BART

What hackers pick instead

• CaltrainCommuter rail people praise for speed, electrified trains and Wi-Fi; critics cite one line, limited reach and low off-peak frequency.19recommend
• NYC subwayRecommended as an easy-to-understand network that forms a coherent grid with regional rail and is often the least bad option. One critic says service has declined in recent years.5recommend
• Elizabeth LinePeople recommend it as a smooth, modern rail service, and it is especially useful for getting to and from Heathrow.5recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 47 comments. Each links to the original.

1. You can't sit here and tell me the current system is working when BART is perpetually collapsing.

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “The Waymo World Model: A New Frontier for Autonomous Driving Simulation”

2. There's no better way of getting out of Powell out of the traffic deadlock at 5 PM than BART.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

3. BART was so state of the art when it was built, that it still feels like the future today.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Realtime BART Arrival Display”

4. for $104/mo I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

5. Caltrain and BART can get you into SF quickly from quite a large area nearby

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230000”

6. I can take an unlimited number of trips, usually very conveniently.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

7. My feet, BART, and SFMuni are my primary methods of transportation

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

8. It's great for going to a show and getting home without driving

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name”

9. I live and work around BART stations so it works well for me

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230000”

10. Some of the older BART stations are hauntingly beautiful.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Realtime BART Arrival Display”

11. BART is ~fine; there's just not very much of it.

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support”

12. No better timesave that I know of with BART.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

13. Best case with Caltrain+BART is 33 minutes

    Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

14. those systems were frequently delayed, full of drug addicts, and they lacked comprehensive service throughout SF

    Criticizes · Jan 2026 · in “San Francisco to offer free childcare to people making up to $230000”

15. BART stations that look like abandoned parking lots surrounded by single family home sprawl

    Criticizes · Feb 2026 · in “The Waymo World Model: A New Frontier for Autonomous Driving Simulation”

16. The green vinyl seats are better than the old cloth ones but it's still pretty gross.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

17. by getting off BART at the airport stop, you pay a premium fare of $11.80 per person

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

18. BART taxpayers are getting an absolutely terrible value for their money.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

19. Loud, dirty, and stuck in a confined space with people doing acrobatics

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Mayor of Paris removed parking spaces, "drastically" reduced the number of cars”

20. The experience of riding BART sucks for law-abiding paying passengers.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card”

21. My partner has had far too many bad encounters on bart.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

22. Bart’s incredibly poorly located lifts at each end

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

23. I heard BART is some that's pretty good by American standards but not by European standards?

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support”

24. it's hard to really blame that on the service itself, or the riders

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “The United States needs fewer bus stops”

25. Bart seems much more cleaner and safer now than in years past.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Introducing Waymo Premier, an elevated rider experience”

26. if BART or my cab reported us for planning a murder

    Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had 'ghost gun"”

27. perform quite well in embedded applications

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “I was impressed by Jev, please explain why I shouldn't be”

28. loved it back when I lived there

    Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “The United States needs fewer bus stops”

29. BART is quite an old model for this kind of test, and probably not a good very good choice for much these days.

    Criticizes · Oct 2026 · in “Decision models like Jev don't beat LLM-as-a-judge or traditional classifiers”

30. Used to insist on only designating trains by endpoint, except the endpoints changed as they expanded lines

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “How Madrid built its metro cheaply”

31. Those stories would be accurate on BART in San Francisco. I used to ride that every day to/from work

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “Why Japan has such good railways”

32. We've been suffering the consequences of their chronic NIH for going on fifty years now.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Realtime BART Arrival Display”

33. They've changed how this works like 20 times, and it never worked well.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

34. BART in particular is mostly useful between cities, in my experience.

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

35. the bus across the bridge is way nicer than the BART under the bay

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”

36. the most customer-hostile service I'eve ever used

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card”

37. BART 'works' for a subset of the population.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “How Madrid built its metro cheaply”

38. BART's always gone for style over substance

    Criticizes · Nov 2025 · in “Realtime BART Arrival Display”

39. Haa don’t get me started about BART.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “I program on the subway”

40. BART is currently absurdly expensive

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Transit rewards”