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December 24, 2005
A comparison across the world
Yesterday morning, we took the tram from Powell Street up to Fisherman's Wharf and returned at lunchtime. In the afternoon, we rode the BART (again from Powell) out to the International Airport to meet-and-greet the last member of our Christmas group, then we rode back into the city centre together. We have a car available to us, but in this City I wouldn't dream of using it - the public transport is frequent and reliable, the boarding points and stations clean and welcoming, and they're grouped together to provide great interchanges. System maps show all the modes of transport, and a system of interchange tickets lets you transfer easily between them. The fare system is easy enough to be understandable. Prices are low, and that encourages high utilisation. The systems run daily, even including Christmas day, from 5 or 6 in the morning to beyond midnight. I'm not trying to paint a perfect picture - BARTs were being delayed by 5 to 7 minutes due to wet rail conditions yesterday, and display signs asking you to please keep your tickets dry so they don't jam the machines. The number of people asking for money around the station entrances is even worse that Bath.
You may have guessed that Lisa and I are not spending Christmas in the UK - we're on an occasional visit to her country of origin, and I find myself drawn to make comparisons. Any quantitative comparisons are unfair - the economy here is very different, we're in a major city - but still we can observe what works well here for public transportation and think how that does, could, or should apply to our own areas of North West and West Wiltshire.
I couldn't resist the picture - utterly nothing to do with public transport, save that people have to travel to see the sealions at Pier 39. I haven't told you, but I guess you know where we are? You can see pictures, and more comment on my "wiki" ...
Posted by gje at December 24, 2005 03:06 PM