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A computer upgrade shut down BART

(www.bart.gov)
232 points ksajadi | 1 comments | 05 Sep 25 14:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ninetyninenine ◴[05 Sep 25 18:21 UTC] No.45141839[source]▶
I mean despite it's history the snark is well deserved. With so many companies and people in the bay paying taxes, where the hell does all the money go?

Interesting, tidbit you added here. But snark is needed for this situation.

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octernion ◴[05 Sep 25 18:36 UTC] No.45142027[source]▶
your tax money broadly speaking doesn't go to BART; it's massively underfunded. not sure why they are the target of the snark.
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nradov ◴[05 Sep 25 18:45 UTC] No.45142137[source]▶
Under funded relative to what? What would the optimal amount of funding be? Are there ways that BART could cut costs to free up budget for IT upgrades?

I'm not trying to be snarky, it's just that for regular citizens who don't have time to attend BART BoD and committee meetings it's almost impossible to tell whether existing money is being wisely spent. So people get the impression that taxes are going up while service quality declines and assume the money must be going into someone's pocket.

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lokar ◴[05 Sep 25 18:53 UTC] No.45142223[source]▶
In nearly all of the US there is an unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable) debate about to what extent public transit should get a subsidy vs pay for itself.

The dominant position (even in CA) has been no or little subsidy.

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flerchin ◴[05 Sep 25 19:12 UTC] No.45142443[source]▶
In no way does BART pay for itself. 22% of their operating costs are covered by fares. Public transit is an amenity paid for by taxes. Private transport also has its own subsidy, but it's not even close.

https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/BART_FY24%2...

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hansvm ◴[05 Sep 25 21:32 UTC] No.45143863{4}[source]▶
Which is a bit shocking in its own way, even if the numbers were break-even instead of 20-50%.

Public transit is widely touted as being more efficient than the alternatives, but for most trips it's cheaper (factoring in maintenance, depreciation, gas, etc, and pretending that BART is as convenient and reliable) to drive than to take BART, and not by a little bit.

Income just from gas taxes, tolls, and registration cover ~half the infrastructure maintenance, so there exists effectively another $200-$300 per capita per annum subsidy, but that's nowhere near enough to make BART cost less than just driving, even if I had to account those extra fees against my driving.

Why is that? How is BART worse than driving and still losing money when it's supposedly a more efficient solution? Is it just low volume? Is the organization making bad bets? Is the premise that trains are more efficient flawed?

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1. bkettle ◴[05 Sep 25 21:49 UTC] No.45144054{5}[source]▶
There are also a variety of ways that "efficiency" can be defined; your comment considers monetary efficiency, but both modes of transport have costs on society that are not considered in the numerical operating costs (pollution, opportunity cost of land use, healthcare costs due to accidents...)