Comment by flomo
2 days ago
Ug. I'm a 'yimby' and a Weiner voter. But his take on San Francisco transit is just like really bad. Pokey streetcars and buses, doomed to fail. You build out there in those blue areas, and they are mostly all driving.
My take is you build it, and THEN they come. Put in some GOOD transit. Make sure the utilities are in place. Developers will then flock to the place. This whole thing is using inside-out logic. Have a real plan first.
We DID build good transit. It takes 15 minutes to get from the MacArthur BART to downtown San Francisco! But the walkable area around that station is full of single-family housing. It's a huge waste building all of this incredible public transit and then not allowing apartment buildings near it.
The same is true for so many of the East Bay BART stops. Amazing transit but apartment buildings are banned so it's much more expensive to live there than it should be.
How are developers going to flock to the place if it’s zoned for Single Family Homes? The whole point of the bill is to upzone
Because developers are going to include the parking so everyone out there can drive where they are going. Which is my point. The "transit" aspect of this bill is total bullshit. If you like cars, and want more traffic, this is for you.
Those areas are fairly small, and their number is limited. That might drive more space efficient solutions like underground parking or selling spots in a parking garage that serves multiple buildings
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One of the best parts about where I lived in San Francisco was that I was around the corner from a streetcar stop. Pre-pandemic the streetcar was absolutely packed during commute hours because people absolutely do take advantage of "pokey streetcars and buses".
What is GOOD transit? The Bay Area's spent a fortune building out BART (yuck) and every extension has only succeeded in siphoning money away from other transit.
Yep, me (and my politician Weiner) have some great public transit, so that's certainly true of some places.
Those folks that he is up-zoning out in the avenues, they are driving. Different culture out there. Downvote reality to the left.
GOOD transit it obvious, and it certainly is not a gigantic tunnel deep under downtown San Jose which is 400% over budget. Do not claim there is a lack of money for any of this. The political machine is just totally malfunctional.
To be clear I was out in the avenues.
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> My take is you build it, and THEN they come. Put in some GOOD transit. Make sure the utilities are in place.
The problem is, that costs money that, for a few years at the very least, will not be recouped. Not many politicians have the ability to push such efforts through regardless of profitability, especially not when the topic in question will be abused by the opposition in their usual culture war bullshit.
It costs a lot less to build transit infrastructure before or at the same time as everything else compared with adding it later, even if the line is underused as density is added.
The best alternative is a well-planned phased line with carefully protected right-of-way and a dedicated source of long term funding. Bonus points for it being a combination of value capture taxes and the transit agency being a property developer in their own right around stations. The early phase can be inside the boundary of current development so there are people to ride right away. Developers can build and market using the upcoming line, and prospective residents can be confident it will happen with funding secured.
I was posting about specifics.