6 ms·

Is it just me, or is this obvious? Subways have proven over and over to be the most economical and least objectionable mode of mass transit wherever density is

Is it just me, or is this obvious? Subways have proven over and over to be the most economical and least objectionable mode of mass transit wherever density is high enough to support them. Any place where subways are viable should have them - buses, trolleys, and light rail are not a substitute. It follows that any place with growing density needs to build more subways, even if that means eternal construction. Besides, subway construction is hard to get upset about, being mostly underground. It's far less disruptive than tearing up streets or surface level rail.

nerfhammer 11y ago
One of the things that absolutely blew my mind after moving to bay area were that there were people actively fighting expansion of the mass transit systems, and often successfully.
- knorby 11y ago
  Mass transit projects in the bay end up being highly disruptive and costing billions a piece. I'd like to see more subways in terms of getting around, but there is plenty of logic in arguing for BRT over trains. I think most cities have that same problem right now, particularly when federal funds for such projects are hard to get or non-existent.
  - nerfhammer 11y ago
    Where I'm from people would be ecstatic about getting a subway station near where they live.
  - Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
    >I'd like to see more subways in terms of getting around, but there is plenty of logic in arguing for BRT over trains BRT can't move nearly as many people as trains can. It would take many more buses to move the same amount of people. In a dense urban environment, trains make the most sense. In an area that's not dense, trains can allow density to happen. See the development of New York for instance. Plenty of trains went through fields at the time, and the railroads made huge amounts of money off of developing this now useful land (amongst other things). I suppose that's the real reason you get folks in the Bay Area to fight against trains. The other issue we have in the US is our infrastructure costs are way out of line with the world norm. If the Second Avenue Subway had similar per-mile costs to Tokyo subway extensions (or even the maglev they are building), the funding for the first phase would mostly get the subway the length of Manhattan.
Redoubts 11y ago
> Besides, subway construction is hard to get upset about Beverly Hills found a way http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/beverly_hills_loses_first_big_legal_battle_against_purple_line.php http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/beverly_hills_loses_fi...
- azernik 11y ago
  (Beverly Hills native here - been following that pretty closely.) If you dig a little, it turns out the public "it'll blow up our kids!" hysteria was mostly cover for a desire to have route the subway to benefit the city of Beverly Hills instead of the neighboring mostly-office-space Century City. Blocking the subway entirely was basically political blackmail.
  - dubyah 11y ago
    Can you clarify how the alternate location would have benefited the city of Beverly Hills other than not tunneling under their high school? The alternate location is 0.2 miles away, wouldn't even be in Beverly Hills proper, and there aren't any particular commercial developments that would be of better advantage than the current proposal. Heck, the alternate location is adjacent to a golf course.
    - azernik 11y ago
      The issue was the exact route west of the Wilshire/Rodeo stop [1] in western BH. The possibilities were running north of the high school, with a third stop in the city of Beverly Hills, around the Santa Monica/Wilshire intersection [2] and its commercial district; or to run southwest, under the high school, to the office towers of Century City [3]. The distance look close on a map, but the terrain is EXTREMELY unwalkable - what looks like regular roads on the maps of Century City are laid out more like highways, with hundreds of meters between crosswalks, and large blocks without paths to cut across them. The MTA wanted the Century City route, both because it would have been better placed to catch commuter traffic and because the Wilshire/Santa Monica route would have gone too close to a fault line; Beverly Hills, clearly, preferred the extra commercial activity to contribute to its own tax revenues. So they made up this "oh my god the kids are going to die!" scare; the local congressman, Henry Waxman, backed them by getting the BH route blocked at the Federal level until 2007. The MTA then brought up the alternative of sending the train through West Hollywood instead, bypassing BH altogether, and the city caved right quick. God I love local politics. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/@34.0670703,-118.401029,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf8e2bb5727:0xcea858680180beed https://www.google.com/maps/place/@34.0670703,-118.401029,17... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Beverly+Hills,+CA+90210/@34.0670136,-118.4104353,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf5fe3bf84d:0x34e887f3a4feb0c2 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Beverly+Hills,+CA+90210/@3... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/place/2000+Avenue+of+the+Stars,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90067/@34.0587061,-118.4161226,18z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf321bfc969:0xe46a66e8c6d5c48 https://www.google.com/maps/place/2000+Avenue+of+the+Stars,+...
hiou 11y ago
Many people are against public transit based upon a very vocal(and wealthy) minority that is opposed to it being government run instead of private enterprise. It's essentially the opposite of the ideology that caused the build up of many subways systems in the past. These very wealthy powerful people can use their power and money to distort the public opinion so that cheap bus projects end up looking like expensive subway projects and subway projects look like building a land bridge to Mars. For a great example take a look at the new Maryland Governor and one of his first actions coming into office[0][1] This is someone(and his backers) that are ideologically opposed to public transit even when it is overwhelming supported(and paid for) by the regions it directly effects. [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-sun-investigates-transit-20150627-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-sun-investig... [1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-republican-gov-larry-hogan-made-his-first-big-mass-transit-decision/2015/06/27/13f48dbc-1ceb-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-republican-gov-larry...
- superuser2 11y ago
  On the liberal side, many people are against public transit expansion because better public transit coverage in outlying areas makes housing more valuable, pricing people out of their apartments. I live in a dead spot on the South Side of Chicago where, ~80 years ago, the neighborhood association actually had the El demolished over gentrification concerns. There is little liberal objection to improving public transit in already expensive downtown areas, but plans to improve commute times from the south and west sides of San Francisco will almost certainly be met with vigorous opposition. Even if they wouldn't cost anything.
  - codezero 11y ago
    Do you have any links to articles or pieces highlighting liberal opposition to public transit in these areas?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
pbreit 11y ago
I don't think it's obvious. Building a subway is extremely expensive and disruptive. And if you went to the citizenry to try and collect the funds directly to pay for it, hardly anyone would buy-in.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  The same thing could be said of any number of public works projects, which arguably are quite needed. How many people would buy in for sewers, for instance? Especially at the level of money you'd have to charge, and knowing that you couldn't change it based on someone's income?
  - p1mrx 11y ago
    What if, instead of sewers, we built subways with sewage cars? Everybody knows packet switching is more economical.
  - pbreit 11y ago
    Well, people choose to spend 5 or 6 figures on septic systems all the time. Maybe not the best example.
mc32 11y ago
Subways are typically speaking not he most economical form of mass transit. Right of way, interruption and building underground tunnels (not open trench) are super expensive. That said an above ground system up and down over and across Van Ness, Geary and maybe Judah/Taraval and taking over for Caltrain down the peninsula would be great. Speaking of the peninsula, it could exploit a system going down the camino real corridor. That alone could alleviate congestion and housing, if only they developed that long corridor and put in mass transit along the line and allow mixed use mid-rises five blocks on either side of it.
tfe 11y ago
Let me tell you, plenty of streets are torn up right now building the new Central T subway the article mentions.
Shivetya 11y ago
What do you mean by being high enough density to support them? Light rail is rarely as economical of a solution as many suggest simply because of the routes it has to take in some cities and going underground just raises the cost exponentially. The cost per mile to develop and maintain rarely comes even close to efficient of above ground solutions. Portland is looking to spend two billion on a line simply because it does go underground. There is no possible pay back. So don't discount bus service and other alternatives. This romance with rail, either above or below ground, sucks up way too much funding for what it delivers.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 11y ago
  Roads don't pay for themselves why should rail? Also, subways increase the land value around the stations significantly which increase property taxes.
samstave 11y ago
I wish every Bart employee were required to travel to Hong Kong and spend a week riding their train systems around. Clean, fast, efficient, cheap, robotic. Hong Kong has the best subway system I have experienced.

nerfhammer 11y ago

One of the things that absolutely blew my mind after moving to bay area were that there were people actively fighting expansion of the mass transit systems, and often successfully.

knorby 11y ago
Mass transit projects in the bay end up being highly disruptive and costing billions a piece. I'd like to see more subways in terms of getting around, but there is plenty of logic in arguing for BRT over trains. I think most cities have that same problem right now, particularly when federal funds for such projects are hard to get or non-existent.
- nerfhammer 11y ago
  Where I'm from people would be ecstatic about getting a subway station near where they live.
- Zach_the_Lizard 11y ago
  >I'd like to see more subways in terms of getting around, but there is plenty of logic in arguing for BRT over trains BRT can't move nearly as many people as trains can. It would take many more buses to move the same amount of people. In a dense urban environment, trains make the most sense. In an area that's not dense, trains can allow density to happen. See the development of New York for instance. Plenty of trains went through fields at the time, and the railroads made huge amounts of money off of developing this now useful land (amongst other things). I suppose that's the real reason you get folks in the Bay Area to fight against trains. The other issue we have in the US is our infrastructure costs are way out of line with the world norm. If the Second Avenue Subway had similar per-mile costs to Tokyo subway extensions (or even the maglev they are building), the funding for the first phase would mostly get the subway the length of Manhattan.

Redoubts 11y ago

> Besides, subway construction is hard to get upset about Beverly Hills found a way http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/beverly_hills_loses_first_big_legal_battle_against_purple_line.php http://la.curbed.com/archives/2014/04/beverly_hills_loses_fi...

azernik 11y ago
(Beverly Hills native here - been following that pretty closely.) If you dig a little, it turns out the public "it'll blow up our kids!" hysteria was mostly cover for a desire to have route the subway to benefit the city of Beverly Hills instead of the neighboring mostly-office-space Century City. Blocking the subway entirely was basically political blackmail.
- dubyah 11y ago
  Can you clarify how the alternate location would have benefited the city of Beverly Hills other than not tunneling under their high school? The alternate location is 0.2 miles away, wouldn't even be in Beverly Hills proper, and there aren't any particular commercial developments that would be of better advantage than the current proposal. Heck, the alternate location is adjacent to a golf course.
  - azernik 11y ago
    The issue was the exact route west of the Wilshire/Rodeo stop [1] in western BH. The possibilities were running north of the high school, with a third stop in the city of Beverly Hills, around the Santa Monica/Wilshire intersection [2] and its commercial district; or to run southwest, under the high school, to the office towers of Century City [3]. The distance look close on a map, but the terrain is EXTREMELY unwalkable - what looks like regular roads on the maps of Century City are laid out more like highways, with hundreds of meters between crosswalks, and large blocks without paths to cut across them. The MTA wanted the Century City route, both because it would have been better placed to catch commuter traffic and because the Wilshire/Santa Monica route would have gone too close to a fault line; Beverly Hills, clearly, preferred the extra commercial activity to contribute to its own tax revenues. So they made up this "oh my god the kids are going to die!" scare; the local congressman, Henry Waxman, backed them by getting the BH route blocked at the Federal level until 2007. The MTA then brought up the alternative of sending the train through West Hollywood instead, bypassing BH altogether, and the city caved right quick. God I love local politics. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/@34.0670703,-118.401029,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf8e2bb5727:0xcea858680180beed https://www.google.com/maps/place/@34.0670703,-118.401029,17... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Beverly+Hills,+CA+90210/@34.0670136,-118.4104353,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf5fe3bf84d:0x34e887f3a4feb0c2 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Beverly+Hills,+CA+90210/@3... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/place/2000+Avenue+of+the+Stars,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90067/@34.0587061,-118.4161226,18z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2bbf321bfc969:0xe46a66e8c6d5c48 https://www.google.com/maps/place/2000+Avenue+of+the+Stars,+...

hiou 11y ago

Many people are against public transit based upon a very vocal(and wealthy) minority that is opposed to it being government run instead of private enterprise. It's essentially the opposite of the ideology that caused the build up of many subways systems in the past. These very wealthy powerful people can use their power and money to distort the public opinion so that cheap bus projects end up looking like expensive subway projects and subway projects look like building a land bridge to Mars. For a great example take a look at the new Maryland Governor and one of his first actions coming into office[0][1] This is someone(and his backers) that are ideologically opposed to public transit even when it is overwhelming supported(and paid for) by the regions it directly effects. [0] http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-sun-investigates-transit-20150627-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-sun-investig... [1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-republican-gov-larry-hogan-made-his-first-big-mass-transit-decision/2015/06/27/13f48dbc-1ceb-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-republican-gov-larry...

superuser2 11y ago
On the liberal side, many people are against public transit expansion because better public transit coverage in outlying areas makes housing more valuable, pricing people out of their apartments. I live in a dead spot on the South Side of Chicago where, ~80 years ago, the neighborhood association actually had the El demolished over gentrification concerns. There is little liberal objection to improving public transit in already expensive downtown areas, but plans to improve commute times from the south and west sides of San Francisco will almost certainly be met with vigorous opposition. Even if they wouldn't cost anything.
- codezero 11y ago
  Do you have any links to articles or pieces highlighting liberal opposition to public transit in these areas?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

pbreit 11y ago

I don't think it's obvious. Building a subway is extremely expensive and disruptive. And if you went to the citizenry to try and collect the funds directly to pay for it, hardly anyone would buy-in.

s73v3r 11y ago
The same thing could be said of any number of public works projects, which arguably are quite needed. How many people would buy in for sewers, for instance? Especially at the level of money you'd have to charge, and knowing that you couldn't change it based on someone's income?
- p1mrx 11y ago
  What if, instead of sewers, we built subways with sewage cars? Everybody knows packet switching is more economical.
- pbreit 11y ago
  Well, people choose to spend 5 or 6 figures on septic systems all the time. Maybe not the best example.

mc32 11y ago

Subways are typically speaking not he most economical form of mass transit. Right of way, interruption and building underground tunnels (not open trench) are super expensive. That said an above ground system up and down over and across Van Ness, Geary and maybe Judah/Taraval and taking over for Caltrain down the peninsula would be great. Speaking of the peninsula, it could exploit a system going down the camino real corridor. That alone could alleviate congestion and housing, if only they developed that long corridor and put in mass transit along the line and allow mixed use mid-rises five blocks on either side of it.

tfe 11y ago

Let me tell you, plenty of streets are torn up right now building the new Central T subway the article mentions.

Shivetya 11y ago

What do you mean by being high enough density to support them? Light rail is rarely as economical of a solution as many suggest simply because of the routes it has to take in some cities and going underground just raises the cost exponentially. The cost per mile to develop and maintain rarely comes even close to efficient of above ground solutions. Portland is looking to spend two billion on a line simply because it does go underground. There is no possible pay back. So don't discount bus service and other alternatives. This romance with rail, either above or below ground, sucks up way too much funding for what it delivers.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Retric 11y ago
Roads don't pay for themselves why should rail? Also, subways increase the land value around the stations significantly which increase property taxes.

samstave 11y ago

I wish every Bart employee were required to travel to Hong Kong and spend a week riding their train systems around. Clean, fast, efficient, cheap, robotic. Hong Kong has the best subway system I have experienced.