I have lived in SF for just over a year now. Coming from the south, I was honestly pretty impressed with the public transit here. The BART is slow and loud but it does go to the airport and to Oakland. The Muni metro is slow but it looks futuristic and covers about half of the city pretty well. The Caltrain (now electrified) is genuinely just very nice.
But SF transit is full of little idiosyncrasies. There are so many little things that make you wonder “why in the world would they make it this way?” As much as I try to dodge the train-autism allegations, after living here for a year I can’t help but have accumulated what I think is the most basic of knowledge about San Francisco’s (and California’s) tragic history of transit failures.
Like have you ever wondered why the Muni trains are lettered “J K L M N T”? (insert some joke about Mutant Ninja Turtles). It’s because the Muni metro historically ran 16 lines, although not all at once, and these are all that is left. (The T is named after “Third street”, alas I would have preferred they name it the P to fit). On top of that, we used to run trains under the Bay Bridge, though I guess the Transbay Tube is cooler.
I have put together my ranking of the saddest facts about SF public transit, ranked from least sad to most sad. With this, I hope to arm you with the information you need to explain to your friends from out of town just how bad things are.
Without further ado…
The rankings
Honorable mentions
Muni metro & BART ridership are still below 2019 levels. This is a little surprising given how overcrowded the N can get. But, despite the city coming back to life (both in terms of population and investment) for the AI boom, Muni & BART are facing potential budget and service cuts this year.
Three car Muni. Speaking of the N being overcrowded, the Muni trains are way too short. They don’t even close to fill up the underground subway stations. To remedy the overcrowding, SF has been looking into making the most crowded train (the N) 3 cars long. This project has been in the works for 7 years now.
Some Muni Metro trams still don’t have signal priority. The Muni metro, being half-tram-half-light-rail, is slow. They have been working on getting the trains to have signal priority (meaning trains don’t stop at lights), and while it has been implemented in some parts of the city, the project is not scheduled to be completed until 2031.
Muni’s software still runs on floppy disks. And the migration is scheduled to be completed by 2034. And this is in San Francisco. The most technologically advanced city in the world.
No Amtrak in SF. This one barely made the list, but like, why do you have to take a bus to Oakland to get on the Amtrak?
4. BART was meant to go from Marin to Palo Alto
By some measure this is the saddest one on this list. Seeing this map actually stings. I have an almost nostalgic, lost feeling for this present that never was. In the 1950s and 60s, plans were drawn up and studies were done that showed we could send trains on the Golden Gate Bridge. On top of that, the residents of Marin wanted it to happen.
Then, San Mateo county pulled out of the BART project, preventing it from reaching Palo Alto. And the loss of funds meant that the project did not have the funding to justify the cross-bridge route to Marin.
While this is tragic, it is last on this list because it was simply so long ago. These plans never really got off the ground, and at least some of it has been realized (although in idiosyncratic Bay Area Transit fashion). In 2020, the BART finally reached North San Jose, and by 2036 is planned to reach Santa Clara (though not Palo Alto), wrapping around the other side of the bay. This is mostly ok, since Caltrain covers SF to San Jose.
3. The T to North Beach
The T is the newest of San Francisco’s light rail / tram lines and is the only proper Muni (non-bus) line that runs North to South. It has worked its way up and proven to be Muni’s second busiest line. The underground portion, known as the Central Subway, from 4th and Brannan to Chinatown is nice and new, and the Chinatown station is honestly huge and beautiful.
But the T was meant for much more. As a part of the Central Subway project, the T is intended to go at least to North Beach, and in some plans, all the way to the Marina or Fisherman’s Wharf. The “Central Subway” as it stands is under 2 miles long.
However, unlike the BART to Marin, it is not the unfinished plan that makes this tragic, it’s the fact that the tunnel to North Beach has already been dug. Yes, really. When they dug the tunnel to Chinatown, they continued all the way to in North Beach. The tunnels have been there since 2012. The Chinatown Station opened in 2023. But there is still no North Beach station (though the project has been reopened for study in 2026).
2. The Salesforce Transit Center
The Salesforce Transit Center is one of the most noticeable peculiarities about SF transit. “Finished” in 2018, it is a little far from the BART, has no Muni metro stop, and is basically just an enormous bus stop named after Salesforce, so calling it a “Transit Center” really feels like a stretch.
But this is not how it is meant to be. The Salesforce Transit center is actually meant to be the terminus for the Caltrain. Yes, the Caltrain, which now stops randomly in front of the Giants stadium at 4th and Townsend1, is meant to go right into the heart of FiDi. So for now, if you want to go from the Caltrain station to actual downtown you have to take the N or the T.
Perhaps you can already guess where this is going, but the tragic fact is this: under the Salesforce Transit center already lies the “Portal”. This is already dug, but left unfinished and with the current schedule not predicting service until 2035.
I mean this is honestly more than a sad fact, this is just genuinely frustrating. The Portal project was voted on in 1999, and split into two phases in 2006. So if, and that is a big if, they do complete this project by 2035, it will have been 36 years just to get the Caltrain to reach downtown (only 1.3 miles!)
1. High. Speed. Rail.
California High Speed Rail needs no introduction. It has been the laughingstock of basically the entire world for almost 20 years.
But, to give it an introduction, remember that “Portal” project, and the unfinished station that already exists under Salesforce Tower? That is also meant to be the terminus for California High Speed Rail. High Speed Rail. From Salesforce tower to Los Angeles. Can you even imagine it?
To beat a dead horse, here is the rundown of the absolute disaster of this project:
It was voted on in 2008, promising SF to LA in under 3 hours.
Since 2008, China has built over 30,000 miles of High Speed Rail. SF to LA is only ~500 miles, and not a single mile of track has been laid.
Building tracks starting in SF or LA (which would have immediately provided some service to millions of people, even if it was just “faster Caltrain”), was too difficult and expensive. So construction has started in the middle. This means we are targeting High Speed Rail from Merced to Bakersfield in 2033. Yes. After 25 years. We will have bullet trains from Merced to Bakersfield.
There is currently no target date for SF to LA, with most estimates pointing to sometime in the 2040s.
Conclusion
In all honesty, writing this has just made me sad. I almost feel sorry for the people who are learning about these things for the first time. It is a bit of an infohazard. Anyway, I think I will go back to writing about AI.
To add insult to injury, the Caltrain station was originally at 3rd and Townsend, one block closer, but was moved in 1975 to make room for a freeway offramp that was never constructed.