May 25, 2024
#blog
The other day, I was joyriding BART, as I often do. I'm lucky to have good rail service here, which is pretty rare in North America. However, there was an issue.
I was heading south towards Berryessa, and towards Hayward, a train had a mechanical issue and it was causing some pretty nasty delays. Fine, I guess, these things happen. Maybe a little too often for our desires, but what can you do. The system is generally pretty reliable, I should say. At least it's not the MBTA.
So what did they do? They turned around a train heading south, that I so happened to be on, a couple stops before where the problem was. Everyone was directed to get off the train so that they could send it back north as soon as possible. And then a few minutes later, the next southbound train also got turned around.
Turns out the delay was so bad that originally the next northbound train wasn't for another 25 minutes, and north is where SF and Oakland are of course, so having less service there was probably deemed to be more of an issue than further down the line. I was a little annoyed, but knowing a thing or two about public transport I was content with it. My plans are ruined, but the majority of people's plans aren't. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
Now while I was fairly calm, many other riders weren't. I heard a couple hurling abuse at the train operator who was just doing their best to keep the system running and maintain a good level of service. Nobody seemed to have any idea what was going on even though it was communicated quite a few times. We were told that a southbound train would arrive within 10 minutes, and it did. The out-of-service trains turned back north just as planned with no further issues. Later, a couple spare trains were probably pulled out of the nearby yard to cover for the delays. The earlier mechanical problem was eventually resolved and the line was back to normal within an hour or two.
Could things have been handled a little better? Maybe. But systems exist for a reason. Trust the process.
Well... Not so fast. I don't trust the US healthcare process. I don't trust 737 MAXes. I don't trust job applications. But at least in those cases, it's pretty clear that the system is fundamentally broken.
Contrary to some rail systems around the country (I would pick on Boston but I already did so now it's Chicago's turn), we don't tend to have that many issues. It's just that when a rail system does have an issue, it's a lot easier for it to be spun as some kind of disaster. Especially when at least 95% of the time, things are running perfectly. Maybe that level of expectation does make the odd delay stick out, but across the board I've found people get a lot angrier at train delays than traffic on highways.
But why? Maybe congestion is just so bad here that if anything, having no traffic is the abnormal situation. The American psyche must be so used to standing still on the highway for ages - it's honestly quite sad. Maybe it's because you're still on the road while in traffic, whereas if you're stuck waiting around at a train station you're not moving at all. Or maybe trains are just expected to be perfect, which is a bit ironic because if you did expect trains to be perfect, you wouldn't be so opposed to riding them in the first place. And the more you ride, the more you'll see that delays aren't really that common of an occurrence. It's just confirmation bias - which I ought to write about more later.
Yes, our rail network doesn't go everywhere, it's not that frequent, and it will take a huge culture change to get people out of their cars. However, the line that had the delay I was talking about is almost directly parallel to one of the busiest freeways in the area, and it has a station (sometimes even more than one) in almost every major town along the way. Development around stations is severely lacking, but most of them have park-and-rides, which aren't great, but at least they're a temporary solution until we figure out how to get NIMBYs on board for any building that's taller than six floors.
It always upsets me when our local news outlets always spin negative stories about our trains. We do have a lot of issues, but they're far from fatal and lots of people ride regularly. And why? Because they trust the system, and even when it does fail them, there's always a plan in place if you just be a little patient.
Though in the TikTok era, I don't think anyone is patient anymore.