The San Francisco public transit system, called Muni, is in bad shape
and can not get better. We have a mayor who is politically and
managerially incompetent. He will be in office for another four years. The system is run by our incompetent and corrupt labor unions.
Take a look at this page that is intended to collect letters of outrage. Virtually none. Why?
The answer is what I learned in Tokyo years ago. Tokyo has a perfect transport system. It is on-time always. What makes it perfect is that all the schedules are accurate.
Now San Francisco, with a miserable system, can meet the expectations of a perfect system. The way it works is that nearly all bus shelters have electronic signs (see photo on the right) that tell when the next bus arrives. There is an online system that provides the same information from Nextbus. com.
A crumby system that lets you know when the next bus is coming is a satisfactory transit system. When you know the next bus won't come for 7 minutes, you can go to the bathroom, go shopping, go to another bus, go shopping or walk. Knowing the time gives you choice and that is what a free market is all about. The information, gives us a relatively free market.
We will take perfect knowledge about a faulty system anyday over a better, but still less than perfect system. And we do, thank goodness.