6 ms·

Strange that places like Manhattan and Paris have a solution to this issue

• mankash666 10y ago
  which is?
  • malyk 10y ago
    public transportation.
    • throwaway2016a 10y ago
      > With all due respect, I live in a dense community in the bay area with the aforementioned problem. Public transit isn't in sight for miles! Did you mean to say "without"? Because your statement doesn't disprove what he is saying at all. The argument is that public transportation would fix it and if there is no public transportation for miles than it means the system is clearly inadequate.
      • mankash666 10y ago
        I'm unsure about the grammar. All I know from my own experience living in the bay for 10 years, is that if your home and workplace are within walking distance of BART, public transit is an viable option. Else, unless you're in the city, cars are the only way to get about. Also, living is getting denser due to obvious reasons, while the roads aren't getting wider - and I'm not even talking about the highways.
        • ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
          Or Caltrain, which is packed.
    • mankash666 10y ago
      With all due respect, I live in a dense community in the bay area with the aforementioned problem. Public transit isn't in sight for miles!
      • malyk 10y ago
        Do you mind saying where? I live in North Oakland and commute by bus every day to downtown SF. There are 24 transbay bus lines, 4 Bart Lines, and a ferry into san francisco from various parts of the east bay every day. Most of them (all of them?) with multiple departures per hour. Hell, now Chariot has routes into the east bay as well if you want cheap private transport. I admit I have no idea what the bus system is on the peninsula, but San Francisco is littered with transportation options. They aren't always perfect, but if you work in SF you'll pay $30 a day for parking which makes commuting by car the worst possible option.
        • djrogers 10y ago
          I think the issue raised by the article is the reverse of what you're describing - tons of people living in SF that need to commute to the south bay or south peninsula to work. Traffic patterns out of the city in the AM make it pretty clear that there is huge demand for living in SF by people who don't work there.
    • Broken_Hippo 10y ago
      I'm in Norway - Trondheim. And it is fairly compact in some areas. Public transportation is only part of the solution here. Some of the zoning is really and truly different. In the center of town, the ground level are stores and above that are offices and apartments. Grocery stores are scattered throughout the city. It isn't a problem to stop on the way home or walk a little past the bus stop to get to the grocery store. Shopping centers are scattered through town as well. Not all has every store, but you can get what you need during the week. Things like this make the compact areas much better.
    • stinkytaco 10y ago
      I recently visited a family member who lives south of SF and we spent a couple of days in the city. I've been to lots of cities, but was really surprised how miserable SF was to get around in. Chicago, Washington D.C., New York and Minneapolis all have either decent traffic management or a public transit system that got you there with some semblance of speed. I don't think I spent less than an hour getting anywhere in San Fransisco either by transit or car. And damn, was it confusing. How many systems do they have squeezed into that place?
• ng12 10y ago
  This is the baffling thing to me -- the way people philosophize about rent in SF you'd think it was the only city to ever grow bigger.
  • Domenic_S 10y ago
    I think a true urban transit system is underground or elevated, and in that sense SF has half a transit system.
  • geebee 10y ago
    I am curious about this, though, and I have posed this question to HN. Is there a lot of precedent for a city that has been at a medium level of density for 75+ years suddenly going to a much higher density model? One example I frequently hear about is Vancouver which is similar to SF in square mileage, which did add a lot of density without tearing a lot of old stuff down. However, people often don't realize that SF is already more densely populated than Vancouver managed to achieve after it's very high profile density initiatives. Not to say we shouldn't try that here, but keep in mind we'd be starting this high-rise density initiative from a higher density point than Vancouver reached after the high rise initiative. Again, we may be in uncharted political waters here. Clearly, SF isn't the first city to grow bigger, but it may be the first city facing pressure to tear down the oldest housing stock west of the Mississippi. Even in the relatively low density and unfashionable SFH neighborhoods like the excelsior or outer mission, many of the houses are nearing their 100th birthday. Out here, that's old. The reason I ask this question is that I'm not really sure this is a "SF" specific phenomenon. It may be an artifact of borders. Many cities do have a relatively old "core", but their borders extend far beyond this core. In other words, growth in concord or walnut creek or antioch would count as growth in "SF". So if they protect their older neighborhoods, they can still build elsewhere and show new construction growth. I'd be interested in seeing what kind of precedent there is for something like this. It's reasonable to ask why SF isn't building more, but it may be in a much more unusual situation than people realize. No, of course it isn't the only city ever to grow bigger, but it may be the first city under pressure to grow bigger by tearing down neighborhoods that have been in a relatively stable, medium density state for close to the last 100 years.
• wott 10y ago
  They have a solution??? They must be keeping it in a safe and they never applied it, obviously.