This is less a "problem with trains" than it is a "problem with rail in the United States", or maybe just with SF.
Melbourne Metro, for example, has roughly the same amount of weekday riders as BART, 415,000 vs 446,000 respectively, with nearly 5 times(!) the amount of track, at 540mi vs 112mi.
This is, of course, excluding light rail services -- another 150mi of track in Melbourne with some 1,700 stops, and non-Metro heavy-rail services to the other nearby commuter hub cities like Geelong and Ballarat.
Berlin is, from my knowledge, more similar to Melbourne than to SF in this respect.
But y'know what the funny thing is? Everyone in Melbourne hates the bus service. Makes me wonder about what they think about buses in Berlin.
The problem with BART is that it runs 4 out of 5 lines on the same single stretch of track through SF. So even with the most modern signaling, there will still be 1/4th the maximum train frequency after the individual lines split. The Pittsburg-Bay Point line counteracts this during rush hour with trains that come just into the city and then turn around, but it's still only an average of ~7 mins between trains. Compare with the Victoria line in London which I believe runs 36 trains an hour!
Melbourne Metro, for example, has roughly the same amount of weekday riders as BART, 415,000 vs 446,000 respectively, with nearly 5 times(!) the amount of track, at 540mi vs 112mi.
This is, of course, excluding light rail services -- another 150mi of track in Melbourne with some 1,700 stops, and non-Metro heavy-rail services to the other nearby commuter hub cities like Geelong and Ballarat.
Berlin is, from my knowledge, more similar to Melbourne than to SF in this respect.
But y'know what the funny thing is? Everyone in Melbourne hates the bus service. Makes me wonder about what they think about buses in Berlin.