I go hard on California plenty, and for good reason. The state has a long record of stupid policies that make life miserable for everyday residents.

This time, I want to focus on a rare encouraging sign. (Credit where credit is due — Buck Sexton first brought this story to my attention.)

San Francisco seems to be getting more serious about public safety. And it’s starting with transportation.

For years, San Francisco transit has been ugly.

For anyone outside the Bay Area, Muni is San Francisco’s public system, run by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which includes buses, streetcars, cable cars and light rail.

A 2025 Muni rider safety survey — required under California state law — found fewer than half of respondents felt safe on Muni most of the time.

It got worse from there. Sixty-two percent of riders experienced verbal harassment or hostile gestures, and half had witnessed a physical assault.

That’s an out-of-control system.

But the neighboring BART system — the Bay Area Rapid Transit train network that connects San Francisco to the broader region — decided to do something about it.

Your Rundown for Wednesday, April 29, 2026...

BART Shuts Down Gate Hoppers

Last year, BART finished installing new fare gates at all 50 of its stations. The old waist-high barriers were a joke; anyone who wanted to jump them did.

The new gates are a different story — engineered to be nearly impossible to beat.

Courtesy: BART

The results have been incredible. Crime’s down 41% at BART stations.

Time spent on corrective maintenance — cleaning up graffiti, vandalism and broken fixtures — fell 961 man hours in the first six months after fare gates were fully installed.

Ridership went up. Revenue from fare collection is now projected to increase roughly $10 million.

The system got cleaner, safer and more fiscally sound because of one infrastructure decision.

The Atlantic — not exactly a publication looking to validate law-and-order arguments — ran a piece framing BART’s turnaround as what writer Henry Grabar calls the “fare-gate theory.”

More specifically, to protect shared public spaces, human intervention isn’t always the answer. Sometimes the right physical infrastructure solves the problem.

Close the gate. Enforce the rule. Watch what happens.

It turns out the people who hopped gates were often the same ones responsible for the harassment, the vandalism and the general sense that no one was in charge.

San Francisco isn’t fixed. There’s still plenty to criticize, and there will be no shortage of future opportunities to do so.

But this moment is worth acknowledging.

Sometimes a city needs to decide that order still matters. And act accordingly.

That’s not a miracle. It’s just competence. Right now, competence is worth celebrating.

Market Rundown for Wednesday, April 29, 2026

S&P 500 futures are slightly in the green at 7,175.

Oil’s up 3.45% to $103.35 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold is down 0.75% to $4,573 per ounce.

And Bitcoin’s up 1.70% to $77,500.