Ian Griffiths
@icgee
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mobility, design, good government / @CPCSTranscom , @seamlessbayarea board member & cofounder / making big plans and logical diagrams to stir blood 🏳️🌈
San Francisco, CA
Joined August 2009
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Pinned Tweet
Singapore is a transit mecca. As someone coming from the US, it challenges a lot of the assumptions we often hear about how transit “should” work. A few observations…🧵
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Swiss officials reported to our study group that ridership has fully recovered in Switzerland - it now *exceeds* 2019 levels. They explained, it's not because the Swiss didn't embrace remote work– a significant share of Swiss are still working from home many days, commuting less.
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Some EV recommendations that don’t fund fascism:
The new liberal dilemma:
Now that people are waking up to the fact that buying a Tesla leads to campaign donations to Trump and the GOP, everyone is asking about how to buy EVs that don’t fund fascism.
Folks, I have horrible, terrible news. You’re gonna hate it.
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Not a Wordle, just a complete street with striped bike lanes and center-running BRT
🟩⬜️🟥🟥⬜️🟩
🟩⬜️🟥🟥⬜️🟩
🟩⬜️🟥🟥⬜️🟩
🟩⬜️🟥🟥⬜️🟩
🟩⬜️🟥🟥⬜️🟩
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Weekday & commute ridership is below pre-pandemic levels. However, increases in weekend and leisure transit trips, including tourism, more than make up for the declines in commuting. People are taking more leisure trips - which makes sense (people want to get out of their homes!)
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A key success factor in Switzerland’s attractive, high ridership system our delegation learned about is the principle of "One Journey, One Ticket": the idea that when you pay a fare, it's for your entire journey, no matter how many times you transfer between modes or operators.
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This is because it’s a distance based structure. Oh but surely, you might say, distance based fare structures are inequitable, right? We’ll, I’d say they’re more equitable because a short trip of <3km is only S$1.09; fares only go up to S$2.97 for 40km+ trips. (S$1 = US$0.75).
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I’ve been taking mostly buses everywhere, and one of the first things you notice that’s different is the fare payment - you tap on *and* tap off. Of course in the US it’s sacrilege to consider asking people to tap off when taking a bus. But here, everyone does it.
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Singapore is a high income country, with average incomes similar to the US. So fares are cheap!
Many payment options are available, by far the most popular is credit card, or as the locals call it “pay wave”. I haven’t fiddled with a ticket machine since arriving!
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Also impressive are the transit shelters. Due to the climate - monsoon rains every day for a big chunk of the year, weather protection is a must. Massive canopies are at every transit stop, enough space for dozens to wait. Benches, clear maps, consistent signs are at every one.
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While it’s impossible to replicate the exact conditions in Singapore - a city-state of 280 sq mi - it’s inspiring to be in a place that is testing the limits of innovation, trying things that have never been done before and forging a bold path forward - we can all learn form it!
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Is there a German expression for “fear that I will be dead before my region’s long term transit plans are realized?”
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Transit was able to adapt to changed travel patterns because the Swiss maintained their very high pre-pandemic service levels AND their system of timed connections & integrated fares across the country and in regions. This networked system has proven to be incredibly resilient.
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To anyone who was or still is doubtful that new BART fare gates were a good investment - as a user, there is no doubt in my mind they have made a HUGE positive difference. The stations that have the gates are far cleaner & illicit activity seems to have been cut to nearly zero.
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And driving is expensive. Congestion pricing was pioneered in Singapore - this not only makes driving pricy but ensures that traffic - including buses - are constantly moving. Permit fees to own a car are extremely expensive.
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Another assumption that Singapore challenges is that an urban form of lots of highways and care usage is incompatible with good transit. Much of Singapore’s urban form looks like this:
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But thanks to plentiful, integrated, accessible service - enabled by high densities - and a high degree of transit priority on roads - buses and metro sill work very well in this urban context. Transit is both fast and cheap.
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For the millionth time - riders want better transit, not free transit.
“Any extra money should be put toward transit service, and not zero fares,” she replied. “Transit’s price is not a barrier for most people. It’s service quality and speed of the trip.”
For a decade, residents of Tallinn, Estonia have had fare-free transit.
A new report recommends ending that policy, arguing that funding from fares would allow transit service to dramatically improve -- and thus attract more riders.
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In sum - to recover Bay Area transit - cutting service is the absolute worst thing we could do. We need to increase service levels - and we need emergency relief funding from the state urgently to do that.
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Breaking: Budget deal include $1.1b for transit ops over 3 years, plus reverses $2b in cuts to TIRCP (capital funding), and will allow for flexing of those funds for operations. Projected “doomsday” severe service cuts likely averted - for now.
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Many often tell me, “if you could get Bay Area transit leaders to visit Switzerland and see how seamless transit works, your job would be easier.” Well, it’s happening: 11 Bay Area senior transit leaders are part of a study tour of Swiss transit next week!
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The Swiss achieve a high transit mode share in *all parts* of the the country by following a few key planning principles. They plan a nation-wide pulsed “clock face” integrated timetable for the core rail network - and all other regional local connections are planned around that.
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Fares are fully integrated across the bus and MRT (subway) systems, so transferring is free (even given the very cheap low base fare of $1.09!). Ridership is pretty much evenly split —
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Zoooooom!
Transit priority lanes on Carling Ave in Ottawa
@OC_Transpo
.
This is how we make buses competitive with driving. 🚀 🚎
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Switzerland's anywhere-to-anywhere transit system already served a variety of markets and trip purposes prior to the pandemic - when peoples habits changed, transit was able to also be competitive in capturing a high share of the new leisure trips people were taking.
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It’s a far cry from the small block tight urban fabric that we learn about is necessary for transit orientation. It’s quite a car-centric urban form even though only 1/3 of households own a car!
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There are also multiple operators here in Singapore - SMRT & SBS are the biggest, plus a few other smaller bus companies. The Land Transport Authority ensures they work seamlessly by holding them to fare, service, branding, & wayfinding standards. More on this in a future 🧵 …
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Today, traveling from San Francisco toward San Jose, I attempted to transfer from
@SFBART
to
@Caltrain
on a day when Caltrain runs once an hour. Here’s what happened - illustrating why we need more customer-centered communications on transit
@seamlessbayarea
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Why doesn't this transit line exist?
It would connect some of SF's most popular attractions; and it is essentially the path that most tourists end up taking while they're visiting (or end up renting bikes to traverse). 1/x
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For the first time, I took transit from SF to Lake Tahoe and back this past weekend for a ski trip. It was shockingly easier and faster than I expected! Here are some highs and lows…
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At the same time we must prioritize creating an integrated transit service vision - the Connected Network Plan, as MTC calls it - that can be far more resilient. That connected plan must then be prioritize and funded with new, permanent funding from a regional measure.
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Or we could run rail on this old rail line.
A concept floated since the 1980s to convert an old Northern California rail line into a pathway for hikers, bicyclists and backpackers has been brought into focus by a new 400-page master plan.
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It's Friday afternoon, can I be real for a sec about the realities of transit advocacy?
It's ridiculously underresourced, given the benefits of what we do. Philanthropy largely ignores transit, while pouring billions into causes that rely off of quality transit🧵.
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Then they all depart 😍.
Switzerland’s entire infrastructure is designed around this principle - stations, tracks, line extensions.
Imagine - a network designed *for transfers* instead of transfers being treated as some uncommon occurrence.
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BART fare within SF =$2
Muni fare within SF =$2.50
Cost of a trip with a BART-Muni transfer =$4
Messages this sends to riders
(1) Take BART over Muni
(2) Don’t transfer unless you have to, and if you have to, use Muni only
(3) If you are with 1 or more friends, use Uber or Lyft
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When Google Maps provides driving directions, it should include time needed to find parking, & costs - of gas & parking - in its results. That would provide a more apples-to-apples comparison to its transit results, which include the full time & cost required to get from A to B.
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Even tho I used to live in Toronto, the frequency + span of transit still blows me away when I visit.
This photo was taken on TTC Line 2 WB at 11:27pm on a Weds.
This line runs every 4-5 minutes til 1:47am.
I was on the same line last night at 12:30am and it was just as busy.
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@rickyyean
I have visited Asia many times so nothing I saw was new to me, but as you say, most Americans don’t visit Asia, so the point of this tweet is to share this info with more people, challenge the conventional wisdom that is often taken as truth in the US. And yes we are eons behind.
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I say this as an almost-daily user of both Civic Center and 24th st mission stations. And as a user of Bart for the past 18 years.
Civic center used to reek *always* of urine. The smell has been completely gone for weeks.
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I still am dropping in some mind-blowing facts I learned at today - 75% of VMT in California is from trips that are 10 miles or more. 🤯 A full 25% of all VMT comes from trips over 50 miles.
Analysis shows need to shift travel modes at a large scale to transit, walking and bicycling...
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A novel idea I recently experienced in Singapore was their “premium buses” - a commute focused express service to downtown at peak hours.
Of note - it’s run by private operators and therefore charges a higher fare - so it doesn’t take resources away from the core system. 🧵
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Since the gates have gone in, I have only seen completely banal, normal transit station action activity at civic center. People patiently waiting for their train. No one taking drugs openly or threatening passengers. The station feels far safer.
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Guys, ridership is coming back to
@SFBART
! 💪
Maybe I’m the only dork who checks daily ridership numbers, but yesterday blew through their post-pandemic ridership record, and the first time BART exceeded 200k riders!
Rider experience initiatives are making a difference.
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Real time arrival screens done right in Singapore:
- BIG numbers showing the most important info - minutes until the next train
- Always show the real train info, even when there is an ad
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Rode the cable car today. Most people don’t have clipper cards - mostly tourists with single use paper tickets. Why don’t we take advantage of the fact that cable cars are one of sf’s top attractions to give people clipper cards so they keep using transit for more of their trip?
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Regional trains pull into key hub stations at the same time - usually every 60, 30, 15, or 7.5 minutes, depending on the station the time of day - allowing passengers to transfer to other trains and local trams, buses, and even ferries.
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This trip is happening due to the generosity of the Swiss government, who are funding all costs, including travel, for participants. I am so extremely grateful. Senior staff from the major Bay Area agencies are attending, and from
@MTCBATA
@SPUR_Urbanist
@seamlessbayarea
&
@USDOT
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Worried about climate change? The single greatest threat to humanity & shared prosperity? Transportation is the 2nd largest source of emissions globally & the LARGEST source in the US.
Yet a miniscule share of climate philathropy funding goes to efforts to improve public transit
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How does this happen? It’s mandatory but highly collaborative and structured between all levels of gov’t.
Nationally, the Federal Office of Transport plans the overall timetable, developed closely with the country’s growth plan. Our group heard from FOT in Bern how this works.
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I don't know who in the Bay Area needs to hear this but it's true. If you want Vancouver and Toronto levels of rail ridership, run lots of bus service, and make transferring seamless (a short distance and free)
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The national government defines some requirements for all ticket sales nationwide:
- Open access to transit (no fare gates) - all transit is 'proof of payment' by law
- No obligatory reservations
- All tickets must be flexible, and have no restrictions on time of travel
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For example, if you were taking a trip from the city to the mountains, you might take a tram, a train, a ferry, & a cable car, all of which would be included in the same ticket price. On the way back if you chose to take a different route set of modes, it would be the same price.
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The way transit fares are integrated in Switzerland is more complex than I was expecting before I visited, but the result for the end user is that you pay a 'fair' fare that is basically proportional to how far you go. Plus, efforts are underway to make it even simpler & fairer.
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The outcomes of the Swiss system are truly impressive:
- Highest ridership in Europe
- Tons of service
- Easy-to use, seamless system, with clockface, coordinated timetables and integrated fares
But how did they get there? See my latest blog - or this 🧵⬇️
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It was so weird, the building’s primary purpose when it was built 100 years ago was to hold waiting passengers. Now they’ve made it incredibly inconvenient for it to be used for that purpose.
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German transit official describing a BART-Muni transfer he observed: “This is exactly how it should not be done”.
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Rail lines are designed to ensure that train journey times between major Swiss hubs are a bit less than one hour from each other. For example, trains between Zurich and Bern, which about the same distance as SF is to Sacramento, take about 52 minutes. They run every 30 minutes.
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Tonight’s transfer from Caltrain to BART at millbrae was a close call. The doors of the BART car closed 3 seconds after I got on the train. If I didn’t know exactly where I was going, I wouldn’t have made it. Several slower people behind me didn’t make it on.
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Just a totally normal Sunday morning at 7:30am on
@SFBART
.
#baytobreakers
@seamlessbayarea
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Other highs
- my trip up (Capitol corridor and a bus) had reliable wifi the whole way so I got 5 hours of work done.
- My trip back - on the Amtrak Zephyr, a direct train from Truckee to Richmond, had amazing views of the sierras and gold country.
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Too many times have I heard transit agency staff cite low rates of transfers between transit agencies as indicating that riders don't want to take multi-agency trips.
The BayPass pilot shows that people will make a lot more transfers if you eliminate the financial penalty.
Finally, having access to a multi-agency transit pass significantly increases the amount of transfers - BayPass users make 74% more transfers. Incredibly,
@SJSU
student BayPass holders make 333%, or 4x as many transfers, as single agency (VTA only) pass holders.
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Wow. It takes guts to say the truth.
It’s rare for people in senior leadership in transportation to step “out of line” and question the status quo. But it’s critical, otherwise things don’t change. We are all indebted to JWW. Time for an overhaul.
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@TimothyKassis
@OC_Transpo
The bus has dozens of people in it whereas most of the cars have just one or two. It’s a far more efficient use of space.
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Anyway, overall, a good experience, and I’d do it again. But honestly the biggest issue is the lack of Wifi on the long distance train - seems critical if you want more people using Amtrak.
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In summary: transportation is planned as ONE unified system across the country. This is mandatory, and led by the state, with empowered regional bodies collaborating with local operators to balance local needs with region wide goals for seamless integration.
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I came to Switzerland few days early to use transit on my own prior to the study tour. Transit in Zurich & Bern is ubiquitous - as a result, city centers are teeming with life (not cars).
Great cities have excellent public transit.
California will never thrive without transit.
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If California wants any chance of meeting ambitious climate targets, we must:
(1) immediate save transit from devastating cuts by funding operations
(2) move to Swiss coordination practices ASAP, establishing clear roles for state, regional, & local agencies for network planning
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@mttgza
I've driven back & forth between Tahoe and the Bay Area at least 30+ times it's almost never that fast. It's 4-6hrs depending on traffic.
I don't own a car, so renting is $400+ for the weekend. If I'm going up solo, I'd rather pay $100 for transit and get 10hrs+ of work done.
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The gates at 24th opened a few days ago and so far the impact has been similar.
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Interesting that an all-too-common response to my tweet is “SG transit is not as good as in ____.”
Why do people think it’s a competition? It’s possible for many cities to have good transit for different reasons. Nowhere is perfect (including SG). Let’s learn from each other.
Singapore is a transit mecca. As someone coming from the US, it challenges a lot of the assumptions we often hear about how transit “should” work. A few observations…🧵
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Hi
@x
, please reinstate the
@seamlessbayarea
account! All we did was report a fraudulent account that was using our brand & name - we didn't violate any rules.
It's clearly a mixup. But it's been over 72hrs since our appeal; we still got no explanation of what rules we broke.1/2
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Tears of joy. 😭
Bay Area transit stations, including
@SFBART
will finally get LINE DIAGRAMS!
Pilot Line diagrams being installed at El Cerrito del Norte. Designs by
@AppliedStudio
.
These cannot come soon enough!
More info in the RNM CAG packet:
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Most climate funding there is goes toward vehicle electrification. Yes, we need EVs. But to meet emissions targets, CA estimates we need to increase transit use by 5-6x from current levels.
That is not going to happen with a massive mobilization of public support for transit.
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Highs:
- Easy physical connection at Richmond Between
@SFBART
and
@Amtrak
.
- For my trip up, which involved a transfer form a
@CapitolCorridor
train to an
@amtrak
connecting bus in Sacramento to get to Truckee, there was a *guaranteed* timed transfer 😮. It was stress-free!
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Everyone we spoke to said that coordination is often hard, and there can be disagreements between levels of gov’t - things can get political. It’s hard work. But all remain committed to the process because it puts the customer first, and has so clearly led to excellent results.
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A HUGE victory for transit riders - FREE TRANSFERS BY 2023!
This means that San Franciscans will *never* need to think about whether it's worth it to take a combo of
@SFBART
+Muni to get somewhere faster, rather than to take Muni all the way there and save money.
The region's Fare Integration Task Force (transit general managers and MTC Executive Director) just voted unanimously to support the Fare Policy Vision, including advancing a pilot all-agency transit pass for organizations starting in 2022, and free transfers starting in 2023.
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Is there any update on when the dropping of the excursion fare goes into effect? It’s been a year since your resolution passed and I was just charged…
BART Board just approved my proposal to institute 30 min grace period for $6.40 excursion fare! We'll soon stop penalizing riders who enter a station and don't ride BART, especially when it's due to BART delays.
Thanks
@JaniceForBART
& staff for working with me all year on this!
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The lows:
- No wifi on the way back on the Zephyr. As a result, got little work done in 6.5 hrs
- Truckee’s station bldg isn’t welcoming for people to wait in for their train. Most people waited outside on the asphalt, where there are no benches, for over an hour (train was late)
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Now to add insult to injury I need to deal with
@BayAreaClipper
Customer service to refund me for my
@Caltrain
fare (I ended up hopping one the
@SamTrans
ECR bus, which was faster than waiting for the next Caltrain to get to my destination in San Carlos)
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Planning a simple trip from SF to Emeryville the other day perfectly demonstrated how our fragmented transit system discourages transit use, especially trips involving buses, and why we need a
@seamlessbayarea
. Here’s the trip I wanted to take for a 1pm meeting in Emeryville:
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At a regional level, transport associations at the “canton” level (size-wise, like a Bay Area county) oversee planning the timetable to the next level of granularity to promote seamless local and regional travel. For Zurich this is
@zvv
, who also presented to our group.
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How does this work? Switzerland has been described as a “system of systems” – there’s both a nationwide fare structure for rail and bus, plus 18 regional fare associations, each with zone-based structures, where you pay for the # of zones you go through.
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@SpeechExtremist
@OC_Transpo
I’m glad I won’t ever be sitting next to an ignorant person like you on the bus.
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Becoming a member of Alliance SwissPass, the national fare structure association, is a mandatory condition of receiving public funding. In other words, fare integration is not optional.
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Riding a new transit agency today - the Mission Bay shuttle, thanks to it publishing its GTFS schedule to
@transitapp
. Why not? Here we go… 1/x
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The country’s overall 21% mode share for transit is already the highest in Europe (and over 4x the SF Bay Area, if we were a country), and they have their sights set even higher, aiming for 24% by 2050. Part of their commitment to reach net zero transportation emissions by 2050.
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ZVV develops the regional/local timetable in association with 20+ regional and transport operators. In Zurich the biggest players are SBB
@RailService
, which runs the Zurich S-Bahn, and VBZ
@vbz_zueri_linie
which runs trams and buses in the city of Zurich.
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Worried about housing and vast swaths of our country becoming unaffordable? Millions of advocacy $ going toward housing - which I fully support - but funders mostly ignore how better public transit supports housing production, expands housing access, & reduces housing costs.
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The convenience of having a cross-platform transfer from
@Caltrain
and
@SFBART
at Millbrae is completely negated by the fact that there is no
@BayAreaClipper
machine to “tap off” anywhere near the BART entry gates. Riders must walk halfway down the Caltrain platform to tap off.
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In fact, there was an indoor waiting area, but there was no signage; most people didn’t know it was there. You had to walk into the Visitor Center and ask the attendee if there was a place to wait for your train or order to be shown to the indoor waiting area (reluctantly).
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This op-ed is full of incorrect and misleading statements.
To be clear, I don't support - and there is no actual proposal for - some kind of forced merger of BART and Caltrain in advance of further study.
But MANY studies to date have pointed to tremendous potential benefits.
Op-ed: “Recently, the idea of consolidating Caltrain and BART has been floated as an easy way to fix Bay Area transit. In short, it’s a bad idea: the benefits, if any, are small and can be achieved in other ways while the problems are large and very real.”
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