City Life

Why hasn’t Oakland and the urban East Bay’s public transit system been improved, even as city gets more congested with population growth? Why does Oakland have significantly worse bus service in 2025 than it did in 1990, despite having 40,000 more residents today? Why has San Francisco been building out new subway lines and streetcar routes in areas they’re redeveloping for the last 40 years, while Oakland — whose population increased by 12% in the last decade alone — hasn’t added a single new rapid transit station or line since 1972? Why does Oakland have basically zero plans in the works to expand fast, rapid transit in its city — except for a regional rail plan that mostly is about passing through West Oakland?

San Francisco benefits from having its much superior public transit system organized by one agency (Muni / SFMTA), funded by one powerful organ (the Board of Supervisors) and managed by one person (the Mayor-appointed manager). This is why public transit plays such an influential role in San Francisco politics: the Supervisor and Mayor you elected directly run on issues pertaining to Muni service.

In contrast, East Bay transit is comically disorganized. Most residents have no idea who their AC Transit representative is or if they even have one, so they complain to their local city councilmember. The city council then has to formally communicate to their AC Transit representative requesting service improvements. However, the ACT board director does not run AC Transit but oversees it. Attempts by directors such as director Sarah Syed to communicate to AC’s general manager about improving service (such as not eliminating bus service on Broadway in Downtown Oakland after-hours) has been sanctioned and criticized by other board members. This leads to a political culture of indifference and laziness where there’s no imperative to improve service because AC Transit races are noncompetitive and nobody holds them accountable or even knows they exist.