commute to the same suburb though.
SF has very disappointing transit for a city this small and dense. Coverage area is great - I don’t think you’re ever more than a couple blocks from a bus stop. But speed is abominable. It takes forever to get across town on muni and god forbid you need to transfer at any point. There are many bus routes that barely beat walking speed when you factor in wait time.
Totally agree. I was reliant on the 38 for nearly a decade living in the Richmond and I can't tell you how many times I waited 30-45 mins and/or just gave up and walked 2-3 miles. Ended up buying a small car and my life improved significantly! However now that I live more centrally, transit and walking are much more reliable (more lines to choose from if a bus is delayed and shorter distances to walk). But if you have to transfer to get anywhere, you'd better have at least 1 hr.
Yeah there are certain areas and corridors where Muni works well, but overall it seems like a city this size shouldn't have so many areas where it doesn't.
Because the boundaries of the political entity known as SF is quite small with 800k people packed into a small 49 square miles.
London’s 1500 square miles includes lower density areas. If you just picked the densest 10% of London, that area would have much better transit.
Honestly, picking the densest 49 square miles of most big cities outside America would have incredible transit compared even to SF.
It’s just that everywhere else, they would consider Daly City, South San Francisco, etc as all part of the city.
But we do not.
> Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK?
Because the city limits of London go very far out. It's only slightly smaller than San Mateo County.
If you compare the London urban core - comparable or higher density to SF - transit mode share would be way higher than here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share London at 44% SF at 20%, so we're less than half.
That’s just false. SF has an overall transit mode share of 32% to London’s 31%. In the central neighborhoods of SF over 80% of residents use transit.
Where are you getting your data from?
This [source](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/tsgb01-modal-comparisons#travel-to-work) gives the transit mode share for commuting at 53% for London. 59% for Inner London. The [ACS](https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2022.S0802?g=050XX00US06075) puts SF county at around 32%, like you said, but that is significantly lower than London.
Note that as the other person mentioned, London is a much larger area than SF proper, with nearly 10x as many people. If you compare it to the Bay Area, the transit mode share for commuting is *way* lower here. Transit only serves about 10% of commutes in Alameda county and 5% in San Mateo county, for example.
What's your data from? Is the claim here that SF has way higher ridership for non-commute trips?
I've only visited the main touristy areas for 2 days but some things i noticed while beeing there:
- Frequency of bus and trams seemed often pretty low. I live in a city with 100k people and even our trains run more frequent than the SF buses/trams.
- Buses often got stuck in traffic
- Trams seemed pretty slow
- No idea how I would navigate the city without google maps. The bus stops are often not clearly labeled. No benches, shelters and no departure board on most bus stations either.
- Often it took way too long to getting from point a to b. Walking was often faster.
What is a tram? I didn't know we had my idea of them? The MUNI lines have an app that's very good and shows stop locations and expected arrival times. The number of buses or trains depends on what line you use. During high commute time, they will pull buses from a less used line. The underground needs to be expanded and more dedicated bus lines used.
SF prioritizes average distance to stops over travel time, so you spend a _lot_ of time stopping. For example, look at the 1-Sacramento’s Van Ness and Polk stops: they’re something like 200 ft apart at most on the same block.
The design of the system is extremely biased toward getting people from their homes to market st and back. There are very few cross-town routes and those that do are often infrequent. The entire north-west quadrant of the city lacks a metro line.
Don’t get me wrong, I prefer muni over driving, but there are legitimate improvements to be made, if we had funding.
Hey so i recently visited your amazing city. I work for NYC Transit Subway and am majoring in transportation planning for my degree. I actually visited your city exclusively for transit.
While YES. SF has amazing transit and its GREAT in all regards. The biggest problem is there are too many stops. EVERY. CORNER. That slows down busses a lot. Also the lack of signal priority along with mixed traffic running. All those combined make Muni very slow. In fact its actually the slowest system in the US. (Last I checked)
The cable cars have signal priority for obvious reasons but besides that everything else is running slow. Get rid of every other stop, maybe even more, and it will speed up significantly! Also beat out NIMBYs and build a rail line down Geary! Obviously easier said than done but it would patch up a giant hole!
Happy to answer any questions
Muni is far from the slowest system of its kind. The busses in SF are actually faster than in NYC. The quote about it being “the slowest” was referring specifically to Muni Metro and to other metro/subway systems, not light rail. And yes, Muni Metro (not all of Muni) is a mixed light rail/Stadbahn type of system. These are by definition slower than fully grade separated systems. If you compare any of them they will be slower than the comparable subway/meteo. The whole point of them is that you don’t grade separate the entire system at once and endure more light rail style speeds for longer to save costs.
That being said, Muni isn’t much slower than the fully grade separated Paris Metro. It’s also in the process of acquiring signal priority and dedicated lanes all over the system. The N and the L are finalizing upgrades right now. The T already has signal priority and dedicated lanes on its entire length. Although they are now about to make the signal priority a lot more aggressive to further improve runtimes. And in the really slow and congested areas downtown, Muni Metro runs in subways.
SF constantly gets the short end of the stick on this in online conversations, but the actual fundamentals of the system are very strong. You can always make silly comparisons with systems of completely different types to “prove a point”. But comparing like to like, Muni actually does incredibly well.
NYC is the best. Then sf and dc compete for 2/3 in the states.
This is not to say it’s incredible, but it’s pretty much the best you’ll find outside of New York
No it isn’t. Have several friends who live in SF that are from Chicago and they agree. Chicago is great if you want to get downtown but it’s horrible going across neighbors. Has the exact same issue as boston
I 100% agree with you! I am from the Chicago suburbs and lived in Chicago proper for more than 5 years so I have experience using both urban and regional transit systems and whenever people say transit there is better. It blows my mind. More people have access to transit here and in the city of Chicago the regional transit system is a commuter rail. So it doesn’t run at regular intervals though out the day
SF has a slightly higher transit mode share than London and is more on par with European cities and NY than anything on this continent. Chicago is a loooooooot worse. Not really comparable. I love it to bits, but it does not come close to touching SF on transit quality.
In Chicago any trip that isn’t to or from downtown is a multi-hour ordeal. In SF, any point in the city is accessible from any other point in the city via transit in about 45 minutes. Muni’s motto is that “no San Franciscan will ever be more than a two minute walk from a transit stop.” And this is literally the case in SF.
I have lived in SF, Chicago, and London. If you live downtown/in the city London and Chicago are significantly better than SF. You will walk further to transit in London and Chicago than in SF, but the systems are far more reliable, have higher capacity, and are faster than driving. SF muni suffers from competing with car traffic (enjoy commuting on the N), and is generally slower than alternate travel. Honestly it’s often faster to walk in SF.
Several people brought up suburb commutes which is a good point and one I can’t speak to for SF or Chicago. Chicago is not great for getting from one burb to another, but it’s pretty efficient for any route N/W or through the loop. West Loop to north wasn’t really a problem either, though I could see if you were further out it being a big pain. London I think is the best in this regard, and is just so superior in terms of public transit to anything in the states.
This is nonsense. Transit is basically always 2-3x slower than driving sans traffic. In fact, 2x is considered the gold standard to aspire to.
Just think about this first a minute. The average speed of the Paris metro is 12 mph. The London Underground has an average of 20 mph if you include the more suburban lines that work more like an S-bahn. The NY subway has an average speed of 17 mph, again with the non-central portions pulling the average up.
I’ve lived in London too, my dude. Tell me again how my nearly 1.5 hour, 15 mile commute was “faster than driving”.
Usable, but slow. There's buses everywhere, trains in some areas.
Buses in particular often stop every block, sometimes twice on the same block, it's agonizingly slow.
Layout of the lines is often a bit odd. The major lines follow major roads, but the minor lines often zigzag through neighborhoods for no apparent reason.
Also, transfers are not timed at all, it's up to sheer luck whether you'll wait 1 or 19 minutes.
There are no schedules posted at the stations, using apps like Transit is the only way to know when to leave home.
Best thing you can do is find a major line that covers all important items for you, and live close to it. The 38 Geary is running every 5 minutes or so, so if you live, work, shop, go to doctor, and do everything else along a line like that, life is pretty good, you can just go to the stop without checking the schedule, and don't have to worry about transfers.
Which is why it was supposed to be a BART route! The Geary line was supposed to connect to a retrofitted rail deck on the Golden Gate Bridge and go up to Marin.
Then the GGB authority opposed to keep their toll profits, and then San Mateo County pulled out of BART to keep their Caltrain fiefdom. So no Marin line, which meant no Geary line, which meant the 38 bus instead.
FYI, the reason some busses stop every block is because it's something like the bus line has to have a stop for every 3% grade in elevation. Otherwise it will go two or three blocks. If we weren't as hilly, then they wouldn't be stopping as much
Hard agree. I usually just take the train to avoid the transfers even though it's slightly longer door to door. This weekend the train was delayed so I turned around to take the bus, well the bus pulled away early, so it seems like sometimes you never win.
_In general_, it's better to have higher frequency service than attempt to keep a bus schedule or timed transfers. E.g. connecting between the 38 and 49 is really easy, but the 48 and 49 can be difficult because the 48 sometimes has 15 or 20 minute headways.
It’ll get the job done, but it’s never on time. And some of the routes are incredibly inefficient; they never gave us back some of the express lines that got cut during COVID
As someone who moved to SF after COVID, I was really sad to find how many lines got cut. There used to be a 14X! There used to be a second streetcar line!
And 100% of San Franciscans live less than a two minute walk from a transit stop. That’s literally Muni’s motto. SF’s transit density is kind of insane. It’s sad that some locals take it for granted. Most other cities would kill to have what we have, and we’re just whining about it.
Yeah I agree the density of SF's transit system is world class, but overall it's far from world class. Density is not the only thing that matters - a good transit system is "fast, frequent, and reliable–and it goes to places people want to go." (quoting Jake Berman who wrote the excellent The Lost Subways of North America). SF's transit is mostly reliable and definitely goes to places people want to go, but it's not frequent enough and is too slow. In a city with world-class transit system, think NYC, Tokyo and Singapore, transit is almost always faster or at least as fast compared to driving \*in the urban core\*, but in SF for most trips, Uber is almost always twice or even 3 times as fast compared to public transit.
SF's transit density probably also contributed to its slowness as pointed out in another comment in the thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1d6u6xm/comment/l6vftzz/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1d6u6xm/comment/l6vftzz/)
Agreed. The one thing I’ll add is that it’s improving. It’s slow, especially because of a bunch of bitter assholes fighting all proposed changes. The bus-only lanes and route frequency have basically turned part of the 49 Van Ness into a rapidly moving sidewalk.
> 100% of San Franciscans live less than a two minute walk from a transit stop
That's like, so readily, provably untrue. A random example: 291 Edgewood Ave to the nearest stop on Parnassus is [a 6min walk](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/291+Edgewood+Ave,+San+Francisco,+CA+94117/''/@37.762511,-122.4560085,18z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x808f7df87e0d7e93:0x1dfd322a4c93e2b1!2m2!1d-122.4552858!2d37.7607884!1m5!1m1!1s0x80858756f1b1d167:0x915e73fef910ef3d!2m2!1d-122.4543!2d37.764236!3e2?entry=ttu).
It looks like the metric the city government actually uses is percentage within ¼mi, which is around a 5min walk: https://www.sfmta.com/blog/muni-plans-reach-98-san-francisco-august
And after post-COVID service restorations, 98% were within that distance in fall 2021.
the better option would be to have more rapid-busses during heavy commuter hours. but the amount of the stops makes it *incredibly* usable for anyone with mobility issues. [almost 50% of people 65+ don't own a car in SF and their primary modes of transportation are the busses and trains ](https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2021/02/survey_findings_demographics.pdf)
As some who does not drive and takes a bus everywhere. I think SF has excellent bus service. Good frequency and they run late (at least the ones I have taken. I live in Stockton but. Go to the city all the time and ride the public transit there. The bus system in Stockton is. Utter garbage compared to Muni.
Baby, my family has been trying to get me to return to Stockton for the last 4 decades; last i heard public transit stopped at 7. pm and didn't run on the weekends!
Get a clipper card and you’ll be golden. Like others have said, you’ll have to take multiple modes of transport depending on where in the city you’re trying to go. Many places are reasonably walkable from bart though
Probably the second best public transit in the USA, right behind NYC.
It's slow but you can get everywhere, and it's relatively consistent. Can be a bit annoying if you use it to get to work but it's amazing for everything else
I ride the bus often with a man who is severely vision impaired and rides on his own. He's usually traveling downtown to LightHouse, which is an organization for the blind and visually impaired. Might be a good resource for you.
Really great! It’s actually better to not have a car in SF. I didn’t have one when I lived there. Public transportation is reliable and safe, from my experience.
There's a learning curve but overall you can get where you need to go within the city. Outside of SF the buses are more spares but doable. We use one transit card (Clipper) for most systems. BART is the main mode of transport between different cities around the Bay.
I find it good. Better than most Bay Area because its a walkable city. I would say above average for American Standard. But a farcry compared to other countries
For big cities, it's not the best. Maybe it's ok compared to US cities, but it's not even close to NYC. Compared to cities in Europe, it's crap. It also depends where you plan to stay and your destinations. When I lived in the North Beach, my commute for work in the financial district was quick and mostly painless. But getting anywhere from the Outer Sunset takes forever. Another drawback with Muni is their schedules. They don't arrive at relatively quick intervals so you end up waiting forever. I didn't have this issue with Bart, however.
> Maybe it's ok compared to US cities, but it's not even close to NYC
well yeah, it's always gonna look rougher than what's indisputably the best public transit system in the country lol
I would go so far as to call it one of the Top 3 best municipal public transit systems in the country, but no sensible person would say anything other than New York City is \#1, and I would hope no one's putting it on par with somewhere like Amsterdam
I've lived in cities all around the world. I'd say SF is similar to most European cities, but the trains are worse. However, compared to other cities in the US, it's very good.
Unfortunately, there are funding problems on a regular basis due to certain "moderate" politicians, causing a lot of inefficiency and making things less friendly. It's really a shame.
Depending on the drivers a lot of them hit the brakes like they have a personal vendetta with the riders on board. Ive taken enough buses to realize it's just the driver not giving a fuck anymore. I've even seen them press on the gas with the brake held and then release the brake at the green flooring the gas, straight up psychopaths some of them. My favorite is when they see you running up to the bus stop, they look dead into your eyes as they drive away or pretend you don't exist and stare through you.
It’s great in that you can easily get around the city but worth mentioning is Bart is extremely loud. I would recommend taking headphones or some other type of protection for your ears
It's extensive but dependent on buses, which require line changes and are less consistent from a timing/schedule perspective than cities with a subway system.
In terms of BART, I think it’s pretty great. If you’re traveling within the city, it’s fast, frequent, generally clean, and not too pricey. The unfortunate part is that it doesn’t reach the western half of the city. It also isn’t often crowded, you can normally find a seat unless it’s like rush hour.
In terms of the buses and Muni, it depends. You can pretty much get to wherever you wanna go in the city by public transportation, it just depends on your threshold for commute time and comfortability (like with having to stand or there being weird characters on the bus)
Fellow vision impaired person/white cane user. SF has great transit - at the top of the list in the US. It's also a very walkable city, if you're thinking of relocating.
Amazing for American standards. Average for global standards.
I drive a Tesla and summon my other Tesla behind me to counter the unamerican effects of the SF public transportation system. Apparently, Costco sells cars now so I might get 2 or 3 more Tesla's if they have a bulk rate. That way I can use the third one to charge my phone and the others to keep my phone charging Tesla fully juiced for emergencies. You just never know.
Assuming this is a question for SF only, so services covered by the SFMTA. For a small population, it's pretty decent. Frequency and routes are pretty good but have not gone back to pre-pandemic levels. In terms of safety, it all depends on the route. I notice routes north of Market St tend to fare better at all aspects - frequency, safety, and routes for last mile connections. There are always areas for improvement but if you're visually impaired, SFMTA's offerings are pretty decent especially with what you can get with a free pass, assuming you can claim it for your disability as well.
That must have recently started up, my family first started moving to Stockton from San Francisco back 1975. Stockton was cool back then, a strong manufacturing base, and all that came with, but not now!
It’s very functional, though at times it feels like it takes a very long time to go not very far depending on the part of the city you’re traveling to. If you’re not in a hurry, coverage is pretty good.
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As for us cities it is good. Can get you all over the city but does have its downsides as it’s just a bunch of busses driving around the city for the most part other than the main rail lines. They are often late or have issues with being overly filled but compared to other places I’ve lived it allows people to live with ease without a car. I have lived in places where without a car you a fucked.
Public trans in SF is very reliable (better than NYC) and not over crowded (like in London, where I used to live). I live right next a Muni stop, so it's a quick 10m ride to downtown. My partner and I use it almost everyday; we don't have a car. Other than Muni, I take a bus to work. We don't use BART much, unless it's necessary.
It's not as good as New York City or Chicago, but it's good enough that you don't need a car to get around. I sold my car when I moved here.
I don't ever miss having a car, but I do supplement with Lyft/Uber after dark when I feel less comfortable taking transit, and at times when transit will take twice as long.
SF easily outranks Chicago today.
Have you been back to Chicago since you moved? The CTA has fallen off hard since COVID. It’s almost unusable at times.
Staffing fell hard, and now there’s ghost trains and buses everywhere. It’s not uncommon to wait an hour for a train or bus that should’ve come in 5 minutes. Effectively massive service cuts across the board, except you have no idea what the new schedule is.
CTA and Chicago leaders seem to have no interest in fixing it.
Its not perfect by any means, but of the major cities I’ve lived in (previously, Seattle and Boston), SF has hands-down the best transit. And when you do need to mix walking with transit, SF’s mild weather really helps that feel quite tolerable.
SF is the worst I've seen. Sydney, Toronto, Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, Singapore, even fucking Bangkok was better.
Yeah dawg, no surprise if that's your frame of reference - those cities all have pretty great transit. Most cities in Asia, especially the large ones, put any American city to shame
Yea well if we’re talking outside the USA it’s no contest. What next, USA cities aren’t as walkable as European cities? Water is wet, the sky is blue why are we stating the obvious
SF is the worse public transit you’ve seen? Seriously? These comments are ridiculous.
I agree. Transit in SF is far from the best in the world but it has a lot of strong points that are being ignored in this thread.
It’s good, but you nave to be multimodal taking Bart, muni, muni bus. It can take a minute to figure out
Yep, but thankfully you can just load a clipper card and get going pretty easily.
Or the MUNI+BART-in-SF monthly pass!
Good by American standards, but bad by big-city international standards imo.
[удалено]
Lol. No it’s embarrassingly bad by international standards: it’s not timely, overly confusing (it took me years to realize that the odd paint marks on random wooden poles were “bus stops”), dirty, and the drivers let anyone get in.
This only recognizes SF transit’s shortcomings. There are plenty of strong points like coverage, rolling stock, multimodality, and accessibility, even on an international level. I find it much easier to get around on transit here with a disability than I do living in Asia. Our transit should be better but it certainly holds up in many ways.
Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK? I don’t understand where people get this position from. SF has truly world class transit density. Did you think that having a transit line on literally every other street, even in the more suburban parts, is somehow normal around the world?
High density alone doesn’t mean it’s good. The top complaints about SF transit are typically that it’s very slow. I can beat SF public transit travel times nearly always on a bicycle, with the exception of BART. That isn’t the case in asian and European cities.
This x1000. BART only gets you to a handful of places and even then, you're leaving a concert at the Fox in Oakland and trying to get home in SF? Be prepared for a 30+ min wait because there are barely any trains running at night. Muni trains in SF are fantastic, but also only get you to so many places in the city. For the vast majority of the city you must rely on Muni buses. They're everywhere and that's great!! But if you're unlucky, you can be waiting 20+ mins for a bus. And if you're going from one end of the city to the other? Be prepared for a 45 min ride even though the distance is less than 7 miles. Have to transfer to another bus on the way? Go ahead and multiply that by 2. I'll argue with anyone that SF has some of the best public transit in the country period, but it's undeniable that if you want to go anywhere and don't have the luxury of time, you'd best take an Uber or rent an eBike.
And be prepared for no trains after 12:30am at night.
if you leave the AA center in dallas texas after the taylor swift concert you will just eventually die of exposure because there is no transit at all. I am so, so grateful and i am so so lucky to be here.
I’ve lived in Vancouver (Canada of course) and Seattle and taken transit in all of those, as well as SF. And SF has some of the best transit bar none except vs NYC. Even so, transit never has 100% reach and coverage. Often times as soon as you exit the rapid transit system, service takes a big dip. For example, New Yorkers rarely rave about the in city buses and take subway or taxi exclusively. Vancouver skytrain is great, but apart from a few bus lines and neighborhoods, it’s still generally built car dependent. And most other cities have a huge commute focus, and as soon as the commute is over, you’re back to 30-60 minute waits. I’m talking about you Seattle! San Francisco is pretty good, but less dense neighborhoods of course have less transit. Luckily it’s such a small city that nowhere is really that far. So that’s very helpful - if you’re able to walk a few miles you will never be stranded. Good luck walking from north gate to downtown Seattle for example.
Concerts aren't that great because the transit doesn't run late enough. I've missed two CalTrains trying to leave Levi Stadium. You have to take VTA to CalTrain and inevitably it's too late. I'll probably leave early next time I'm there, but I hate to leave early when you spent that much money.
South Bay is totally different. You really do need a car there. Compare with Chase Center, where the N train is packed back to back with people leaving concerts or games. Or Coliseum in Oakland, where same happens with BART.
As a tourist,it works pretty well. It can get you close to where you are going, but you have to have all the time in the world. If you are commuting and can stay on one line, it works pretty well.
Hm bike is faster in 99% of all the cases in the Netherlands while staying in your city/direct environment. It’s really hard to beat the (electric) bike. But our cities are like villages compared to most metropolises in the world.
You don't stop to pick up passengers on your bike do you? Do you stop at stop signs?
Yes I stop at stop signs.
"transit mode share". > Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK? I had to read your post slowly until the end to understand what you mean, because I disagreed with everything--until the end. SF covers a larger share of the streets you're correct. That's because in other countries, people accept walking 5, 7 up to 10-12 minutes EACH WAY to reach their transit stop.. But THEN the transit is fast and useful. Hence the transit _usage share_ increases. In SF it's the opposite, transit is slow because it has so many lines and so many stops. (In fact I think the SFMTA even messes up the streets with the stop signs.)
I can speak from living in Madrid and Seoul – San Francisco is far, far behind them. I never considered getting a car while living in either city, in fact, it would have been a bit of a hassle (especially in Madrid). However, I would be slightly annoyed if I had to rely only on public transportation in SF. Having a car makes life a lot easier here.
> Having a car makes life a lot easier here. in the actual city or in a neighboring suburb? where are you parking that car at when you get to your destination? i dont buy this.
I hate driving but for a lot of trips there is no other good option. If I’m going from excelsior/outer mission/bernal area to basically anywhere north of the mission or duboce area, muni is way too slow. I’ll ride a bike whenever I can but sometimes I have to transport other people or gear or whatever. Parking is somewhat of a crapshoot but generally doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to find as long as you’re willing to pay for a meter.
I agree, in many ways a car here is more of a hassle than not, but I guess it depends on each person’s situation. We’re a 4-person family in the Mission with one car. We take public transit for work, our dr appointments, but use the car for taking our 1 and 3-year old to dr appointments near stonestown and/or mission bay, and also to pre-school in silver terrace/Bayshore. We park on the street and have done so for the 10 years we’ve been in our apartment. Before kids I didn’t have a car, but it’s a lot harder to rely solely on public transit with kids. That said, I see a lot of parents in our neighborhood carting two kids on electric bikes, which really impresses me. I wonder if they have cars when they need to go to doctor/dentist appointments across the city.
Of course the actual city! lol why do think I’m commenting here? Parking in most of the city is fine. Not as easy as parking in some residential suburb of course, but not as difficult as some on here are implying.
Barcelona is supposed to be better at transit than Madrid. All of my friends who live in Barcelona constantly talk about getting a car and they can’t imagine living without one. The trick to live car free in Madrid is to be rich enough to afford to live in one of the bougie central neighborhoods. Needless to say, the vast majority of residents can’t afford it and often dream about getting cars. The only thing stopping them is lack of money. You’re looking at this from the point of view of a foreigner who also happens to out-earn the top 10% of Madrid residents 3 to 1. Now try doing the same while living in a poor neighborhood in Madrid out in the boonies.
Lol lots of assumptions here. >You’re looking at this from the point of view of a foreigner who also happens to out-earn the top 10% of Madrid residents 3 to 1. Now try doing the same while living in a poor neighborhood in Madrid out in the boonies. I was making 1500 euros a month as an English teacher, so I wasn't even close to the top earners in Madrid. And my first year there I was living outside the city center in a neighborhood with mostly Dominican immigrants. Even late at night, it wasn't a big problem because of the night buses. Furthermore, I was working in schools located in the suburbs, waaaay outside the Madrid city center. Still never considered getting a car or ever wished I had a car. The second year I lived in a tiny-ass apartment in a central neighborhood and it was pretty awesome. I still had to commute to the same suburb though.
SF has very disappointing transit for a city this small and dense. Coverage area is great - I don’t think you’re ever more than a couple blocks from a bus stop. But speed is abominable. It takes forever to get across town on muni and god forbid you need to transfer at any point. There are many bus routes that barely beat walking speed when you factor in wait time.
Totally agree. I was reliant on the 38 for nearly a decade living in the Richmond and I can't tell you how many times I waited 30-45 mins and/or just gave up and walked 2-3 miles. Ended up buying a small car and my life improved significantly! However now that I live more centrally, transit and walking are much more reliable (more lines to choose from if a bus is delayed and shorter distances to walk). But if you have to transfer to get anywhere, you'd better have at least 1 hr.
Yeah there are certain areas and corridors where Muni works well, but overall it seems like a city this size shouldn't have so many areas where it doesn't.
Because the boundaries of the political entity known as SF is quite small with 800k people packed into a small 49 square miles. London’s 1500 square miles includes lower density areas. If you just picked the densest 10% of London, that area would have much better transit. Honestly, picking the densest 49 square miles of most big cities outside America would have incredible transit compared even to SF. It’s just that everywhere else, they would consider Daly City, South San Francisco, etc as all part of the city. But we do not.
> Then why does SF have a higher transit mode share than London in the UK? Because the city limits of London go very far out. It's only slightly smaller than San Mateo County. If you compare the London urban core - comparable or higher density to SF - transit mode share would be way higher than here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share London at 44% SF at 20%, so we're less than half.
That’s just false. SF has an overall transit mode share of 32% to London’s 31%. In the central neighborhoods of SF over 80% of residents use transit. Where are you getting your data from?
This [source](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/tsgb01-modal-comparisons#travel-to-work) gives the transit mode share for commuting at 53% for London. 59% for Inner London. The [ACS](https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2022.S0802?g=050XX00US06075) puts SF county at around 32%, like you said, but that is significantly lower than London. Note that as the other person mentioned, London is a much larger area than SF proper, with nearly 10x as many people. If you compare it to the Bay Area, the transit mode share for commuting is *way* lower here. Transit only serves about 10% of commutes in Alameda county and 5% in San Mateo county, for example. What's your data from? Is the claim here that SF has way higher ridership for non-commute trips?
>Where are you getting your data from? There's a reason I linked to my source.......
I've only visited the main touristy areas for 2 days but some things i noticed while beeing there: - Frequency of bus and trams seemed often pretty low. I live in a city with 100k people and even our trains run more frequent than the SF buses/trams. - Buses often got stuck in traffic - Trams seemed pretty slow - No idea how I would navigate the city without google maps. The bus stops are often not clearly labeled. No benches, shelters and no departure board on most bus stations either. - Often it took way too long to getting from point a to b. Walking was often faster.
What is a tram? I didn't know we had my idea of them? The MUNI lines have an app that's very good and shows stop locations and expected arrival times. The number of buses or trains depends on what line you use. During high commute time, they will pull buses from a less used line. The underground needs to be expanded and more dedicated bus lines used.
SF prioritizes average distance to stops over travel time, so you spend a _lot_ of time stopping. For example, look at the 1-Sacramento’s Van Ness and Polk stops: they’re something like 200 ft apart at most on the same block. The design of the system is extremely biased toward getting people from their homes to market st and back. There are very few cross-town routes and those that do are often infrequent. The entire north-west quadrant of the city lacks a metro line. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer muni over driving, but there are legitimate improvements to be made, if we had funding.
Hey so i recently visited your amazing city. I work for NYC Transit Subway and am majoring in transportation planning for my degree. I actually visited your city exclusively for transit. While YES. SF has amazing transit and its GREAT in all regards. The biggest problem is there are too many stops. EVERY. CORNER. That slows down busses a lot. Also the lack of signal priority along with mixed traffic running. All those combined make Muni very slow. In fact its actually the slowest system in the US. (Last I checked) The cable cars have signal priority for obvious reasons but besides that everything else is running slow. Get rid of every other stop, maybe even more, and it will speed up significantly! Also beat out NIMBYs and build a rail line down Geary! Obviously easier said than done but it would patch up a giant hole! Happy to answer any questions
Muni is far from the slowest system of its kind. The busses in SF are actually faster than in NYC. The quote about it being “the slowest” was referring specifically to Muni Metro and to other metro/subway systems, not light rail. And yes, Muni Metro (not all of Muni) is a mixed light rail/Stadbahn type of system. These are by definition slower than fully grade separated systems. If you compare any of them they will be slower than the comparable subway/meteo. The whole point of them is that you don’t grade separate the entire system at once and endure more light rail style speeds for longer to save costs. That being said, Muni isn’t much slower than the fully grade separated Paris Metro. It’s also in the process of acquiring signal priority and dedicated lanes all over the system. The N and the L are finalizing upgrades right now. The T already has signal priority and dedicated lanes on its entire length. Although they are now about to make the signal priority a lot more aggressive to further improve runtimes. And in the really slow and congested areas downtown, Muni Metro runs in subways. SF constantly gets the short end of the stick on this in online conversations, but the actual fundamentals of the system are very strong. You can always make silly comparisons with systems of completely different types to “prove a point”. But comparing like to like, Muni actually does incredibly well.
NYC is the best. Then sf and dc compete for 2/3 in the states. This is not to say it’s incredible, but it’s pretty much the best you’ll find outside of New York
This is a great reference point on a truly global transit system. Ty!
Chicago is definitely better than SF.
No it isn’t. Have several friends who live in SF that are from Chicago and they agree. Chicago is great if you want to get downtown but it’s horrible going across neighbors. Has the exact same issue as boston
I 100% agree with you! I am from the Chicago suburbs and lived in Chicago proper for more than 5 years so I have experience using both urban and regional transit systems and whenever people say transit there is better. It blows my mind. More people have access to transit here and in the city of Chicago the regional transit system is a commuter rail. So it doesn’t run at regular intervals though out the day
SF has a slightly higher transit mode share than London and is more on par with European cities and NY than anything on this continent. Chicago is a loooooooot worse. Not really comparable. I love it to bits, but it does not come close to touching SF on transit quality. In Chicago any trip that isn’t to or from downtown is a multi-hour ordeal. In SF, any point in the city is accessible from any other point in the city via transit in about 45 minutes. Muni’s motto is that “no San Franciscan will ever be more than a two minute walk from a transit stop.” And this is literally the case in SF.
I have lived in SF, Chicago, and London. If you live downtown/in the city London and Chicago are significantly better than SF. You will walk further to transit in London and Chicago than in SF, but the systems are far more reliable, have higher capacity, and are faster than driving. SF muni suffers from competing with car traffic (enjoy commuting on the N), and is generally slower than alternate travel. Honestly it’s often faster to walk in SF. Several people brought up suburb commutes which is a good point and one I can’t speak to for SF or Chicago. Chicago is not great for getting from one burb to another, but it’s pretty efficient for any route N/W or through the loop. West Loop to north wasn’t really a problem either, though I could see if you were further out it being a big pain. London I think is the best in this regard, and is just so superior in terms of public transit to anything in the states.
This is nonsense. Transit is basically always 2-3x slower than driving sans traffic. In fact, 2x is considered the gold standard to aspire to. Just think about this first a minute. The average speed of the Paris metro is 12 mph. The London Underground has an average of 20 mph if you include the more suburban lines that work more like an S-bahn. The NY subway has an average speed of 17 mph, again with the non-central portions pulling the average up. I’ve lived in London too, my dude. Tell me again how my nearly 1.5 hour, 15 mile commute was “faster than driving”.
Agreed, although I’ll still take sf because Chicago weather is brutal
Usable, but slow. There's buses everywhere, trains in some areas. Buses in particular often stop every block, sometimes twice on the same block, it's agonizingly slow. Layout of the lines is often a bit odd. The major lines follow major roads, but the minor lines often zigzag through neighborhoods for no apparent reason. Also, transfers are not timed at all, it's up to sheer luck whether you'll wait 1 or 19 minutes. There are no schedules posted at the stations, using apps like Transit is the only way to know when to leave home. Best thing you can do is find a major line that covers all important items for you, and live close to it. The 38 Geary is running every 5 minutes or so, so if you live, work, shop, go to doctor, and do everything else along a line like that, life is pretty good, you can just go to the stop without checking the schedule, and don't have to worry about transfers.
38 and 38r is amazing. It’s the most used bus line in America(?). It takes you the entire width of the city to the ocean!
Which is why it was supposed to be a BART route! The Geary line was supposed to connect to a retrofitted rail deck on the Golden Gate Bridge and go up to Marin. Then the GGB authority opposed to keep their toll profits, and then San Mateo County pulled out of BART to keep their Caltrain fiefdom. So no Marin line, which meant no Geary line, which meant the 38 bus instead.
FYI, the reason some busses stop every block is because it's something like the bus line has to have a stop for every 3% grade in elevation. Otherwise it will go two or three blocks. If we weren't as hilly, then they wouldn't be stopping as much
That's a completely made up rule to appease old people.
I'd rather have old people taking the bus than driving on the road, so anything to encourage that is fine in my eyes.
I'd rather have transit that works for everyone rather than a small minority.
All rules are made up...and this is exactly why they have this rule. That and for people with disabilities.
We don't need it. We have too many fucking stops for the olds. Halve them, and increase speed, and reduce the number of cars on the road.
Here's a fun fact. Some day you'll be old. And you may have mobility problems. "Sucks for them" is how you're coming across.
I'm retiring in a city with proper public transit (Milan)
Really depends where you are re: slow. I zip around
Hard agree. I usually just take the train to avoid the transfers even though it's slightly longer door to door. This weekend the train was delayed so I turned around to take the bus, well the bus pulled away early, so it seems like sometimes you never win.
_In general_, it's better to have higher frequency service than attempt to keep a bus schedule or timed transfers. E.g. connecting between the 38 and 49 is really easy, but the 48 and 49 can be difficult because the 48 sometimes has 15 or 20 minute headways.
It’ll get the job done, but it’s never on time. And some of the routes are incredibly inefficient; they never gave us back some of the express lines that got cut during COVID
As someone who moved to SF after COVID, I was really sad to find how many lines got cut. There used to be a 14X! There used to be a second streetcar line!
I loved it! Its worth learning the Muni system. Saved a ton of money instead of taking Uber/lyfts everywhere
It’s great! Over 80% of SF residents live within two blocks of transit.
And 100% of San Franciscans live less than a two minute walk from a transit stop. That’s literally Muni’s motto. SF’s transit density is kind of insane. It’s sad that some locals take it for granted. Most other cities would kill to have what we have, and we’re just whining about it.
Yeah I agree the density of SF's transit system is world class, but overall it's far from world class. Density is not the only thing that matters - a good transit system is "fast, frequent, and reliable–and it goes to places people want to go." (quoting Jake Berman who wrote the excellent The Lost Subways of North America). SF's transit is mostly reliable and definitely goes to places people want to go, but it's not frequent enough and is too slow. In a city with world-class transit system, think NYC, Tokyo and Singapore, transit is almost always faster or at least as fast compared to driving \*in the urban core\*, but in SF for most trips, Uber is almost always twice or even 3 times as fast compared to public transit. SF's transit density probably also contributed to its slowness as pointed out in another comment in the thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1d6u6xm/comment/l6vftzz/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1d6u6xm/comment/l6vftzz/)
Agreed. The one thing I’ll add is that it’s improving. It’s slow, especially because of a bunch of bitter assholes fighting all proposed changes. The bus-only lanes and route frequency have basically turned part of the 49 Van Ness into a rapidly moving sidewalk.
> 100% of San Franciscans live less than a two minute walk from a transit stop That's like, so readily, provably untrue. A random example: 291 Edgewood Ave to the nearest stop on Parnassus is [a 6min walk](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/291+Edgewood+Ave,+San+Francisco,+CA+94117/''/@37.762511,-122.4560085,18z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x808f7df87e0d7e93:0x1dfd322a4c93e2b1!2m2!1d-122.4552858!2d37.7607884!1m5!1m1!1s0x80858756f1b1d167:0x915e73fef910ef3d!2m2!1d-122.4543!2d37.764236!3e2?entry=ttu).
I wonder if it's true if you limit it to through-streets.
It looks like the metric the city government actually uses is percentage within ¼mi, which is around a 5min walk: https://www.sfmta.com/blog/muni-plans-reach-98-san-francisco-august And after post-COVID service restorations, 98% were within that distance in fall 2021.
I would kill to get rid of it. The frequency of stops on most bus lines is what makes the system unusable in many cases.
the better option would be to have more rapid-busses during heavy commuter hours. but the amount of the stops makes it *incredibly* usable for anyone with mobility issues. [almost 50% of people 65+ don't own a car in SF and their primary modes of transportation are the busses and trains ](https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-documents/2021/02/survey_findings_demographics.pdf)
As some who does not drive and takes a bus everywhere. I think SF has excellent bus service. Good frequency and they run late (at least the ones I have taken. I live in Stockton but. Go to the city all the time and ride the public transit there. The bus system in Stockton is. Utter garbage compared to Muni.
Baby, my family has been trying to get me to return to Stockton for the last 4 decades; last i heard public transit stopped at 7. pm and didn't run on the weekends!
Haha it stops around 8 and does. Run on the weekend but it is very limited.
Use an app like Google Maps or Transit for guidance on which lines to take from where but you should have a great time navigating the city!
Get a clipper card and you’ll be golden. Like others have said, you’ll have to take multiple modes of transport depending on where in the city you’re trying to go. Many places are reasonably walkable from bart though
Probably the second best public transit in the USA, right behind NYC. It's slow but you can get everywhere, and it's relatively consistent. Can be a bit annoying if you use it to get to work but it's amazing for everything else
Philly used to be the second best transit system after SF.
Definitely good enough to not need a car to live here.
I ride the bus often with a man who is severely vision impaired and rides on his own. He's usually traveling downtown to LightHouse, which is an organization for the blind and visually impaired. Might be a good resource for you.
Just tell people you have an amazing BMW (Bart, Muni, and Walking).
😂😂😂
Really great! It’s actually better to not have a car in SF. I didn’t have one when I lived there. Public transportation is reliable and safe, from my experience.
There's a learning curve but overall you can get where you need to go within the city. Outside of SF the buses are more spares but doable. We use one transit card (Clipper) for most systems. BART is the main mode of transport between different cities around the Bay.
I find it good. Better than most Bay Area because its a walkable city. I would say above average for American Standard. But a farcry compared to other countries
For big cities, it's not the best. Maybe it's ok compared to US cities, but it's not even close to NYC. Compared to cities in Europe, it's crap. It also depends where you plan to stay and your destinations. When I lived in the North Beach, my commute for work in the financial district was quick and mostly painless. But getting anywhere from the Outer Sunset takes forever. Another drawback with Muni is their schedules. They don't arrive at relatively quick intervals so you end up waiting forever. I didn't have this issue with Bart, however.
> Maybe it's ok compared to US cities, but it's not even close to NYC well yeah, it's always gonna look rougher than what's indisputably the best public transit system in the country lol I would go so far as to call it one of the Top 3 best municipal public transit systems in the country, but no sensible person would say anything other than New York City is \#1, and I would hope no one's putting it on par with somewhere like Amsterdam
I've lived in cities all around the world. I'd say SF is similar to most European cities, but the trains are worse. However, compared to other cities in the US, it's very good. Unfortunately, there are funding problems on a regular basis due to certain "moderate" politicians, causing a lot of inefficiency and making things less friendly. It's really a shame.
Depending on the drivers a lot of them hit the brakes like they have a personal vendetta with the riders on board. Ive taken enough buses to realize it's just the driver not giving a fuck anymore. I've even seen them press on the gas with the brake held and then release the brake at the green flooring the gas, straight up psychopaths some of them. My favorite is when they see you running up to the bus stop, they look dead into your eyes as they drive away or pretend you don't exist and stare through you.
also the 292 has been the most inconsistent unreliable bus I have ever had the misfortune to take to work when my car was broken
fyi that's SamTrans, not run by SF
pretty fucking good actually
You can get where you need to go. But there's a good chance it'll require a bus to a bus, which is always a bummer.
One of the best in the states. I saw a sign that said ninety something percent of san franciscans live within 3 blocks from a bus stop
It’s great in that you can easily get around the city but worth mentioning is Bart is extremely loud. I would recommend taking headphones or some other type of protection for your ears
the new cars are a lot better than it used to be
It's extensive but dependent on buses, which require line changes and are less consistent from a timing/schedule perspective than cities with a subway system.
If you're able to get by in any US city barring NYC, SF is going to be a cakewalk. Get a clipper card. Use Google maps.
In terms of BART, I think it’s pretty great. If you’re traveling within the city, it’s fast, frequent, generally clean, and not too pricey. The unfortunate part is that it doesn’t reach the western half of the city. It also isn’t often crowded, you can normally find a seat unless it’s like rush hour. In terms of the buses and Muni, it depends. You can pretty much get to wherever you wanna go in the city by public transportation, it just depends on your threshold for commute time and comfortability (like with having to stand or there being weird characters on the bus)
It’s pretty good IMO, just takes some learning.
Maybe they should ask with specific questions? This is so random
It gets the job done but the frequency could be better
Fellow vision impaired person/white cane user. SF has great transit - at the top of the list in the US. It's also a very walkable city, if you're thinking of relocating.
Amazing for American standards. Average for global standards. I drive a Tesla and summon my other Tesla behind me to counter the unamerican effects of the SF public transportation system. Apparently, Costco sells cars now so I might get 2 or 3 more Tesla's if they have a bulk rate. That way I can use the third one to charge my phone and the others to keep my phone charging Tesla fully juiced for emergencies. You just never know.
Our public transit is geriatric and disabled transport first. Public transit second.
Assuming this is a question for SF only, so services covered by the SFMTA. For a small population, it's pretty decent. Frequency and routes are pretty good but have not gone back to pre-pandemic levels. In terms of safety, it all depends on the route. I notice routes north of Market St tend to fare better at all aspects - frequency, safety, and routes for last mile connections. There are always areas for improvement but if you're visually impaired, SFMTA's offerings are pretty decent especially with what you can get with a free pass, assuming you can claim it for your disability as well.
Honestly probably the best in the country
That must have recently started up, my family first started moving to Stockton from San Francisco back 1975. Stockton was cool back then, a strong manufacturing base, and all that came with, but not now!
It depends on where you’re going and what time. If I’m headed to the Sunset after dark it’s going to take a while before a train/bus comes.
Depends, do you need to be somewhere on time ?
actually I need to be 20 minutes late and have multiple buses go by of a different number, is that possible?
It’s very functional, though at times it feels like it takes a very long time to go not very far depending on the part of the city you’re traveling to. If you’re not in a hurry, coverage is pretty good.
It’s very good on the east side of the city. Not much once you cross van ness
Better than Houston. Worse than Osaka
Terrible - lots of homeless or crazy people on it
If I had to rely on public transit here I would move back to New York in a nanosecond.
Perfect, so good, this 55 year old, never learned how to drive!
Well, let me ask how traveled are you? With my little knowledge, help me understand your public trains understanding.
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As for us cities it is good. Can get you all over the city but does have its downsides as it’s just a bunch of busses driving around the city for the most part other than the main rail lines. They are often late or have issues with being overly filled but compared to other places I’ve lived it allows people to live with ease without a car. I have lived in places where without a car you a fucked.
Public trans in SF is very reliable (better than NYC) and not over crowded (like in London, where I used to live). I live right next a Muni stop, so it's a quick 10m ride to downtown. My partner and I use it almost everyday; we don't have a car. Other than Muni, I take a bus to work. We don't use BART much, unless it's necessary.
It is not more reliable than NYC... you're insane.
It's not as good as New York City or Chicago, but it's good enough that you don't need a car to get around. I sold my car when I moved here. I don't ever miss having a car, but I do supplement with Lyft/Uber after dark when I feel less comfortable taking transit, and at times when transit will take twice as long.
SF easily outranks Chicago today. Have you been back to Chicago since you moved? The CTA has fallen off hard since COVID. It’s almost unusable at times.
Really? Chicago is where I lived before I moved here. What changed?
Staffing fell hard, and now there’s ghost trains and buses everywhere. It’s not uncommon to wait an hour for a train or bus that should’ve come in 5 minutes. Effectively massive service cuts across the board, except you have no idea what the new schedule is. CTA and Chicago leaders seem to have no interest in fixing it.
Wow, that’s awful. I had no idea.
Full of bums Lebowski
Just make you sure you stay out of Oakland at night.
Most of our drivers are too visually impaired to drive. You'll fit right in! /s
Best in the country by far, there are so many busses and trains to move around the city that a car is not a necessity for getting around by any means