I am sure there are bus enthusiast forums someplace, where you might actually find a few like minded souls. I am also quite sure they would appreciate your anti-rail bias.

As anyone who relies on any bus system can well attest, service disruptions are a daily occurrence anyway; as is the case for anyone relying on their own vehicles on any highway. There are just to many people to move and not enough space - even on buses - never will be! And fatal highway accidents are so common (also almost daily), that most are not newsworthy and are thus not reported. Whereas, CalTrain hitting an auto is not anywhere as common and so it does get reported.

One major contributing factor affecting passenger rail when an incident does occur, is the often idiotic response of the police nowadays, where they just shut the whole rail line down and unnecessarily take their sweet time investigating. Trains too could go around on the other track, but often are prevented by the police for indefinite periods and for no apparent reason. If this excessive police response happened at every highway accident, buses wouldn't be going around either.

Of course, the common denominator in all of this are all the idiots behind the wheel earning their "Darwin Awards". And as we all know, San Francisco and it burbs to the north and to the south have already led the nation in the "Dumbing Down" of their citizenry. It is therefore not surprising that they are just chuck full of Darwin Award Candidates. That CalTrain (SMART will be next) is over exposed to such stupidity is no reflection on either CalTrain or passenger rail in general. Its the genus doooophus that inhabits the space behind the wheel who is to blame!

Your historical anecdote may or may not hold any water, but streetcar and rapid transit lines were being torn up all over the country
both before the war and immediately after - without regard to any one-day event. Mostly, this was the result of economic damage done during the depression, which weakened private transit companies; making them easy targets for poachers, such as "Metropolitan Transit" and "National City Lines" to buy them up, convert them to buses and then promptly bail out of the transit business. Thus leaving hundreds and even thousands of towns and cities across the country holding the bag.

With no transit at all, millions were either forced to go buy a car, or wear out the one they already had commuting on highways, which were and still are woefully inadequate. Where the systems survived, it was just as clear that most who could afford a car just plain would not ride your precious bus - at any price, where they were riding the trains before. And thus was born the myth of America's love affair with the automobile. Note also that they are returning to rail in droves whenever a new sartup comes along - but no such thing is happening for buses. It was no love affair - it was a shotgun wedding!

It was only that myth (now debunked), that led San Francisco city authorities to tear up some of its publicly owned cable car and streetcar lines. I believe it was Mayor Allioto that finally realized that those buses were far more expensive to operate. Now, this disparity in operating costs is, was and always will be bluntly obvious, but remember, these were public officials.

That this disparity was also known to "Metropolitan Transit" and "National City Lines" officials at the time; has been well proven in court (anti-trust lawsuits). So one might wonder why a private company would opt for more expensive buses, knowing full well that even the cheaper rail car operation was marginal. Of course, this seeming stupidity led to the total collapse of transit systems all across America. I grew up in such a city - you bought a car or you died.

But all wonderment ceases for any reasonably intelligent person when the fact comes to light that these holding companies were actually owned by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Signal Oil, and Standard Oil. Their purpose was and is bluntly obvious. And it worked too!

On a final note:

Imagine a fully loaded BART train with a thousand passengers onboard at 70 to 80 mph, each passenger traveling about 25 miles. That's 25,000 passenger miles produced by one train driver. Now just imagine that same thousand passengers on a bus traveling at 65 mph. At that speed, it is not safe to allow standees - all must be seated. At 45 seats per bus, it will require 23 buses and 23 drivers, each producing only 1087 passenger miles. Now- how many buses would it take to gets BART's 400,000 riders to their destinations - its staggering!

Even if you assume the roadway maintenance to be free for the bus and extra cost for the train, BART still wins. At about 4 other employees per train operator, that's still 5000 passenger miles per BART employee vs 1087 per bus driver. Since labor is far and above the largest single cost in providing transportation of any sort, rail wins hands down. The next largest cost is energy, where BART cars are 37 times as efficient as highway vehicles. Rail wins again.

Obviously, if you care about the environment and efficient use of natural resources; or you care about proper and prudent government, you would advocate for rail. The IRS accepts without question automobile operating costs of $0.585 per mile vs the @$0.25 for a BART ticket. (And what would it cost if income and property taxes didn't subsidize them) So even if you don't care about the above (many don't), you surely care about your own pocket book, and still would advocate for rail.

OPB