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The problem in San Diego is that although traffic blows, there's no strong public transit like you have in DC.

by ikeyany 10y ago

djKianoosh 10y ago
wait what? DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. portions of it are constantly shut down for maintenance. there was a week this summer with 2-3 fires in the system. "strong" it is not. carry on
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  Why is this being modded down? It's absolutely correct, as anyone who lives in the DC area would know. Come to DC and try riding the Metro on Saturday or Sunday night and see how you like it. Metro used to be a pretty decent system 20 years ago; today it's a disaster.
  - John23832 10y ago
    I think the fact that DC has a system puts it ahead of most places. When people talk about DC they should really be talking about NoVa. And size-wise, NoVa is a sprawling southern city. The fact that the Metro covers most of it is much better than SD, or a closer city like Richmond.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      I'm sorry, but the Metro does not cover "most" of NoVA. It has a few lines that jut into it, to provide commuting into DC, and that's it. It is absolutely useless if you are working someplace in NoVA, and also live in NoVA. It will not help you get around in NoVA at all. Whether it's better than American cities is irrelevant. The original claim, in a discussion about tech workers and tech jobs, was that the DC area had a good public transit system unlike SD. That is objectively untrue, for tech workers, for the reasons I stated above. The DC metro area is no better for tech workers as far as public transit goes. If you get a tech job in NoVA (or MD), you will absolutely need a car. If you want to ride the Metro to work, you need to go back to school and get a degree in law or international relations so you can get one of those downtown DC jobs.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  > DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. "strong" it is not. But DC does have a real public transit system. Even if the train catches fire 2-3 times a day, you at least have a train that runs. That alone puts DC above 90+% of American cities.
Grishnakh 10y ago
There's no strong public transit in DC either. There's the Metro, which occasionally kills people due to terrible maintenance, but it's only really useful for DC proper. There's not many tech jobs in DC, they're all outside in northern VA or southern MD, quite some distance from downtown DC. And those places are not well-served by Metro at all; basically there's some giant park-and-ride centers where commuters can drive in, park ($$$) and ride ($$$) the subway to their job in downtown DC. This isn't useful at all to people who actually work out in the suburbs in places like Reston VA (near the airport) or Manassas VA or Laurel MD, which are popular places for tech companies. From what I've seen on my visits to San Diego, I'd say the situations are pretty comparable actually. Terrible, terrible traffic, and terrible public transit outside the city center, and all the tech companies are nowhere near the metro center. On top of all that, the other problem in the DC area is that almost all the tech jobs are defense-related, so if you're not interested in that industry (or in working on projects that drag on and on for years and basically never get anywhere, and definitely aren't anywhere near the cutting edge of technology), DC is not the place for you.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Seeing firsthand what adjacency to a large military base does, I wouldn't want to be young tech talent near Coronado or Camp Pendleton, either. Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares that nevertheless pay you enough that it isn't really worth running back through the tech hiring gauntlet, which somehow manages to be worse. My soul is already nearly squashed flat, but it's not too late for you to save yourselves, if you can learn from my mistakes. Leave the defense jobs for the folks who have aged out of the military.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    > Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares > My soul is already nearly squashed flat Can you elaborate? What, exactly, was soul-crushing? I worked for a small defense contractor from January 2015 to March 2016, and it didn't feel soul-crushing to me. In fact, I liked the fact that we were mostly forbidden from working overtime. Mind you, I don't miss the timekeeping policies one iota (including how we handled snow days), but it was tolerable...
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
The transit is terrible in the parts of the DC area that have most of the tech jobs. The metro adjacent parts of Tysons have passable transit since the new metro line opened a couple of years ago, but all of the other parts like Reston, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn have practically non-existent transit.

The problem in San Diego is that although traffic blows, there's no strong public transit like you have in DC.

by ikeyany 10y ago

The problem in San Diego is that although traffic blows, there's no strong public transit like you have in DC.

wait what? DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. portions of it are constantly shut down for maintenance. there was a week this summer with 2-3 fires in the system. "strong" it is not. carry on

Grishnakh 10y ago
Why is this being modded down? It's absolutely correct, as anyone who lives in the DC area would know. Come to DC and try riding the Metro on Saturday or Sunday night and see how you like it. Metro used to be a pretty decent system 20 years ago; today it's a disaster.
- John23832 10y ago
  I think the fact that DC has a system puts it ahead of most places. When people talk about DC they should really be talking about NoVa. And size-wise, NoVa is a sprawling southern city. The fact that the Metro covers most of it is much better than SD, or a closer city like Richmond.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    I'm sorry, but the Metro does not cover "most" of NoVA. It has a few lines that jut into it, to provide commuting into DC, and that's it. It is absolutely useless if you are working someplace in NoVA, and also live in NoVA. It will not help you get around in NoVA at all. Whether it's better than American cities is irrelevant. The original claim, in a discussion about tech workers and tech jobs, was that the DC area had a good public transit system unlike SD. That is objectively untrue, for tech workers, for the reasons I stated above. The DC metro area is no better for tech workers as far as public transit goes. If you get a tech job in NoVA (or MD), you will absolutely need a car. If you want to ride the Metro to work, you need to go back to school and get a degree in law or international relations so you can get one of those downtown DC jobs.
maxsilver 10y ago
> DC has one of the worst public transit systems of a major city in the world. "strong" it is not. But DC does have a real public transit system. Even if the train catches fire 2-3 times a day, you at least have a train that runs. That alone puts DC above 90+% of American cities.

Grishnakh 10y ago

There's no strong public transit in DC either. There's the Metro, which occasionally kills people due to terrible maintenance, but it's only really useful for DC proper. There's not many tech jobs in DC, they're all outside in northern VA or southern MD, quite some distance from downtown DC. And those places are not well-served by Metro at all; basically there's some giant park-and-ride centers where commuters can drive in, park ($$$) and ride ($$$) the subway to their job in downtown DC. This isn't useful at all to people who actually work out in the suburbs in places like Reston VA (near the airport) or Manassas VA or Laurel MD, which are popular places for tech companies. From what I've seen on my visits to San Diego, I'd say the situations are pretty comparable actually. Terrible, terrible traffic, and terrible public transit outside the city center, and all the tech companies are nowhere near the metro center. On top of all that, the other problem in the DC area is that almost all the tech jobs are defense-related, so if you're not interested in that industry (or in working on projects that drag on and on for years and basically never get anywhere, and definitely aren't anywhere near the cutting edge of technology), DC is not the place for you.

logfromblammo 10y ago
Seeing firsthand what adjacency to a large military base does, I wouldn't want to be young tech talent near Coronado or Camp Pendleton, either. Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares that nevertheless pay you enough that it isn't really worth running back through the tech hiring gauntlet, which somehow manages to be worse. My soul is already nearly squashed flat, but it's not too late for you to save yourselves, if you can learn from my mistakes. Leave the defense jobs for the folks who have aged out of the military.
- amyjess 10y ago
  > Defense jobs are terrible, soul-crushing nightmares > My soul is already nearly squashed flat Can you elaborate? What, exactly, was soul-crushing? I worked for a small defense contractor from January 2015 to March 2016, and it didn't feel soul-crushing to me. In fact, I liked the fact that we were mostly forbidden from working overtime. Mind you, I don't miss the timekeeping policies one iota (including how we handled snow days), but it was tolerable...

TheCoelacanth 10y ago

The transit is terrible in the parts of the DC area that have most of the tech jobs. The metro adjacent parts of Tysons have passable transit since the new metro line opened a couple of years ago, but all of the other parts like Reston, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn have practically non-existent transit.