>As a recent nyc -> sf transplant, i think the best short term solution to making living in the bay area more affordable is to run one track of bart back and forth from 12am - 4am. SF needs a brooklyn, a real brooklyn, that you can get to when your shift at the restaurant/bar/other-service-job ends at 1am.

That... sounds pretty great. As a bonus, it would make public transit usable for recreational use, and probably keep a bunch of drunks off the road.

The biggest reason why I avoided buying a restaurant in SF is because there is no answer to the problem you outline, yet. Hiring and keeping employees was a clusterfuck. A lot of them lived in East Bay or Daly City, and this was a problem I saw something like 2-3 years ago. It's probably worse now.

I have a restaurant in East Bay and I have employees on the same side of the bay that will walk 15 more minutes to save 35 cents on BART fares. I pay them more than minimum wage plus overtime and meals, and I offer to pay the 70 cent difference every day since I don't want any of them walking alone too late at night. They just pocket the 70 cents and keep on walking. Compared to my day job and my fiancé's day job and how we'll uber instead of walking 15 minutes...

It's not just improving BART service, it's also about improving public transit in general I think - including to the point that fares drop. My cousin from Seoul completely flipped out on me shortly after coming to the US. He realized that he was spending ~$10 and a couple of hours every day to get to his school in downtown SF from Alameda. Incredibly rude awakening if you're used to one of the busiest and best subway systems in the world, I guess.

From what I understand, Bart needs that 12-4 timeslot for track maintenance.

> Unlike some public transit systems with multiple sets of tracks on the same routes, BART doesn't have the duplication that would allow us to run trains on one set while performing maintenance on another. Third-rail power has to be shut down for maintenance crews to be able to operate safely and do the work that keeps the system safe and reliable. And the trains can’t run when the power is down.

- http://www.bart.gov/guide/latenight

It doesn't actually require extra tracks to run a 24/7 metro and also do maintenance. A very common solution is single-tracking. BART has two tracks, one for trains in each direction. What some systems do is just close one side for maintenance, and then run trains on the other side in both directions. For low-frequency service (e.g. hourly night service) it can just be a single train shuttling back and forth end-to-end. For higher-frequency service a few other options are possible. You can split the route into smaller segments (say, in half) and have one train shuttling back-and-forth on each segment. Customers change trains at segment boundaries if they want to go further. Alternately, some systems can run trains fully in opposite directions, if there is a siding somewhere along the route that can be used for passing.

The Copenhagen metro is a 24/7 system, without extra tracks, that uses this method. On maintenance nights a usual pattern is a brief complete-service shutdown 1:00-1:30am to switch from regular operation to single-tracking. One track is taken out of service and powered down, and service at ~20-minute headways resumes on the remaining track. The Atlanta subway also uses this method for longer weekend maintenance sometimes, going to single-track mode all weekend (they don't do 24/7 operation, though, I would guess due to budget issues).

It's possible BART can't do maintenance with single-track operation due to how it's set up, but their message implies it's physically impossible without having spare tracks, which is not true in other systems.

This is exactly what they did with the G train in brooklyn on the weekends. It's 2 track only, and they would shutdown one side, transfer to the other side at Bedford-Nostram. Was it a pain in the ass? Yes. Was it way better than no service... absolutely!

Alternatively, SF could just legalize privately owned buses.

Aren't they already legal? Here's a story about a private bus service, which SFMTA seems to have reacted positively to (see the quote at the end): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/29/leap-transit_n_3354...

The biggest controversy seems to be over where private buses that don't have their own private loading/unloading infrastructure can stop and load/unload. Some cities tolerate unofficial use of public bus stops, or look the other way when buses load/unload in a blatantly illegal way (by just stopping in a lane of traffic and blocking it, as "Chinatown buses" typically do). Other cities are less tolerant of that. But when private buses actually pay for their own private loading/unloading facilities on land they either own or properly rent, like Greyhound does, then there's no problem.

No, they are not legal: "To fit under CPUC's regulatory rebric, charter party carries can't just pick passengers up on the street, like taxis or traditional buses do, which is why Leap rides need to be ordered ahead of time through the company's iPhone app."

Cities don't allow private busses to obtain curb rights in the first place.

Greyhound is intercity, not intracity. Useless for this purpose.

The only controversy stems from taxis & muni busses protecting their turf.

You may know them as Jitneys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi

I'm curious how Brooklyn dealt/deals with the issue of crime and public safety. I lived in West Oakland for while, and this seems to be the general region where a 'Brooklyn' type of spot is trying to emerge. BART station is right there, and it's close to the bridge for all-night bus lines and bikers too. But it's just such a friggin dangerous place to be (at any hour of the day or night) that I wonder if it's even possible.

There are a couple places you just don't get off the train in brooklyn: east new york and brownsville, but on the whole, even areas below the JMZ: east williamsburg/bed stuy/bushwick aren't nearly as dangerous as they may seem by looking at them.

Yeah unfortunately today there really is no area in Oakland near a BART station where I would want to be walking around with a pocket full of cash/tip money late at night. There's a lot of investment and excitement happening in West Oakland, and it's interesting to watch the process. But until they get the public safety issues to a somewhat reasonable level, I don't see it. What I see are young hip people moving in, getting robbed or worse and going back to the City to live in a shared closet for 2k a month.

I'm really interested in the NYC comparison.

I don't know anything about city planning or the history of it, but places like New York must have gone through similar transitions. What worked, what didn't? I feel like there has to be a lot of history to learn from on the topic.

Things that don't work: rent control, historical preservation restrictions, burdensome light air and view restrictions.

Things that do work: letting rich people move in, letting developers build what they want, and using that massive tax base to build high-quality public transit.

Letting developers do whatever they please is a horrible idea. Most developers are crooks and do whatever they can to make the most amount of money, which is why most cities have city plans and zones to prevent developers from shitting on everything.

Secondly, historical preservation makes a city what it is. Would Paris be the same without the Eiffel Tower? Good historical preservation enhances and defines the city.

On the other hand you have Tokyo where buildings are built for a 25-year lifespan. I would not call Tokyo a boring city, it's just different. It has its own modern character. Also, Paris was planned post WWii, unlike London which is more haphazard in configuration. The Eiffel Tower was nearly demolished after the expo. It's only now that people think of that Iron monstrosity as emblematic of the city. Sometimes a blight does take on its own charm, such as the Eiffel tower, or Tokyo (radio) tower.

I also wouldn't mind if they would add some extra cars so it isn't standing room only during commute hours. How hard is it to add an extra car to an existing train? Raise my fare, I'll pay not to have to be packed in like cattle.

If only it worked this way. Fares are already set years in advance and BART management seems to have their own ideas on how they want to spend the limited resources they have.

I'd imagine the length of the train is limited to the shortest platform it has to support. Not from SF, so not sure if there really is room for expansion.

Frequency might be another answer - run the trains closer together, but again there are limits there too.

I've never seen a BART station shorter than ten cars, though many rush hour trains only use eight or nine.

I seem to remember that BART has an outdated and overwhelmed computer system which requires greater spacing between trains (and sometimes fails all the way down to manual control). At least new cars will have three doors instead of two, which should get a train out of a station faster.

I think I've been on trains in Japan (albeit not in Tokyo) where the first two cars didn't fit on the platform, and passengers were alerted to switch cars if getting off at that station.

Not sure how well it'd work given commuter congestion, but it warrants some consideration.

When I lived in Barcelona there were some low-traffic platforms shorter than the trains that went through them. I think the cars at the end of the train had big warning signs that they wouldn't open at station [X].