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This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. Cars in the vicinity of transit unque

This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. Cars in the vicinity of transit unquestionably reduce the utility of transit projects. This is also a big middle finger to Berkeley which for decades has refused to put residential zoning around its incredibly expensive subway stations. Berkeley’s BART parking lots are zoned “unclassified” and can’t be developed without a giant NIMBY hissy fit. This bill short-circuits the hissy fit and allows BART to build 85-foot apartment buildings without parking at Ashby and N. Berkeley stations. This will provide way, way more riders for BART than a handful of parking spaces provide.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. And, that's a fine general idea; the specific implementation is a bit different than that. > Cars in the vicinity of transit unquestionably reduce the utility of transit projects. So does an overbalance of residential property without adequate alternative transportation compared to the employment, retail, etc., services accessible by transit. > This is also a big middle finger to Berkeley Yeah, look, I think on balance this is likely to be a net benefit, if something of a blunt instrument, in the Bay Area and L.A. Basin, but it's not limited to those places, and it's triggering transit conditions have no consideration of the connected services and only limited consideration of capacity.
- asabjorn 9y ago
  > > This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. > And, that's a fine general idea; the specific implementation is a bit different than that. How is this bill different from that? > So does an overbalance of residential property without adequate alternative transportation compared to the employment, retail, etc., services accessible by transit. What you are afraid of seem to describe exactly our current situation, where large office parks or shopping centers are build with little integration with housing. To the contrary of what you are saying this regulation would make it harder for cities to approve offices that can not be connected to new transit near housing due to zoning. I doubt that most people given the choice would choose to drive in traffic instead of taking transit to work if the housing situation allowed them to do so. > Yeah, look, I think on balance this is likely to be a net benefit, if something of a blunt instrument, in the Bay Area and L.A. Basin, but it's not limited to those places, and it's triggering transit conditions have no consideration of the connected services and only limited consideration of capacity. If there is no demand developers will not build, so I do not see how this can become a large problem.
  - dhzjxnbzn 9y ago
    Edit: posted this in response to the wrong comment
closeparen 9y ago
822 parking spaces at N. Berkeley. Are they really going to build “way more” housing units? Not that many people live in reasonable walking distance of the suburban commuter stations; building on the parking won’t really change that. I would love it, though, if we could radically upzone the whole area for a mile around. Walking for half an hour to work is great. Walking for half an hour just to get to your train is no way to live.
- ebikelaw 9y ago
  It's an 8-acre site. At that height I'm sure they could figure out how to get 100 dwellings per acre, and that works out to something near 2000 occupants. A parking space at a BART station produces fewer than two rides per day, while a housing unit within half a mile of BART produces more than four rides per day.
- ak217 9y ago
  Look at the map. Six city blocks at North Berkeley and 2-3 at Ashby. You could easily put 2000+ new units there if you get past the NIMBYs. Most other stations in the East Bay already have all adjacent lots spoken for with (relatively) high density development (Lafayette and Orinda being the notable, also NIMBY driven exceptions).

dragonwriter 9y ago

> This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. And, that's a fine general idea; the specific implementation is a bit different than that. > Cars in the vicinity of transit unquestionably reduce the utility of transit projects. So does an overbalance of residential property without adequate alternative transportation compared to the employment, retail, etc., services accessible by transit. > This is also a big middle finger to Berkeley Yeah, look, I think on balance this is likely to be a net benefit, if something of a blunt instrument, in the Bay Area and L.A. Basin, but it's not limited to those places, and it's triggering transit conditions have no consideration of the connected services and only limited consideration of capacity.

asabjorn 9y ago
> > This bill is saying that cities can’t take state money to build transit and then sabotage it with sparse housing and cars. > And, that's a fine general idea; the specific implementation is a bit different than that. How is this bill different from that? > So does an overbalance of residential property without adequate alternative transportation compared to the employment, retail, etc., services accessible by transit. What you are afraid of seem to describe exactly our current situation, where large office parks or shopping centers are build with little integration with housing. To the contrary of what you are saying this regulation would make it harder for cities to approve offices that can not be connected to new transit near housing due to zoning. I doubt that most people given the choice would choose to drive in traffic instead of taking transit to work if the housing situation allowed them to do so. > Yeah, look, I think on balance this is likely to be a net benefit, if something of a blunt instrument, in the Bay Area and L.A. Basin, but it's not limited to those places, and it's triggering transit conditions have no consideration of the connected services and only limited consideration of capacity. If there is no demand developers will not build, so I do not see how this can become a large problem.
- dhzjxnbzn 9y ago
  Edit: posted this in response to the wrong comment

closeparen 9y ago

822 parking spaces at N. Berkeley. Are they really going to build “way more” housing units? Not that many people live in reasonable walking distance of the suburban commuter stations; building on the parking won’t really change that. I would love it, though, if we could radically upzone the whole area for a mile around. Walking for half an hour to work is great. Walking for half an hour just to get to your train is no way to live.

ebikelaw 9y ago
It's an 8-acre site. At that height I'm sure they could figure out how to get 100 dwellings per acre, and that works out to something near 2000 occupants. A parking space at a BART station produces fewer than two rides per day, while a housing unit within half a mile of BART produces more than four rides per day.
ak217 9y ago
Look at the map. Six city blocks at North Berkeley and 2-3 at Ashby. You could easily put 2000+ new units there if you get past the NIMBYs. Most other stations in the East Bay already have all adjacent lots spoken for with (relatively) high density development (Lafayette and Orinda being the notable, also NIMBY driven exceptions).