I was not exactly mocked, but readers certainly responded skeptically to the post. It was not long after this that SFS and SFO started sponsoring a little shuttle bus running between BART and the corner of Grove and Van Ness.
Now there's an article in the Chronicle that pretty much confirms my contention: local performing arts groups have safety concerns, and they're being exacerbated by BART's plans to close the Market St. entrance in front of the hotel and permanently close the already-blocked-off entrance in front of the Burger King across the street. There's this, from the Chronicle article:
Closing the western entrances to Civic Center BART will force cultural arts attendees to take unfamiliar and less direct routes through those problem areas.
“We’re sending the message to people ‘Please come, and please use public transportation, but it’s a little scary,’” said Jennifer Norris, who runs the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.And this:
Melanie Smith, president of San Francisco Performances, said the arts institutions have talked with BART for years about the need to improve Civic Center Station. She knows the problem extends well beyond the station’s walls but said the conditions inside are far from welcoming.
“They’re disgusting,” she said. “It’s tragic, it’s part of a bigger problem in the city, I understand that. But that said, the stations are filthy, it feels dangerous.”
“We hear from them that they don’t want to drive because parking and traffic are a nightmare,” she said. “So the fact that BART is so unpleasant means they just don’t come.”
I will stand by what I said about the original survey:
Well, okay. So this survey isn't really about transportation. It's really about the failure of San Francisco's city government to provide adequate housing and mental health care to homeless people living in the Civic Center area, and about the failure of BART to keep its station in decent condition, free of stink and with the escalators all working.
Nominally, that survey was about transportation; in reality, it was about the terrible conditions around the BART stop and patron fears, plus, the city's failure, etc.
P. S. Somebody might alert the Chron to the fact that their headline writer made an error in subject/verb agreement in that headline.
