Transportation of San Francisco

San Francisco is probably the most 80s action movie city there is.  Streets awash with scum, just waiting for that rain to come.  Yuppies and sodomites.  Crustie punks.  An affluent city that seems like its on the precipice of madness and urban disorder at every moment.  

Adding to this vibe is the transport, check it out:







their logo:

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I got that train (the BART?) from the airport into San Francisco - I like the way public transport in the US tends to be much older & more ramshackle than you'd get in Western Europe

yep BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). Its a sortof unique combination of subway/metro (within San Francisco) and commuter rail (in the greater Bay Area). You don't expect it to go so fast as it looks like a tube train.


Regarding the state of US transportation, I think its because there was massive investment in transport infrastructure in the 60s/early 70s that tapered off in the Reagan era. The defining colour of US transportation is 70s brown. Even the NY subway, which is one of the best in the world, is filthy, neglected and totally devoid of the sort of customer information you get on the tube.

I'm in SF at the moment on an expenses-paid research trip and I'm starting to see why uber was invented here. The BART is good for travelling long distances but the MUNI for short ones is awful. Strange routing, huge gaps between buses, closes early, and mostly frequented by down-and-outs.